The future of warfare, high and low tech side by side: Part 3

Tables of the values from part 2:

Country	Rifles	Radios	Support weapons	Bikes/Velomobiles	Vehicles
New Zealand	10	10	10	10	5
Australia	7	8	8	10	10
Malaysia	6	7	7	10	5
Borneo	5	7	5	10	3
New Guinea	3	3	3	2	2
United Timor	4	4	5	3	2
Indonesia	8	7	8	10	5

Country	Artillery	Aircraft	Capital ships	Small ships	Submarines
New Zealand	5	4	3	5	4
Australia	10	10	10	10	10
Malaysia	6	8	1	7	1
Borneo	3	7	4	8	3
New Guinea	3	3	0	3	0
United Timor	3	3	0	2	0
Indonesia	5	7	4	7	5

The scenario below uses the value's above, though they are not the most important factors.

The political map for this scenario only includes (for simplicities sake) Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Timor, Borneo and New guinea. While India, China, Indochina and the Philippines (as geographical kingdoms, not any specific governments) would be included for a proper scenario, this is solely to look at the impact differences in military technology could have. The other powers are limited to being sources of technology or creating a guarded border and are assumed to play either a minimal or non-existent role in the political/military landscape. As it stands, here it is assumed that both New Guinea and Timor are no longer half Indonesian owned and are instead locally controlled, Borneo has its own native government, Malaysia is restricted to the Peninsula and Indonesia has what's left. I rather doubt that this will be the actual political arrangements, but they'll do for now. In the future it's quite likely for an even more divided political map (East and West Australia, fragmented Indonesia etc), but it could also swing (not as likely) the other way into a more unified political map either through a South Asian Alliance or through Indonesian or Australian conquest etc.

Before I can look at individual countries, their grand strategies and reactions, several topics need to be addressed. Force size, types of war, types of troops, objectives, certain technologies usages, national war planning/preparation all need to be addressed. This scenario is fairly static (it won't necessarily be so this is just for simplicity), the borders don't move and the militaries don't change for example. Since I don't have any software aids and I'm not a strategic planner, this will have to do.

The size of an armed force is an important metric, but only if other factors (morale, training, equipment, terrain etc) are taken into account. The Battle of Watling street pitted 10,000 Roman legionnaires against 100-230,000 British rebels, if numbers were the supreme metric then the Romans should've lost, yet they utterly massacred the British despite the numerical disadvantage (it actually helped). The Romans only had about 60,000 legionaries at any one time, which was a fair sized army for a medium sized kingdom but for an empire it's puny. Rome only needed 60,000 legionaries to defend and expand its empire (Though it also had a far larger number of lower quality auxiliaries from its allies and subjugated people), contrast with Achaemenid Persia who launched an invasion of ancient Greece that numbered close to a million, yet failed, and it still had most of its forces locked up in garrisons back in Persia. The quality of the soldiers and their commanders can play a far more important role than sheer numbers, other factors also play a part. For example If China and Russia had a conventional war right now, I'd expect Russia to win simply because they have more experience and a more advanced indigenous military industrial system, even though China can easily outnumber Russia in ground troops.


What this also means is that statements along the lines of "Military X has Y soldiers" is without other metrics is a mostly useless as a way of assessing a militaries strength (especially when their are significant technological and organizational differences, which exist today and can be expected for the short to mid future) unless both sides soldiers are equal, something which is infrequent during turbulent times and recent history. The quality of the soldiers, their leaders and equipment are vital in determining their strength, so is the type of warfare their fighting and how well suited they are to it. Other factors like terrain, surprise, morale, logistics etc also need to be taken into account. Sometimes a large force is useful, other times a small force is useful, it depends on the context. So even through New Zealand's army is small, its an elite force which allows it to have a measure of influence (easier logistics and a larger impact for a given force size). Timor's forces are also small, but since their going to fight defensively most of the time, that's not a huge problem, especially if they leverage it with the use of mines and area denial tactics. The effect of technology on these factors is also important, some technologies favour some factors over others or differing force sizes and so on. The wide range of interacting factors and how they play out is why this is barely an educated guess, so much is uncertain.

