London, 26 January 1961
Secret
The Background of Australian Defence Policy
Australian defence policy is a natural projection of conditions in Australia. The country is a hard one and Australians are proud of what they have done with it. They see themselves as a small European community thinly scattered over a large continent and perpetually threatened by the millions of over-crowded Asians in the Near North. They were only confirmed in this outlook by the fall of Singapore in the last war (in which they lost a division), and the preoccupation of Britain with Hitler rather than the Japanese. The turning point of the war for Australia was when the Americans arrived in force and jointly with Australia set about driving the Japanese back through New Guinea and the Pacific.
2. Resulting from this background there are four main strands in Australia’s defence policy:
(a) The aim to strengthen herself as much as possible by immigration and development of the country. The slogan ‘populate or perish’ has been a keynote of Australian policy more than ever since the war, and immigration is considered an important part of her defence policy. Australians are apt to reply to criticisms that they are spending less per head on defence than the United Kingdom, by pointing to the higher priority they attach to establishing a strong and settled population. The Australian armed forces are thus comparatively small though capable of fairly rapid expansion.
(b) After strengthening her own position at home, the next strand in Australia’s policy is to align herself with the strongest friendly power in the area, namely the United States, on whom, and not on the United Kingdom, she feels that in the last resort her security depends. For all its indefiniteness the ANZUS link is of cardinal importance to Australia Australians are determined that nothing shall weaken or confuse this link and have reacted sharply in the past to our attempts to join ANZUS. They are, however, happy to keep us fully in touch with their contacts with the United States in this forum, and they support the idea of four power planning in the Pacific, so long as the ANZUS link is unaffected. From this feeling of dependence on the United States’ follows another tendency, to switch increasingly to United States’ equipment, especially for the Army and Air Force, mainly on the grounds that it is with United States Services that the Australian Services will mostly be co-operating.
(c) Australia is happy to continue the close links with the United Kingdom and New Zealand. She tends to regard New Zealand somewhat patronizingly and harbours a suspicion, never far from the surface, that our plans for co-operating in Far East defence are not meant seriously. Australia (and New Zealand) is joined with us in ANZAM 1 and in the provision of forces for the Commonwealth Strategic Reserve in Malaya, but there are still doubts in Australia about this policy. Australian support for ANZAM is qualified by the feeling that it should not be allowed to cut across the ANZUS and SEAT0 2 relationship. Moreover, we have to guard against stimulating any Australian suspicion that we are failing to do our share in the defence of South East Asia. Thus the recent proposal to move a brigade to Borneo might well have been thought by Australians to indicate that we are losing faith in the tenure of our bases in Malaya, and the present proposals for redeployment in the Far East could have the effect of persuading the Australians that we were giving up our stake there. This could mean a total withdrawal of their forces from Malaya, the break up of ANZAM and further Australian orientation toward America.
(d) Co-operation with the new States of South East Asia is a firm part of Australian policy whether in the matter of political or trade relations, support for the Colombo Plan,3 or defence policy.
She has accepted the doctrine that South East Asia is the best place to defend herself, but at the same time she is conscious of the vulnerability of her nearest neighbour Indonesia, and therefore anxious lest her forces in South East Asia should be by-passed by an enemy and generally concerned about being left to go it alone on the mainland. SEATO is central to Australian defence policy since it unites the three strands of co-operation with the United States, the United Kingdom and the countries of South East Asia. From time to time Australians differ from ourselves in advocating a more ‘forward’ policy in SEATO(On the whole this is not the case over Laos, though some Australians, particularly in the Services, would like to see firmer guarantees by SEATO than we and some of the other members.) And if at any time we are thought to be weak in our support for SEATO, we come in for Australian criticism.
In effect therefore it is Australia’s policy to play a full part in SEATO and the defence of South East Asia, but this is contingent on the other SEATO powers, including ourselves, also doing what Australia considers their share. There is already a school of thought in Australia which is doubtful about retaining forces, notably the air element, in Malaya. If they thought that others were likely to pull out, the Australians might well decide that their interest lay in pulling their forces back to defend Australia.
1 The ANZAM Agreement (1948-49) was an informal arrangement under which the British, Australian and New Zealand governments agreed to consult and coordinate defence planning and activities in an area which included Australia and New Zealand and the British territories in Malaya and Borneo, together with the adjacent sea area.
2 The Manila Treaty (or Southeast Asia Collective Defence Treaty) was signed on 8 September 1954 by Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, the UK and the US. It set up the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) with a Council and Secretariat in Bangkok. The Council met for the first time in February 1955. The Manila Treaty provided for collective action against attack or internal subversion, but unlike with the NATO alliance, an attack on one member was not automatically considered an attack on all. From the beginning several members evaded long-term commitments and neither the UK nor France thought the treaty operated in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
3 A plan for cooperative economic and social development in Asia and the Pacific, conceived at the Commonwealth Conference on Foreign Affairs held in Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in January 1950, and launched on 1 July 1951.
[UKNA: DO 164/39]