ch7 quotes - Indochina wars Flashcards
Prime Minister Menzies announced a greater shift towards the US as the principal ally:
“Australia’s forces would be organised “to fit ourselves for close cooperation with the United States in the Southeast Asian area.”
The policy of Forward Defence was that it was better to:
“[fight] the enemy up there before we have to fight them here” (Adcock et al.)
historian Peter Edwards on the policy:
“struck a sensible balance.”
According to the SEATO treaty, member states could:
“take no action on the territory of any State…except at the invitation or with the consent of the government concerned”
STATISTICS for US involvement in Vietnam War
B-52 bombers dropped an estimated 40,000 tonnes of bombs over an 11 day period in the most intensive bombing of the war
While ‘Operation Linebacker II’ was suspended over the Christmas period, the campaign came to be known as ‘The Christmas Bombing’.
STATISTICS on the cost of the Vietnam war:
- The casualties in the Vietnam war was 2 million civilians on both sides (US + Viet), 1.1 million North Vietnamese + Viet Cong and 200,000 South Vietnamese soldiers
- The highest no. of casualties of the US+its allies in the war is US itself with 58,500 people being killed whilst only 521 Australians
- The financial cost for the AUS of participating in war AU$218.4 million and costs for post-war benefits for veterans and families unavailable
- The land and environment of Vietnam and surrounding countries were also casualties of the war, suffering extensive, long-term and often irreversible damage
The Department of Veterans’ Affairs website states that days of commemoration in Australia are an opportunity to:
“come together to commemorate those who have served our nation and its allies in wars, conflicts and peace operations.”
An extract from the ANZUS Treaty:
“Desiring to declare publicly and formally their sense of unity, so that no potential aggressor could be under the illusion that any of them stand alone in the Pacific Area”
An extract from the ANZUS Treaty:
“means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.”
Historian Robert O’Neil describes conflicting opinions on the ANZUS Treaty: the differing political views on Australia’s realignement of foreign defence
“The British Government was not pleased by Australia’s realignment as an ally of the United States…but “Truman felt obliged to Australia for its support in Korea”
SEATO Treaty 1954
“prevent or counter by appropriate means any attempt in the treaty area to subvert their freedom or to destroy their sovereignty or territorial integrity”
US President, Dwight D. Eisenhower in a press conference on 7 April 1954:
DOMINO THEORY
“row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly.”
US President, Dwight D. Eisenhower in a press conference on 7 April 1954: explaining their fears of the spread of communism across Asia
“you have the specific value of a locality in its production of materials that the world needs.”
Opinion piece by Peter Edwards (Menzies believed that the real problem with American policy wasn’t that the U.S. was trying to do too much, but rather that it was pulling back and avoiding involvement in global affairs)
“As Menzies saw it, the risk in American policy was not strategic overreach but isolationism.”
PM Robert Menzies in a 1964 address to the NSW Liberal Council:
“We have alliances, we have arrangements, we have mutual advantages and obligations with some of the great countries of the world.”
DIFFERING VIEWS -> A 1966 pamphlet by Labor politician Clyde Holding:
“Australia must end the wishful thinking that we can survive in Asia merely on the basis of alliances with Great Britain and America.”
American historian Michael Robinson
“The ultimate objective was for the Soviet Union and the United States to leave, and let the Koreans figure it out.”
Extract of a response by US President Harry S. Truman on the 27th of June 1950:
“The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that Communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war.”
PM Robert Menzies in his ‘House of Representatives Question Korea Speech’ on the 6th of July 1950:
“They are a reminder that the peace of the world is threatened and that, as a British and democratic nation, we must be not only willing, but also ready. “
PM Robert Menzies in his ‘House of Representatives Question Korea Speech’ on the 6th of July 1950:
“We are for peace. We do not understand aggression, but we will resist it with all we have and are.”
Leader of the Opposition, Ben Chifley, in the ‘House of Representatives Question Korea Speech’ on the 6th of July 1950:highlights that Australian political parties became unified in their approach to the Korean War, exhibited by their mutual agreement of the neccessity of Australia’s involvement
“I hope, as we all do, that the action being taken by the United Nations will be successful. It will be a demonstration to the world, and to those who might become aggressors, that there exists a body of 59 nations determined to maintain peace.”
Minister of external affairs, Percy Spender, in the ‘House of Representatives Question Korea Speech’ on the 6th of July 1950:
“The situation is not simple.”
Historian Richard Trembath
- KOREAN WAR
“jumped to beat Britain…to show that we were firm in the alliance with the United States”
Historian Richard Trembath describes the ‘flood of volunteers’ who signed up at re-opened recruitment offices around Australia in 1951:
“an enthusiastic response.”