War is not one singular thing, but instead a very broad category of a specific type of political violence, most of its forms haven't been seen (outside of Africa) in recent history but they'll return. This is fairly important because different soldier types (professional, militia, conscript etc) are better at different conflicts. Roman legionaries (composed of heavy infantry and artillery) were good at high intensity warfare, when fighting low or medium intensity warfare other troops (the auxiliaries composed of light infantry, cavalry and archers) were used and are more effective. The modern equivalent would roughly be a fully mechanized army versus large infantry armies. We can first divide the various wars into defensive or offensive (since were dealing with Islands this is a fairly clean cut definition), for an invading army their fighting an offensive war while the defenders are obviously fighting a defensive war only, counterattacks won't happen as often (think when Rome attacked Carthage to draw Hannibal out of Italy). After that you have differences in scales, national (e.g. invasions), strategic (fighting over specific territory for example), military skirmishes and low intensity (raids or small armed bands). Certain technologies (like submarines) would only be used in certain war types and some troops are more efficient (taking into account training and equipment costs as well) at certain types and scales of warfare. Small ships are immensely important for any sort of naval conflict, so they can actually matter more than if a nation has capital ships. Militia are normally crap on the offensive, but on the defensive they can be as effective (if conditions are right) as professional troops. The technology used also effects each scale differently, but since the level of difference isn't great enough (no ones bringing bows to a gunfight) that's not a huge factor.


Today professional soldiers are the most common type of warriors, with conscripts in some countries and the occasional forms of militia, but in the post overshoot world a far greater variety of soldiers are likely to exist. Militia that are tied to specific locations and are part law enforcement will likely return, so will seasonal or semi-professional warriors. The difference between soldiers and warriors would also be an important factor and is requires a good examination at some point. Others will appear, similar to most barbarian armies, in which its a lifestyle choice, though guns have made it unlikely to be as common as before and adhoc armies suffer similar problems for most military uses. Guns and a few other military advancements have changed the likely mixtures somewhat, organization and logistics carry far more weight than they used to for example. Certain soldier types are better at certain things, militia are generally better at defensive warfare (for the same cost) than the others while a professional army (like the legions) is very good at high intensity warfare. Note that here I'm talking about their effectiveness in terms of cost (money, resources, time, organization etc), not per soldier. If the only conflicts are seasonal raids, border skirmishes or armed looting, then either seasonal warriors or as a lifestyle choice and militia make more sense compared to modern professional soldiers. Technology also affects how well these soldier types work, it takes far less time to train someone to use a gun than a sword or bow and radios allow far greater coordination while enhancing defensive mobility, both enhancing militias while lowering the effectiveness of most traditional raider types. But disciplined raiders could use radios to greatly enhance their effectiveness and initiate more complex deception operations to overcome defenses. These are fairly dynamic situations and will continuously change over time.

Certain technologies would only be used in specific situations/wars. After all, if it takes biofuel to run or some other limited or expensive resources, then it will only be used when appropriate. Vehicles and heavy artillery are likely to be used only at medium to high intensity (light artillery such as mortars would probably be common), but Capital ships and subs are likely to only be really used in the big wars. Airplanes of the highly efficient (and thus small) variety are likely to be used in most conflicts for recon, after all that's what they were originally for and they should excel in that field even if they're turboprop. In any other role, they'll be used occasionally in the medium intensity wars and definitely in the high intensity wars. This also depends on if its a defensive or offensive war and which countries are fighting. Obviously for an invasion of New Guinea submarines aren't likely to play a major role and both artillery and guns are incredibly powerful on the defensive (tactically). The last point is important, that's why WW1 was so different from WW2, WW2 had very powerful offensive weapons (like tanks) to overcome the powerful advantage of guns on the defensive. However, just because that trait is likely to be dominate doesn't mean that wars will be less likely, their are a variety of ways around that trait and it only applies tactically, Helmuth Von Moltke was one of the first people to realize this trait and he successfully fought 3 offensive wars.

