RE: [OT]Wither Canada? And Australias Abrahms

>G'day,
>
>>  Buying the Abrams makes a lot of sense if you're planning on
operating
>with
>>  the US.
>
>That's the argument the Aussie government used (or put across in the
>general media at least) for Australia getting Abrams now too,
especially
>the claim Aussies could just jump into US pre-positioned tanks on the
>ground and save on logistics and have interoperabillity etc.

Our intended purchase of the Abrams instead of the Leopard
may be politically motivated, but it can still be right!

For defending Australia, the Leopard should be better
because it's lighter and thus less likely to crush our
bridges, better fuel efficiency and range, etc. One
could probably argue the same about Eurofighters instead
of the F-35 JSF, or maybe British destroyers instead of
Aegis. (I'm not disputing the quality of US equipment,
only that it's real expensive and we're a small country.)

On the other hand, the United States is the only country
that *could* launch any kind of serious invasion of us
this decade. And if the US did decide to invade, the kind
of tank we had wouldn't make much difference. So if our
army buying the Abrams makes us popular with the US,
we're decreasing the risk of invasion :-)

	cheers,
	Hugh