Survival Of The Unfittest

Which of these two military lightweights would kick (or slightly skin) the other’s arse?

I think I’ve discovered the reasons Iran is so focused on its uranium enrichment program.   It’s too worried about getting shown up by Canada and Australia.  In 2009, Iran spent $6.5bn on defense.  Canada and Australia, who together have less than three-quarters Iran’s population, each spent almost triple – Canada outlaid $19.2bn and Australia $19bn.   This reminds me of a question I once drunkenly posed in a Laotian bar in 2005.  Which of the two countries, Canada or Australia, would win in a war against the other?  Never mind Iran for now.  The United Nations can worry about that one.

On the face, it’s an absurd question.   Both countries are constitutional monarchies with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as the head of state.  The two nations have deep historical ties and have fought side-by-side when the set never set on the British Empire and, more recently, in the Korean War, the Gulf War, and the war in Afghanistan.   There’s no reason Canada and Australia would ever really get into a fight.    This question is a hypothetical one and asked as much as an exercise in critical thinking as because no immediately obvious answer comes to mind.

A distance of around 7,500 miles (12,000 km) separates Canada’s western coast from Australia’s eastern one.   That’s a fair distance.   As ridiculous a notion as it is that Canada and Australia would wage war on each other, it’s even more ridiculous to imagine one transporting troops and materiel to the other for the purposes of war.  The two would have endless arguments beforehand deciding who gets to host the fight.  To lead this thought experiment along a fruitful path of discovery, it’s necessary to set up a few ground rules first.

[Click the picture to read the rest of this brilliant article]

No related posts.