# 2500 Marines In Australia Make China Tremble? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 18, 2011, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2500-marines-in-australia-make-china-tremble/603328 "2011-11-18T08:39:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2011, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2500-marines-in-australia-make-china-tremble/603328/21 "2011-11-20T19:45:27Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Ever wonder why you don’t hear about America’s cyber-warfare program? One possibility is that we don’t have a cyber-warfare program. The other possibility is that the people in charge of our cyber-warfare program don’t talk about our cyber-warfare program. The first rule of Cyber-Warefare Club… Also, we hear of _some_ breaches in the west, mostly due to disclosure laws and a free press (this is relative to China, Iran etc.). There are clearly many more we don’t hear about, but absent a large-scale attack with obvious repercussions (e.g. Stuxnet), I wouldn’t expect any totalitarian regime to routinely let on that it’s been the target of a cyber attack. ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2500-marines-in-australia-make-china-tremble/603328/22 "2011-11-20T20:09:44Z")
It’s probably a little posturing at the behest of one or more of the Pacific Rim nations. The current government in mainland China may be mostly rational, but they have their hawks and saber-rattlers, so every once in a while it pays to have a metaphorical dick-waggling contest. (Though the mental image of our world leaders dropping trou and doing an actual dick-waggling contest is pretty amusing.) China doing an all-out invasion is, for the time being, still the stuff of fantasy, but it’s not an outright impossible scenario. While international relations have improved a lot in the last 20 years, there’s a lot of old fats on both sides with long memories and even longer grudges. Plus there’s an outright insane guy with nukes in the area. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2011, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2500-marines-in-australia-make-china-tremble/603328/23 "2011-11-20T21:20:25Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > The first rule of Cyber-Warefare Club… > Also, we hear of _some_ breaches in the west, mostly due to disclosure laws and a free press (this is relative to China, Iran etc.). There are clearly many more we don’t hear about, but absent a large-scale attack with obvious repercussions (e.g. Stuxnet), I wouldn’t expect any totalitarian regime to routinely let on that it’s been the target of a cyber attack. The US Air Force announced the formation of a cyber warfare command in 2009 (I know, I was there-at a presentation at Albuquerque, Kirtland AFB). So the US takes cyber defense very seriously. Though the idea that China would risk losing everything in a war strikes me as very strange. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2500-marines-in-australia-make-china-tremble/603328/24 "2011-11-21T11:03:26Z")
> [@dotchan](#): > > It’s probably a little posturing at the behest of one or more of the Pacific Rim nations. The current government in mainland China may be mostly rational, but they have their hawks and saber-rattlers, so every once in a while it pays to have a metaphorical dick-waggling contest. Well yes, but it makes every bit as much geopolitical sense if you substitute “China” with “USA” that paragraph. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Arguably, it’s a tripwire. The presence of 2500 American troops in Australia wouldn’t be enough to prevent China from attacking Australia but it would guarantee that America would go to war with China if it attacked Australia. This deters an attack against Australia. Frog shit. China could nuke Darwin and the US wouldn’t go beyond indignant rhetoric in a motion to the UN Security Council which China and Russia would veto. Of course why China would consider even momentarily going to all the expense and hassle to secure resources militarily at the end of an undefendably long supply chain, when they currently get first dibs on the minerals/gas/fibre/foodstuffs they want delivered at world parity prices, rather escapes me. It’s also a curiously ineffective placement for a tripwire. By the time the advancing hordes reached Darwin, methinks there’d be a few other warning sirens going off. If the US wanted a real tripwire they’d put those marines on Taiwan, which is about as likely as China invading Australia. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2500-marines-in-australia-make-china-tremble/603328.md?page=1)