Watching all those tank turrets (or ‘lollypops’ as the Ukrainians call them) been blown off Russian tanks and the attached cartoon from Punch Magazine of 1904 has had me querying the future of our region and a possible investment resurgence.

Witness the significant step up in China concerns and our massive inability to defend ourselves. Heck, in Oz we have less than 2 weeks supply of oil and just one refinery, as I recollect, (maybe 2). Have the Chinese Navy surround us, and we are ‘Kangaroo Ted’ and quickly so.

 Plus, we have little manufacturing capable of being converted to a war/defense footing. The problem emerging is just like Britain and Australia before WW1 and WW2 – more so now as we have really shut down manufacturing, courtesy of the ‘global movement’.

 I do believe the political temperature is changing and changing rapidly – witness the increasingly alarmist rhetoric of Peter Dutton (current Minister for Defence at time of writing). He might well be our ‘Churchill canary on the coal mine.’

 Surely it makes sense that we have our own defense manufacturing capability and does it not make logical sense for government to encourage the return of vital manufacturing infrastructure. This is where an investment opportunity might occur and its why I have decent investments in Capral (CAA), Australia’s largest operator of aluminium extrusion plants and Bisalloy (BIS), Australia’s only producer of quenched and tempered high tensile and abrasion resistant steel plates. I also have investments in Laserbond (LBL), a company with advanced technologies to prevent the wearing of steel plates and such. Plus, investments in Korvest and Codan for the usefulness they might offer a ‘hurry up to defend’ mantra.

 I am also looking at companies like Austin Engineering (ANG) and boat building Austal (ASB).

I’m not so much interested in the technology companies like EOS as the political power of the US defense industry is a ‘bridge too far’.If anyone knows of any other manufacturing companies who engage in on the ground manufacturing as opposed to importing a system and then selling it, I’d really like to know.