What the wars are fought over, trade routes, wealth, coastal or inland territory will determine how the militaries are structured and used. Carthage could rely heavily on its navy because it only conquered coastal territory (to control trade), while Rome was primarily a land power and therefor put its might into the legions. Wars fought in areas were barely anyone lives or are nomadic aren't going to have militia and might not actually have defensive elements at all. If the war's goals are small enough, certain technologies won't be used because the benefit of winning is less than the cost of using them. And so on, if the war isn't a total one, the objectives will greatly affect the means used to achieve them. The saying the ends justify the means is as inaccurate here as elsewhere (by the way Machiavelli never wrote these words, it was a mistranslation) for much the same reason Machiavelli said (this is what was mistranslated) "one must think of the final result". Different means have different affects, even when they achieve the same goal. "War is just an extension of policy", Clausewitz, so these goals will be link to domestic politics as much as foreign policy and will have to take into account it's impacts on the relevant countries.

The system engineering approach to this problem is actually "The system exists to deliver capability,
the end justifies the means" (from Creating systems that work). The way this works is that you completely disregards how to do whatever it is (the means) and first define what the ends (or capabilities) wanted are. Only then do you choose what means to use since you can actually match them up properly.

 Here the Archdruid talks about gasoline warfare, which allows a conquest of another nation, same as traditional warfare does. But since they are different means they cause different effects (ends), Gasoline warfare is quicker and shreds an opponents government and military structure but resistance is almost inevitable while traditional warfare is slower, generally costlier and involves more major battles, but if you succeed you don't often get a sustained insurgency (periodic rebellion is another matter). The end (this doesn't just include the stated goals) you want determines the means used and the means available influence the ends that are aimed for, neither of them is dominant. Here one of the likely sources of conflict is trade, important ports and strategic islands (which means of the choice of gasoline or traditional war, gasoline war has the advantage).

Due to the fact that biofuels have to be produced out of agricultural production, but they can be stored, production is likely to be low and biofuel storage facilities will be strategic targets. So how much a nation prepares/plans for war will affect how any particular war is fought. If the war was foreseen/planned and stockpiles are available, then vehicles and aircraft will be used. If a war on the other hand is sudden or unexpected (by say 3-5 years) then the stockpiles might not be used or there won't be enough for the heavy use of vehicles (up until the later parts of the war if its a long one). Large strategic reserves are likely to be kept because of this and it works against continuous large (or medium) scale warfare as it could easily take decades to restock the biofuel and other supplies. And if a country is planning a war and suddenly another war breaks out, it has to decide whether to run down its stockpiles and potentially not have enough to fight the planned war or not to use its stockpiles and suffer a disadvantage. Other important and existential decisions exist. So how prepared a country is for war and what long term plans it has will greatly affect each war and both how its fought (the means) and what for (the ends). Paranoia could easily be the response to this situation, but countries could easily cycle (due to the stockpile levels) through periods of paranoia and aggressiveness.

So now that's out of the way, in our scenario what are the likely power balances, grand strategies and reactions of the various powers could be. Also, remember that every actor in this scenario is an Island or archipelago.

New Zealand: Is the most isolated of the powers and so its not likely to ever face any existential threats of invasion, its biggest potential threat is Australia and that's less than most have been throughout history and is likely solved by being a key Australian ally. The threats it faces are more to do with access to trade routes than any thing else. So it's grand strategy is either going to be similar to Australia's current one, in which it basically buys favour, support (like safe trade routes and such) and peace, in exchange for military support (likely to Australia) or  it could adopt 'armed neutrality' (like Sweden). At this point in time (for the scenario) we'll assume the former, but it would switch between the two as both circumstances and culture change. So its military would be a small elite force, with a limited navy (at least partly bought from Australia). Since its so isolated, it won't really react to big wars, large buildups and such because they aren't in any danger as long as Australia is their ally, since there's no other good invasion launching point.

