Almost half of Australians think foreign military will attack within five years, ANU study suggests
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/23/almost-half-of-australians-think-foreign-military-will-attack-within-five-years-anu-study-suggests
50 Comments
50% of people are below average intelligence.
Lol, crazy. People are totally buying into the fear. People need to get off the internet and stop watching the reels. Australia will not be under attack by a foreign military in 5 years, its ridiculous to think otherwise.
Where does this paranoia come from?
Who is going to invade us?
We have five years to build up the Strategic Emu Reserves.
If this isn’t part of the finding of a study on how the media manufacture consent, then it’s meaningless
Remember when three years ago (7-11 March 2023), The Age and SMH ran a [red scare campaign](https://www.smh.com.au/topic/Red-Alert-6fuw?page=2) on war with China in three years?
It’s NZ isn’t it?
Never trusted those bastards.
I hear a lot of fearmongering about China. They can’t even take Taiwan yet, and I can’t think of a single reason they would want to attack us, even if they had the power to do so.
No wonder given the crap SMH/The Age pumped out three years ago about an imminent attack (within three years) by China.
Fucking hilarious.
Reminds me of the 40000 times I’ve been told China will invade Taiwan within the year… Or Iran will have is a week away from a nuclear bomb…
Why do people still fall for this shit.
The source report is here
https://nsc.anu.edu.au/research/no-worries-australian-attitudes-national-security-risk-and-resilience
How many of these people grew up reading Tomorrow When the War Began?
Russia invaded Ukraine (busy for now).
USA invaded Venezuela/Iran (with Cuba/Greenland on their agenda – also busy for now).
China is eyeing Taiwan (may get busy soon).
Australia is too far away (for now)
But war is everywhere, and it seems that it does not need much of a spark to let it spread.
USA is nobody’s friend anymore & extremely unreliable (so Australia is in “real” terms on their own)
So not unthinkable (but unlikely).
I keep saying the same thing.
let em come.
Funnel Web Spiders, Snakes, Sharks, Fucking Jellyfish, Crocs, Blue ring Octopus, even Platypus – you’ll smash any invader 🤣
I don’t think we’ll have a land invasion, but I think someone at some point will take some form of adverse action against us
We’re not getting invaded unless we try to nationalise mining/oil & gas. The culprits already have bases here.
Invading Australia is probably one of the dumbest ideas a military can have, I mean like why, it takes forever to get here and 90% of Aus is nothing. Also everything like cities are super far away from each other. It just be a waste of time and effort for little reward.
Reminds me of the Utopia episode.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgspkxfkS4k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgspkxfkS4k)
We need to create solar power distribution channels to make other regional countries dependent on receiving that electricity
Such clickbait nonsense, they surveyed 20k people between 18-24 and only 50% of those people thought this? So 10k people, such a small sample size to be irrelevant and saying half of Australians is so misleading. The media shouldn’t be allowed to post shit like this.
[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/mar/06/paul-keating-nine-2023-australia-china-war-prediction-red-alert](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/mar/06/paul-keating-nine-2023-australia-china-war-prediction-red-alert)
I’ll just post this, aren’t we supposed to be invaded already?
Chances of that occuring is low but not impossible but Australia should always be prepared to defend if such scenario occurs. Unfortunately, I don’t see Australia being able to plan well for long term until it is too late given our politics.
If we look at why another country would attack Australia:
1. Australia interfered with another country
2. Other country is desperate to obtain Australia resources and land after diplomacy failed and have no other options.
3. Other country want to expand their territory for their legacy.
A foreign nation would be stupid to physically attack Australia when they could just blockade our shipping lanes and cripple us.
As shown by the current fuel issues globally, Australian governments of all colours and creeds are woefully inadequate when it comes to preparing emergency stores and ensuring we have on-shore manufacturing for our necessities.
That being said, this article is just scare campaign nonsense.
The war Hawks and defence lobbyists will be happy to see their propaganda paying off. Lots of money to be made after all.
I think that’s a stupid thing to think, but to be fair, if there is an all out war between the US and China, Australia would pretty much have to join and would be a target because of the American B52s and marines in Darwin. Prime target after Taiwan, Phillipines, Japan, South Korea, Hawaii, Alaska, Guam and Diego Garcia. Reckon China’s going for that?
There’s no chance of a naval invasion of Australia.
A cut to our sea lanes is a credible threat, hence AUKUS.
The Finnish don’t think I am onto them, but I am.
I feel dumber for having read that.
We’ve all heard the right beating the drums of war mostly having a go at China for political point scoring look how scomo and hes cabinet treated them as a punching bag. scaring the populace for their own gain. Msm are partisan to this as it generates clicks 1neuron use this tactic to generate support(though they just hate everyone not like us)
Who knows what going to happen, these days the world has gone to shit and its not going to get any better not in a hurry anyway.
Almost half? That’s like… 20 Aussies or something. Jesus Christ!
I feel this number doesn’t really change?
Such studies by the ANU is merely a survey of largely uninformed randoms, and maybe somewhat useful to figure out how people feel about a particular topic / issue that they generally know very little about, or the effectiveness of a communications / propaganda campaign.
However such studies are a very poor way to assess the actual likelihood of Australia being attacked. For the latter you need informed / experienced / trained people to make that assessment properly.
>”Almost half of Australians…”
You mean, “half of the amount of people we bothered to ask”.
I don’t remember being asked this question ever. I doubt anyone in this thread was asked, either.
Who’s doing these questionnaires??
# Around 6% of Americans believe they can defeat a grizzly bear in a hand-to-hand combat.
Gee, I wonder what media sources they follow? /s
Average aussie: “we’re already been invaded, invaded by ASIANS”
Who knows maybe we nationalise our resources to share the wealth instead of watching it go off shore and maybe we get a regime change from our allies.
I think this is the sovereign risk that really stops us changing the terms of our international gas deals but allows us to change our submarine contacts.
The last few years have shown that the foreign interference we fear is already here and subverting our democracy.
There is no political will to push back. Better the covert influence than the overt.
no
4 years later – “Australia had just discovered the largest oil and rare earth reserves on the planet.”
Laughs nervously..
I don’t think there is a high risk that Australia will be attacked directly but there is a risk that we will be dragged into a war, in terms of having shipping and economic disruption for a long period.
I mean if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the Strait of Hormuz being closed for three weeks it’s that we are still not well prepared for supply chain disruption. Any future government, regardless of which side of politics, will have to build out strategic reserves in Australia. We need to be ready to outlast any superpower.
and 50% of the population have an IQ below average…
I haven’t read any articles but why would any country want to attack/invade us? I’m open to being educated here
Most Australians don’t understand geopolitics.
*clearing throat*
WE SELL OUR RESOURCES FOR NEXT TO NOTHING
*deep breath*
WAR HERE IS MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE SPOILS BY FAAAAAR
Thanks.
These people thinking NZ will attack us are fucking idiots. We clearly need to be focused on the Antarctican Hegemony.
Why would anyone attack us..
We give them everything for next to nothing already. 🤷
You’d be silly to waste the time and money/ resources getting here.. just keep bribing the politicians.
What on earth does your average Australian know about anything?! What a nothing study and a nothing article.
In other news, a new report from the ANU has found that almost half of Australians consume too much social media.
Military invasions are terribly expensive and difficult. It’s much easier to just excessively involve yourself in a countries economy, buy up their property and assets, make them reliant on you for things like cars and televisions and electronics.
Phew, lucky none of that has happened….
The same half that thought one nation would win in a landslide as well 🤣