# Banana republic boomers ready to send you to war Gen-Z doesn’t want to fight your wars, you dumb munted pricks. It’s not how strategic studies, foreign policy, or political op-eds or even blog posts usually start. Yet, somehow, in this instance, writing in broad response to boomer calls for Australia to fight China alongside the U.S., there’s really no other way. Australian governments traditionally wouldn’t say publicly whether they’d fight alongside the U.S. against China—but they’re getting ever closer to it. Assurances were always there in private, and they’ve also been there in policy action: AUKUS, the ever expanding U.S. military presence and access to Australian bases, force integration. Add that to increasingly hawkish political and media rhetoric; a political system that gives two broad choices, both of which are identical; and a political class comprised of second-rate, inbred guppies, and the march to war alongside the U.S. is most near assured. Who the f@ck would think it’s a good idea to join a war with the U.S. against China? Why, only Australia’s boomer politicians! They don’t understand Gen-X, let alone Gen-Z, and their call will not be heeded. There are four main reasons why Gen-Z won’t fight your stupid wars. **The myth is dead** Once upon a time, there was a reason to go to war to fight for Australia. Every Australian kid grew into it. Despite being the descendants of the Empire’s leftovers and rejects--convicts and free settlers within a generation or two of their own displacement from squalid conditions in England, or colonial repression in Alba or Eire, Australian kids grew up with national myths of Captain Cook, Governor Macquarie, Burke and Wills, and Gallipolli. Ahhhh... Gallipolli, the myth of the nation built from a British strategic blunder, shell-shock, death and dismemberment on the shores of the Dardanelles. Wear your grandpa’s slouch hat, wear his medals, stand to attention as the veterans march by. Go to the garden pub, watch them play two-up, and hear them cuss and swear. Australian kids stood to attention at school and sang God Save the Queen, walked around in pyjamas with arrows pointing downwards as convicts in school plays; read the picture books of Blinky Bill, the Magic Pudding, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, Dot and the Kangaroo; then learnt the poems of Banjo Patterson, Mary Gilmore, and Henry Lawson. As kitschy as it was, it kind of flowed with the general direction that life took: free education, free healthcare, strong social safety nets, and house in the suburbs with backyard dunny, a Hill’s hoist, and a Holden in the drive. Citizens would travel to the old country, see the squalor of the U.K., pass through the hippy trail on way home and take in the sights, and then happily return to the best country in the world. If by any chance, people in such a country were called up to fight for the empire, even its distant homeland, they’d do so proudly, because they were told every ANZAC Day, their forefathers did. Australia was a distant, sunburnt bush country full of hardworking, straight-talking, irreverent, self-reliant pioneers who distrusted authority, hated pretension, looked after their mates, and believed everyone deserved a fair go. Somewhere along the way, the myth transformed. To be fair, it was always a pretty hollow national story. There was always a fair whack of deeper Celtic resentment, and a more rebellious stream in Australia, even if it was greatly exaggerated--Rum Rebellions, Eureka Stockade, Ned Kelly, Captain Moonlite, Bold Jack Donahoe, and Frank Gardiner run through to anti-conscription protests of WW1 and the Vietnam War. Class, individual liberty, Australia’s relationship with great-powers, and the question of who has the authority to decide where Australians fight, could be heard in the music of the early 1980s with Goanna, Redgum, and Midnight Oil. It challenged the mainstream national myth, and sought to replace it with a more Australianized version. Gallipolli was reinterpreted as a costly imposition by an errant empire on a young nation. The Second World War, and the Fall of Singapore was the final straw—Australia was abandoned by Britain and the myth of empire was broken. Australia even started to think about republicanism, and severing the ties for good. The whole founding of Australia was then reinterpreted. Australia Day, the national founding day that celebrated the raising of the British flag and the founding of the first colony was reinterpreted as Invasion Day. Today, every concert commences with an acknowledgement of country, every football game a welcome to country, and every public event a smoking ceremony. The descendants of the Empire’s leftovers and rejects—convicts and free settlers within a generation or two of their own displacement from squalid conditions in England, or colonial repression in Alba or Eire, became invaders, not Australians. The founding myth of Australia, its overcoming of the odds, and its rebelliousness, was dead. **The people are divided** Australia is a country where near every second person is an immigrant. The 2021 Australian Census, showed 48.2% of Australians had at least one parent born overseas. That’ll be much higher with the most recent census. Immigration doesn’t translate into military manpower. Recent migrants have weaker personal and family connections to Australian military traditions, and many retain strong attachments to the home country. Coming to Australia was not to create a new home, but rather to make money. A high immigrant society must build a sense of belonging and shared national purpose to make people willing to serve—and, even fight or die, for the country. That ain’t happening in Australia. You’ll see plenty of Defence Force posters with proud recent immigrant soldiers and officers. It’s great marketing, but about as believable as carving a lamb roast with chopsticks. Economic desperation does drive kids from rural Australia into the army. Where jobs, education and prospects are thin, the military offers a salary, training, housing support and a way out. But that’s hardly the same thing as _wanting_ to fight for Australia. Joining because the military offers one of the few reliable paths to a decent job is very different from joining out of patriotism, duty, or belief in the country and what it stands for. A lot of rural kids have a choice between bumming around and seeing mates hooked on meth, or escaping any which way you can. Then there’s the officer corps. There’s still enough of them. An Australia Defence Force officer career offers good pay, subsidized education and training, job security, housing assistance, status, a clear career path, and a decent pension. But getting in is another matter. Officer selection is demanding, recruitment can be slow, and candidates face academic, medical, psychological, fitness, security, and leadership assessments. The irony is that Australia needs officers, yet the pathway to becoming one can be long, selective, and bureaucratic. It helps when you’re from the right private school—that’s where you get those Defence Force posters with proud recent immigrant soldiers and officers. The flag waving nationalists, the ones who grew up with a shared story about what Australia was have disappeared. The people don’t share the same national myth, because they’re not the same people.  **Fight to save your home!** Singapore’s founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, argued that home ownership gave citizens a very real stake in the country. It’s simple: if young men are expected to go to war and fight for the country, they should have something worth defending. Home ownership is not just housing policy, but part of building national loyalty and commitment to the state. On this, Australia failed. In the early 1980s, the typical Australian home cost roughly three years of household income. Today, on commonly used earnings measures, a home costs around nine or ten years of an individual’s income. Housing went from the foundation of the Australian bargain to one of its greatest divides. A generation being asked to defend the country increasingly looks at the country and wonders what, exactly, it owns. Today, Gen-Z can’t leave the parental home. Young Australians remain with their parents longer, not simply from preference, but because rents and house prices make independence increasingly difficult. Amongst most Gen-Z kids, the chances of ever owning a home are not even thought about. The chances of securing a rental property are now a primary concern. Even if you get one, after lining up around the block waiting for some fucked up real estate agent to look over all your personal details and store it on their insecure rental database, it only leads to a nervous yearly concern: how much is the landlord putting up the rent this year? Have I passed all the inspections by the real estate agent who tramped through my bedroom four times during the year and twice told me to clean the tiles near top left corner of the bathroom ceiling? Should I live in my car to save money? Should I get a tent? Should I get a third job? Live at home and you have all the fucked up social implications that such a situation presents. Those who cant live at home, rent, car, van, couch-surf, or tent. Home ownership among young Australians has fallen dramatically over the past two decades. At the other end, the number experiencing homelessness keeps growing: more than 122,000 Australians were homeless on Census night in 2021, up 5.2 per cent from 2016, while demand for homelessness services has continued to rise. Walk down any friggin city street in Australia and you’ll see what people have to fight for—nothing!!! It’s getting to the stage where people actually express the belief that if China takes over, they may still be homeless, but at least the trains will run on time. The old Australian bargain was that each generation got a stake in the country. Increasingly, the young get a bedroom in their parents’ house—if they’re lucky. Who fights for that? **Lack of representation** Gen-Z have been shafted—even more than Gen-X. Nobody represents their views. They are politically fragmented—progressive, conservative, radical, disengaged—and lack the institutions that once turned generational frustration into coordinated political power. They’re the first generation to conduct much of their political life inside digital spaces that are heavily monitored, moderated and shaped by algorithms. Labor and the Liberals remain institutions largely built around older generations and older assumptions about prosperity, while the Greens and One Nation capture very different fragments of discontent without representing the generation as a whole. Beneath the fragmentation lies something remarkably consistent: the feeling that nobody represents them. The same warning signs are visible in Britain and the United States. Young people priced out of housing, insecure in work, distrustful of institutions and convinced that conventional politics cannot change their circumstances provide fertile ground for rebellion. In America, extreme polarization, political violence and collapsing trust have even revived serious discussion of civil conflict; Britain has its own mix of riots, radicalization and deep generational frustration. Ireland has the IRA taking on the refugee crisis! Civil war remains an extreme outcome, but the underlying danger is real: when enough people believe the political system neither represents them nor offers them a future, rebellion stops looking unthinkable. And a generation contemplating rebellion is hardly an obvious recruiting pool for defending the existing order. Think you can attract recruits or start conscription for your boomer wars? Think again. The war will be coming to your door before it comes to some foreign battlefield. **The banana republic boomers are calling you - you’re going to war!** Which brings us back to the beginning. Gen Z doesn’t want to fight your wars, you dumb munted pricks. The question isn’t what’s wrong with them, but how far you’ve fucked up. A generation locked out of housing, struggling for secure work, distrustful of politics, and increasingly convinced that nobody represents it cannot simply be ordered into patriotism when the strategic establishment decides it’s time to fight China. You want soldiers? Give them a stake in the country. Give them a home, a future, a political voice, and something they actually believe is worth defending. Otherwise, don’t be surprised at the response when you come calling: fight your own fucking war you munted boomer! *** Rebellion costs more than a coffee. I just want the coffee - [Buy Me a Coffee](https://buymeacoffee.com/junotane)! ## Related articles - [[2026-06-25 A banana republic with nuclear subs|A banana republic with nuclear subs]] - [[2026-09-23 Coo-ee! Australia calls!|Coo-ee! 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