Australia: Similar to New Zealand in isolation while also being fairly close to every one else. As I've pointed out before, Australia's population is distributed on the sides facing away from Asia and the north coast isn't important when seen through the lens of population. And since the main trade route will be along the clipper route, the other targets for that war goal are New Zealand (who is likely to be peaceful) for the simple reason that I don't think Australia will invade (or vis versa) southern Africa or south America, though that would be an interesting war from a logistics perspective. So the main conflict would be over control of the north coast's strategic ports (especially if the Ghan stays around), trade routes to the north and island territories, this could mean conquering small islands inside the Indonesian archipelago for the purposes of anti-piracy or small naval bases.

So Australia's grand strategy would depend on the relative importance of the northern trade routes and Asia's wealth and the hostility of the other powers. For this we'll assume the trade routes to Asia are profitable (maybe the Suez and Panama canals are gone) and the other powers are hostile. In this case its grand strategy would be a mixture of defensive, strategic allies (Timor and New Guinea) and the holding of strategic island ports. It would care about major wars, but since its population centres aren't in any major danger, not as an existential threat but a threat to its wealth and influence (which can have a similar reaction).

Malaysia: Has the only land border (with Thailand) and is located on the strategic Malacca strait. Its not likely to play a large part in any wars or grand actions, its goal is the control of the strait and the economic power that would give it. So its grand strategy is going to be highly defensive and focused on keeping the strait clear, while also being able to disrupt it. So fights between it and Indonesia will be quite common (not necessarily violent fights, many would likely be standoffs and diplomatic), also because their incredibly close, raids, anti piracy operations or actual piracy (its a fine tradition to engage in state sanctioned piracy) would make up the bulk of the conflicts. It would care greatly about major wars and events, after all they'll disrupt the trade fleets they extort, but its not likely to have much influence on them unless it's protracted.

Borneo & Indonesia: Both Borneo and Indonesia are in similar enough circumstance that what applies to one applies to the other. They are the ones that are likely to invade other countries (particularly each other) and would be constantly fighting over strategic ports. Since they have a fairly good navy and are both Islands, they would fight naval wars fairly often and over strategic ports (more so than everyone else). Since they're also in the middle, they are in the most interesting strategic situation and would consequently have a very diverse grand strategy. Defensive to protect their core ports and holdings, aggressive to cut of their enemies trade and hold strategic ports and cautious because their both surrounded by potentially hostile powers. Since these are the powers that are likely to start a major war, they'll obviously react the most to any that happen.

New Guinea & United Timor: Similar to the above, New Guinea and United Timor are in very similar circumstances. Both are relatively poor, mountainous and have a crap navy. The obvious response to this is to use the mountainous terrain to their advantage, negate the others technological advantage as much as possible and have an extremely defensive grand strategy. Minefields would be ready to quickly lay in ports if needed, lots of mountain forts and retreats and so on. The fleet would act opportunistically and to deny the enemy safe use of the seas and would avoid open battles. The ultimate goal is to be something like Switzerland and be too tough to bother invading. Major wars and events would just make them batten down the hatches and wear the storm out, through they could have an opportunistic strategy in place if the wars are destructive enough (loot the survivors).

The future of warfare, high and low tech side by side: Part 2

Here's a scenario to explain and illuminate last weeks blog post on how the military situation could work out using Australia and surroundings (the specific scenario given is highly unlikely to be the actual case). Assume that Australia is united and is allied with New Zealand, the other states are a united New Guinea, Borneo and Timor (each separate)  and what remains of Indonesia and Malaysia (I am ignoring the various small islands), these aren't likely to be the actual states, however they'll do for this thought experiment. Additionally for simplicity's sake I am assuming no direct outside interference. For this scenario we need to define what each states military technologies are and their access to them, uses of said technology and what they import and from who they import. Then their's the integration of different tech levels in the armed forces, so if automatics are limited are they officer only, or is the other option of only elite squads being armed with them chosen. If the society has tanks but not automatics, how is combined arms used, and how do the different branches (land, air and sea) interact.

