kb
I don't doubt what you say re the US.
But I would much rather be in bed with the US than the Cluster eff of the EU
and having to deal with decisions by committee / vagaries of European Governements. "Oh no, sorry, you can't overfly our country on the way to bomb Libya"
And we have a hell of a lot more leverage with the US than the EU.
We do have one or more of their
very important listening bases here in Aus,
which is kind of important to the US and cant exactly be moved in a hurry.
We also have our safe ports for ship visits and stable Gov't - and that goes without saying our reliable track record.
I think we are much more useful to the US, more so now below.
And with China / S East Asia coming even more into play,
then we have even more leverage.
Remember, we had the F111 so we could fly to Indonesia
to drop various things on them if need be, the US knew that.
And we, the insignificant country of Aust that kicks far above our weight
have very few restrictions on equipment from the US. I wonder why that is ?
.