G'Day Steve,
As an Australian, I've been very interested in the Australian Empire, and as a result, have a few comments to make.....
With the closeness of the AUS-UK relationship, why isn't there more formal treaties in place?
I understand that AUS-UK have a trade treaty (with Canada), and (unofficially) co-ordinate militarily, but I'm confused over why there isn't (at a minimum) a military treaty between the two nations.
Similarly, with the colonies on common planets, why there isn't better arrangements (i.e. complementing ship designs, R&D specialisation, joint exploration missions, shared R&D projects, shared intelligence) between the two nations?
Afterall - this kind of co-ordination was common between the UK and Australia until the 1960's, and is common today between the US and Australia (i.e. one of the un-spoken rules of ship procurement, is that individual systems are to be as compatible as possible with US systems (for spare parts), and that the overall ship
must be capable of acting as part of a US task force). Of course, with NATO being a common arrangement, this means that Australian ships can act with UK ships as well (as witnessed in off Kuwait in 1991).
So, do you think that such a close relationship is possible in your campaign, or are there "issues" that would result in a bit of distance happening.....
Thanks!