Many of these factors and their effects I can't give more than cursory guesses, but I can probably give enough detail for a war game of at least the strategic level. For exploring the military consequences that actually sounds like a good idea, since hard data is rather lacking and 'educated guessing' would have very little accuracy at all but the broadest levels. The best would be to make a system of interlocking games to simulate the global, national, strategic, tactical and operational consequences of overshoot. it would also need to be very flexible so that various concepts and the effects to different technologies can at least be guessed at and variations tested. At the very least, it would make for a dynamic, interesting and ever changing game, especially if it was strung into a series of campaigns. Besides, it would allow the current military establishment to begin exploring the military future, yes the conclusions they draw will almost certainly be wrong, but they'll be wrong anyway, this way allows for them to wing it enough times to be occasionally right. Might as well not go completely blind into an uncertain future, only mostly blind. For now I'll set out a very broad situation.

I'll be using a standardized force structure since that allows easy comparison. It also means it's easy to see where equipment is relative to an individual soldiers perspective. From the bottom up its squads (10 men) which are organized into platoons. Platoons are made up of say 1 command squad (will have the radio if limited) and 5 squads (roughly 60 men) of mixed general and specialized infantry (depending on the availability of support weapons). Above the platoons are companies which are made up of say 5 platoons (roughly 300 men)  and above the company is the regiment of say 10 companies (3000 men). Regiments are then formed into battalions and above that is the overall army. As far as I'm aware this isn't a real organizational structure. This is solely so I can say where vehicles, certain technologies, support weapons or artillery are attached and their relation to individual soldier in a standardized way. Are automatic rifles issued to only one squad in a platoon, or one company in a regiment. Are mortars assigned at the platoon level or the squad level. This is to reflect the availability of the equipment rather than how its used (so if a tank is attached to a squad it just signifies that there are more than if attached to a company), so rifles at the squad level represent a wide availability of them, while with tanks being attached to companies represents a low availability while them being attached at the platoon level means a medium availability. With vehicles and artillery being in separate units represents the highest availability. Tanks, even if there aren't that many will likely be massed because by doing so they enhance each over more than if they were separate.

Here's the list of equipment I'll be examining, there are assumptions behind them but their not so important at the moment. It is solely to easily examine the differences at a glance.

Automatic or non-automatic rifles. Rifling refers to the grooves inside a gun barrel that are supposed to cause the bullet to spin, giving it increased accuracy and range. All guns will be rifles (except for a few exceptions when it's disadvantageous), but the variable will be if their automatic or not. While in certain terrain and areas bows or crossbows would be better/equal, assume their under non-automatic rifles.

Radios: Does every soldier have a walkie-talkie or does only one man in a squad carry a radio, or is it only the command squad. Basically how fine grain is the armies communication system and therefor how flexible is it in battle. Take it for a proxy of overall communication equipment and tactical communication network, though the strategic communication is likely to be excellent for all sides (at least during the start of any wars or conflicts).

Availability of infantry support weapons: Machine (or Gatling) guns, Mortars, anti-tank guns, small artillery pieces and rockets. Do infantry rely solely on their rifles or are their support weapons nearby and how rare are they. Can only the command squad use them or do individual squads get armed with them.

Bikes and Velomobiles (interchangeable with horses for now): Since motor transport will decline, bikes will see a renewed usage in warfare. Mostly for quick transport and communications. While bike machine guns have always been problematic, velomobiles offer a far more stable platform and could also tow heavier guns. Its also possible for dragoons to return (effectively mounted infantry) using either bikes or horses.


Vehicles: Tanks, Jeeps, trucks anything that's normally powered by an internal combustion engine, but here it could be other engines. It's divided up into transports (APC's, trucks etc) and fighting vehicles (IFV's, tanks, technicals etc). How common are they, are they in separate units or only attached to something etc. While fighting vehicles and transports are different, for these purposes assume it refers to both.

