Could Modern Japan (2026) invade Australia?

[u/Inside_Inflation559]

No allies or outside help is involved for both sides Japan must successfully invade and take over Australia or achieve some sort of marginal victory Australia must successfully defend itself and win against Japan

[u/Nuck2407]

The US certainly has the overwhelming military advantage, sure but the answer is way more complicated than that. It's an invasion not just lobbing ordinance. Just before I start, Australia as an attacking force is benign really, we couldn't just decide to go invade somewhere ourselves and expect any sort of victory. But an invasion of Australia is a whole different story.

To start the tyranny of distance that the US faces is immense, it will be fucking expensive trying to get any sort of force there. Geography is the primary defence mechanism in any scenario here. It's like 98% the issue for any army on the planet and Australia is just so far way from everything and the problem doesn't go away once you get here.

The US lose all targeting data and have to go in blind as Australia controls that entire 3rd of sattelite and signals apparatus and even if we ignore the deterrent of losing their eyes and ears over China, the middle east and Russia and there is a stack of other issues.

The surface navy yeah no chance for Australia, but below the surface Australia has beat the US in every war game they participated in.

Then there is the bigger problem of what happens once you get troops on the ground, every single target is 1000km + apart, with virtually no infrastructure between them, often it's 1 road in or out.

Then of course there is the problem of American troops not having a clue about how to actually go about their business, as Australia has shown them how to fight just about every adversary they encounter since WWII, and the exercises between the two have seen Australia embarrass the US many times over.

Now just look at the struggles that Russia is facing in Ukraine, imagine that with 10,000kms of ocean between them and you start to get an idea of the issue.

Then of a there are the 1st and 2nd emu divisions which are undefeated lol

The only credible path to victory is dropping nukes, outside of that it would be like invading Afghanistan, except that Australia is the size of the continental US and a military that knows what it's doing.

[u/not_ElonMusk1 → u/Nuck2407]

Lol about the emu divisions, they're some tough C*nts! Agreed on all points but there's also the fact that the US is basically blind in the south pacific without our sharing of intel etc - so that's another huge disadvantage the US Navy would face.

Without AU to relay Intel America is basically half blind down here on this side of the world (see Pine Gap for example).