In the early 1970s, two titans of Australian and American politics, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and President Richard Nixon, clashed over the end of the Vietnam war and the shape of a new Asia. A relationship that had endured the heights of the Cold War veered dangerously off course and seemed headed for destruction. Never before—or since—has the alliance sunk to such depths. Drawing on sensational new evidence from once top-secret American and Australian records, this book portrays the bitter clash between these two leaders and their competing visions of the world. As the Nixon White House went increasingly on the defensive in early 1973, reeling from the lethal drip of the Watergate revelations, the first Labor prime minister in twenty-three years looked to redefine ANZUS and Australia's global stance. It was a heady brew, and not one the Americans were used to. The result was a fractured alliance, and an American president enraged, seemingly hell bent on tearing apart the fabric of a treaty that had become the first principle of Australian foreign policy.

In the first two decades of the Cold War, Australia fought in three conflicts and prepared to fight in a possible wider conflagration in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. In Korea, Malaya and Borneo, Australian forces encountered new types of warfare, integrated new equipment and ideas, and were part of the longest continual overseas deployments in Australia’s history. Working closely with its allies, Australia also trained for a large conventional war in Southeast Asia, while a significant percentage of the defence force guarded the Papua New Guinea–Indonesian border. At home, the Defence organisation grappled with new threats and military expansion, while the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation defended the nation from domestic and foreign threats. This book examines this crucial part of Australia’s security history, so often overlooked as merely a precursor to the Vietnam War. It addresses key questions such as how did Australia achieve its security goals at home and in the region in this new Cold War environment? What were the experiences of the services, units and individuals serving in Southeast Asia? How did this period shape Australia’s defence for years to come?

Will regional powers in the Asia-Pacific have to choose between China and the United States? In Independent Ally, Shannon Tow challenges this prevailing view. She explores how one key regional power, Australia, has repeatedly developed a strong relationship with a rising power while simultaneously preserving its alliance with a dominant global power. Far from being a 'dependent ally' that simply follows the policies of its great and powerful friends, Australia has consistently developed and pursued an independent foreign policy toward those great powers that have played an important role in shaping its destiny. It has proactively negotiated the terms of its relationships with those powers in ways that have been mutually complementary and that have supported its strategic interests in regional order. The extent to which Australia can do so in future relates directly to the findings and lessons this study provides. Drawing on newly released archival material and interviews with prominent former policymakers, this book examines how six different Australian Prime Ministers successfully navigated these great power relationships over the last century.

A psychoanalytic journal dedicated to exploring the issue of war. Published by SUNY/Buffalo's Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture.

This study examines 324 oral history transcripts and explains the recruitment, training, and deployment of US diplomats. Amid growing feminist hostility to Foreign Service treatment of spouses, some couples resented postings to distant Australasia but most enjoyed a welcoming English-speaking environment. While New Zealand assignments involved complex negotiations with Pacific islanders, diplomats in Australia were powerless to control the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean, including the fortification of Diego Garcia and peace negotiations threatening US Navy access to the port of Fremantle. When the Australian Labor Party won power in 1972 the vulnerability of vital military and intelligence facilities alarmed the US more than opposition to nuclear ship visits that removed New Zealand from the ANZUS alliance in the 1980s. Notable exceptions to a principal focus on diplomats below the highest ranks are Marshall and Lisa Green. After meeting John Stewart Service in post-1945 New Zealand they remained for years his loyal defenders against the assaults of McCarthyism. Lisa's interview implicitly but decisively refutes allegations that, as US ambassador to Australia, Marshall plotted the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975. Despite persistent rumors of a CIA coup, declassified cables reveal resident US diplomats' hostility to the governor general's unprecedented action.

In 2018, Australia finds itself at the center of a geopolitical storm within the Indo-Pacific region. With the meteoric rise of China and the perceived decline of U.S. influence and power in East Asia, Australia is faced with some rather difficult and uncomfortable questions concerning its economic future and its national security. Historically, Australia has always had a major power as its key ally, especially in terms of its national security. In 1901, Australia became a self-governing nation. However, Great Britain continued to protect Australia from potential external enemies, because Australia remained an important and valued commonwealth nation within the British empire. However, at the beginning of the Pacific War during WWII, Australia reached out to America after the British colony Singapore collapsed in the face of the oncoming and powerful Japanese imperial military forces in February 1942. With the empire of Japan marching southward in the Pacific region, Australian prime minister John Curtin anxiously requested, in late-December 1941, that America come save the nation from being invaded by the Japanese imperial army and naval forces. Due to its own strategic needs against Japan, the U.S. agreed to send its military forces to Australia. Thus, began a geostrategic relationship that has lasted for seventy-five years. Hence, Australia has remained one of America's most reliable allies throughout the post-WWII era. But, at the end of the second decade of the 21st century, the geostrategic dynamics of the Indo-Pacific have changed dramatically. China's unprecedented rise to power— economically, militarily and diplomatically—has forced Australia to reevaluate its policies and position within the East Asian hemisphere. And, to further complicate Australia's current predicament, America itself is experiencing a major political upheaval with the stunning election of Donald Trump as its new president in 2016. Henceforth, Australia increasingly finds itself in uncharted waters—geopolitically. Australians are confronted with the irrefutable reality that they are living not only in the most pivotal region of the world, but one that is in the midst of an historic transformation. In essence, Australia finds itself at the center of a geostrategic storm.

From modest beginnings in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has become the premier regional institution in Southeast Asia. The 10 members are pursuing cooperation to develop the ‘ASEAN Community’ and also sponsor wider dialogues that involve the major powers. Australia has been interested in ASEAN since its inauguration and was the first country to establish a multilateral link with the Association, in 1974. Australia and ASEAN have subsequently engaged and cooperated on many issues of mutual concern, including efforts to secure an agreement to resolve the Cambodia conflict (signed in 1991), the initiation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation grouping (1989) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (1994), the conclusion of the ASEAN–Australia–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (signed in 2008) and the development of the East Asia Summit (from 2005). This book provides the first available detailed history of the evolution of Australia’s interactions with ASEAN. It assesses the origins and phases of development of Australia’s relations with ASEAN; the role ASEAN has played in Australian foreign policy since the 1970s; the ways in which the two sides have collaborated, and at times disagreed, in the pursuit of regional stability and security; and the key factors that will influence the relationship as it moves into its fifth decade.