Artillery: Big guns that lob explosive shells around, additionally anti aircraft guns. This refers to anything bigger than a squad support weapon and generally needs to be towed around by a motor vehicle,  horse(s) or theoretically velomobiles and/or bikes (though the lighter pieces can be carried by infantry).  While artillery has always been important for siege operations, it has only been since the 30 years war when Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden used light field guns that their capabilities on the battlefield were fully realized.

Aircraft: Three major roles; air superiority, recon and strike. The main variables are whether their imported or not, how they are attached and how many roles can be reliably filled. If comparing individual planes, they can be relatively inferior, superior or equal, but we don't need to do that here and the assumption will be that they are all roughly equal.

Capital ships: Since both aircraft and missiles will be greatly weakened along with the likely return of armor, battleships and other big ships will likely appear. Capital ships are the most important ships (for the fleet battles) and will here refer to big aircraft carriers, battleships, dreadnoughts etc. I'll assume every navy has roughly the same technology, since any navy which doesn't have the best technology isn't very worthwhile outside of anti-piracy operations and defense under the cover of fort guns/minefields.

Small ships: Any ship which isn't a capital ship, so up to a battle cruiser. Battle cruisers are normally capital ships, but their not designed for actual fleet battles but to engage in what small ships normally do, so their small ships for functional purposes. The British found that out the hard way at the Battle of Jutland, "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today" is the appropriate quote (they exploded fairly quickly). Small ships mainly work as escorts, raiders or patrol ships. They are incredibly important as they do the majority of a navies work, though they cannot do the important work (in large scale wars) of large scale battles. Only very weak powers import small ships (except the cruisers). In order of size; corvette, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battle cruiser.

Submarines: Submarines are very high tech, but open up  a new dimension of naval warfare. Assume torpedoes stay effective, so they can potentially destroy capital ships (The Collins class has in war games). Only the strongest states build their own and most powers import theirs, if they have any. Assume that the ones here are all small and so have limited operational range and capabilities.

An important variable not included here is the type of soldiers, e.g professional, militia, conscript, mercenary, feudal, seasonal etc and how big the armed forces are. Since this is focused on examining the technology, we can ignore that for now. For this assume standing professional armies with significant use of conscript/volunteers during wartime.

Each variable will have a value out of 10, the higher the better but obviously terrain and infrastructure would affect each variables usefulness in any theater. Its solely to allow quick comparisons and isn't that accurate and thus will miss many things.

New Zealand
Rifles: Since its a small elite force, everyone is equipped with automatics. 10
Radios: Ditto, every one has a walkie-talkie. 10
Support weapons: High access to support weapons at the squad level. 10
Bikes and Velomobiles: Whenever needed, they're available. 10
Vehicles: A fair amount of vehicles, work as attached units to regiments.5
Artillery: same as vehicles. 5
Aircraft: Only for recon and limited defense purposes. 4
Capital Ships: Only 2 imported from Australia. 3
Small ships: A small force. 5
Submarines: Has 3 imported from Australia. 4

Australia
Rifles: Most have automatics, however some regiments only have non-automatic. 7
Radios: Available at the squad level most of the time. 8
Support weapons: Available at the platoon level as support squads, Machine guns in squads. 8
Bikes and Velomobiles: Readily available. 10
Vehicles: Enough to organize into separate units. 10
Artillery:  Same as above. 10
Aircraft: Full range of aircraft. 10
Capital Ships: Produces Capital ships and exports them to allies or far away powers. 10
Small ships: Large amount and variety of small ships. 10
Submarines: Has submarines and produces them. 10

