18 Australia's Military Involvement in the Vietnam War Background History:
Description
This article is from the Vietnam FAQ, by Brian Ross, John R. Tegtmeier, Edwin E. Moise, Frank Vaughan, John Tegtmeier with numerous contributions by others.
18 Australia's Military Involvement in the Vietnam War Background History:
Australia has long suffered from a sense of unease
about its position as the only European settled country in
Asia. Australian society has long (and still does,
unfortunately amongst some sections) harboured a fear of
the "yellow hordes" waiting to "descend upon Australia" and
steal it away from the privileged few white colonialists
living here. While this fear could perhaps be best
described as being a form of cultural paranoia (well,
considering that until the end of WWII and the start of
Government sponsored migration the population had
stabilised at around the 7 million mark you can understand
why most Australians feared the possible invasion by
potential "hordes").
This fear had resulted in the formulation of one of
the most restrictive immigration policies the world has
seen entitled "The White Australia Policy" which was
designed to prevent Asian migration and only allow in
whites which were deemed by the government of the day as
being suitable (thankfully that has been consigned to the
dustbin of history). This fear seemed to have been proven
well founded when the Japanese advanced to within
comparative spitting distance of the continent in 1942.
Because of its large size and small population
Australia had long relied upon what have become known as,
and in some circles derided as, "great and powerful
friends" to provide for its defence. First Great Britian
and then America, successive Australian governments have
seen the ability of the country to integrate itself into an
alliance system where defence is collectively shared and
Australian defence spending kept under tight control
allowing the civilian population to share unrivalled
prosperity (Australia before WWI had the highest standard
of living per capita in the world). With the collapse of
the British Empire, and perhaps most importantly the loss
of the fortress of Singapore, Australia turned to the new
power in the Pacific, America. A treaty formalising the
new relationship between it, Australia and New Zealand
called the ANZUS Pact was concluded in 1951.
However, the ANZUS Pact was designed from an American
viewpoint to first reassure Australian and New Zealand
concerns about a possibly rearmed and resurgent Japan and
secondarily to tie America in the defence of the two former
Dominions. From the Australian viewpoint, on the
otherhand, it was designed to tie America first and
foremost into the defence of Australia, despite the
pertinant clause only requiring the three parties to
"consult" in case of an attack on the others rather than
necessarily having a clause like in the NATO treaty where
an attack on one party is considered an attack on all
parties.
So we have, by 1965, two radically different
interpretations of the treaty which formed the major plank
of Australian defence during the preceeding decade. This
was to prove important as will be explained.
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