Malaysia
Rifles: Fair access to automatics from China, half of their regiments have them. 6
Radios: Access on the platoon level. 7
Support weapons: Some platoons have support squads. 7
Bikes and Velomobiles: Readily available. 10
Vehicles: Can attach to companies. 5
Artillery: Every regiment has Artillery. 6
Aircraft: Can import full range from China and makes some. 8
Capital Ships: Only 1 imported from Russia. 1
Small ships: Fair amount of small ships. 7
Submarines: 1 imported submarine. 1

Borneo
Rifles: Half of the regiments have rifles. 5
Radios: Access on the platoon level. 7
Support weapons: Only as attachments to some companies. 5
Bikes and Velomobiles: Readily available. 10
Vehicles: can attach to regiments. 3
Artillery: same as vehicles. 3
Aircraft: Can import all from china but can only make recon planes. 7
Capital Ships: 3 capital ships.4
Small ships: Large amount of small ships. 8
Submarines: 3 imported submarine.3

New Guinea
Rifles:Very few automatics. 3
Radios: Access on the company level. 3
Support weapons: Available to a few regiments. 3
Bikes and Velomobiles: Very few bikes. 2
Vehicles: Very few overall. 2
Artillery: can attach to regiments. 3
Aircraft: Can only afford recon. 3
Capital Ships: Cannot create or afford capital ships. 0
Small ships: Some small ships. 3
Submarines: No subs. 0

United Timor
Rifles: Half of the regiments use imported automatics. 4
Radios: Access on company level and some platoons as well. 4
Support weapons: Available to companies. 5
Bikes and Velomobiles: A few bikes. 3
Vehicles: Very few overall. 2
Artillery: can attach to regiments. 3
Aircraft: can only afford recon. 3
Capital Ships: Cannot create or afford capital ships. 0
Small ships: a handful of small ships. 2
Submarines: No subs. 0

Indonesia:
Rifles: Most regiments have automatics. 8
Radios: Access on the platoon level, some squads as well.7
Support weapons: Available to platoons as support squads. 8
Bikes and Velomobiles: Readily available. 10
Vehicles: can attach to companies. 5
Artillery: can attach to companies. 5
Aircraft: can build recon and air superiority, imports strike. 7
Capital Ships: 3 capital ships. 4
Small ships: A large amount of small ships. 7
Submarines: A couple of subs. 5

Above I have assumed a fairly common level of technology (one side is not solely armed with muskets). That sort of imbalance (muskets vs automatics) will probably exist, possible even worse ones. I also haven't taken into account terrain and differences if the side was an attacker or defender. United Timor could be supreme in war because it always fights defensively, simply mines its harbors and could rely on significant foreign help. The only nod to those circumstances is that New Guinea and Timor have very few bikes, because they're relatively mountainous and therefor they aren't as useful. Its also highly unlikely to be the actual equivalent values they will be in the future as these values are nothing more than really rough estimates. A more detailed scenario would have drastically different technologies, and detail the spread of technologies in each military.

A far more detailed and realistic model could be constructed, but it would take far more time and research than I can do at the moment. Also you'd have to figure out the political future of India, since their a major power and them being united or divided makes a huge difference (same with China). As well as the situation of Indochina (a Vietnamese empire for example) since that impacts directly on everyone north of Australia. Due to the clipper routes likely return, South America and southern Africa also have an important, it's only around 40 days along the clipper route if you only stay in the south which is fairly close time-wise.

This environment of widely varying technology and capabilities will foster a great deal of tactical and strategic innovation. While there are certainly many constants in war, the suite of technologies used radically changes the tactical landscape (compare Napoleonic warfare to Roman), force mixtures (artillery is far more important than it used to be) and various strategic concerns, such as logistics and speed. Understanding the demands, strengths and weaknesses of the various technologies will be crucial to any competent strategist or tactician. Jettisoning the idea that better equipment means an army is automatically superior is also needed as all it does is cause the perception of military strength to be unduly focused on technology. The infrastructure requirements, tactical or strategic speed, what attributes (initiative, discipline, forms of courage etc) do they require, hinder or enable. All these and many more are key questions to understanding the post-peak military landscape.