Australia's Involvement in the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War which went from 1965 to 1975 involved America and its allies, including Australia, aiming to prevent South Vietnam from an invasion by the communist North Vietnaese. There were many key reasons for Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The Americans provided valuable support when they arrived at our aid during the WWII so Australia felt a responsibility to return a favour to the US to maintain healthy foreign relations. Australia also became implicated in the war due to the threat posed by the expansion of communism, known as the “Domino Effect”. On the political front Australia was also very anticommunist and believed to stop the war arriving at our front step we should use the forward defence approach. For these

The Vietnam War began on the 1st of November 1995 and was fought in mainly in Vietnam but also in Cambodia and Laos. The war initially began when communist forces tried to expand and include Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the communist force. The opposing political agendas also played an impacting role on the starting of the Vietnam War, due to North Vietnam becoming a communist government it was strongly supported by China in order to change South Vietnam from being an anti-communist government to adopting communism. In 1965 Australia became deeply involved and played an influential role in the Vietnam War. Australia decision to be a part of the war was mainly based on the rise of communism in the South-East Asia after the Second World War. In 1974, Congress voted not to enforce the commitments agreed to in the Paris Peace Accords. Air support for Cambodia, South Vietnam, and Laos was cut off. The promise of military aid by other was never delivered. North Vietnam was able to take over South Vietnam as force the country into communism. The War had a great impact on the Vietnamese citizen’s lives, they were forced to leave the war torn country and move to a foreign land to start a new life.

Australia took part in the ANZUS treaty because they were a really small country at the time and still is. They felt threatened by communism spreading through Asia and wanted to prevent it from reaching Australia. Australia could not do this on their own and therefore looked for support from a bigger nation. This was a problem because before the WWII Australia had always relied on Britain but that had changed after Japan’s annulation of Britain in Singapore during the war. Now Australia needed someone new and with the threat of communism they looked towards America.

Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War started in 1962-75. Some of the reasons for Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War were mostly to do with the fear of communism and using the “forward defence” strategy to prevent the domino theory from happening. During this time Australia’s attitude towards the war changed due to the protesting of anti-war groups such as ‘save our sons’, it was believed that it was more of a civil war then a communism war,  and because it was a television war.

The Effect of the Vietnam War on the Australian Society The Vietnam War had great political impact and led to deep division within Australian society. The Australian people were forced to take the issues about the Cold War, Vietnam and the arms race seriously because of Australia’s military involvement in Vietnam from 1962 to 1972. As a result, our fear of communism and of Asia increased dramatically. Australia, occupying a large mass of land, yet having a small population had always lived in the belief that they were threatened some way by the foreign powers and this led to the formation of “The White Australia Policy”, which was set up in 1901.

The Vietnam war has been referred to by many names, one of the longer ones was 'the cornerstone of the free world southeast Asia'. It was called that by John F. Kennedy. He was talking about Vietnam being and essential country in a non-communist world. He believed that if Vietnam became a communist country, all of the surrounding countries would also become communists. This is the main reason America was involved in the Vietnam war. Another reason was that America wanted to spread their “political ideas around the globe”. They wanted to do this so that their anti-communism stance was clear. The public also wanted to keep communism from spreading. To soldiers, the war was like a crusade, a great journey to purge the communists from Vietnam.

In the twentieth century after World War 2 the world was threatened by the takeover of communist that had begun to consume the globe. The Australian government identified that the fear ideology communism will take over the country if no actions were taken to stand against and stop it. The Australian government provided support and participated in several military conflicts during the Cold War to reduce the threat of communist around the world. However, the longest of Australia’s military engagement was the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1975. Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War was mainly centred on its fear of the ‘Domino Theory’, and its relations with the U.S through the Foreign policy which involved the ‘Forward Defence’ policy. The

The US-Australian alliance requires some explanation. At its basis, it pertains to the ANZUS treaty signed between Australia, New Zealand, and the

The Vietnam War beginning on November 1st 1955 and ending April 30th 1975 was a highly controversial war that originally took place as a civil war between Northern and Southern Vietnam. Northern Vietnam was backed by Russia and China while Southern Vietnam was backed by the USA. This war made a hugely divisive impact on Australian society a few months after they entered in July 1962 as allies to the USA and Southern Vietnam. Some factors of the Vietnam War contributed to cohesion among the Australian public such as the fear of communism and the subsequent “domino effect. However many factors of this war such as the media coverage, conscription being brought back under the Menzies government, anti-war protests and post-war immigration, were all important aspects of this war and made it much more divisive than cohesive, especially in the later stages.

Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War was a result of a combined fear of communism and the fall of freedom from danger in Australian democracy and society. The growing web of communism saw the fall of many countries closing in on Australia and New Zealand, and it was believed Robert Menzies’ government that they would find communism at Australia’s shores.

Australia is considered among important allies of United States. In the Vietnam war Australia sent a force of 50 000. Being situated in Southern Hemisphere of Southeast Asia, Australia has to face exceptional defense challenges much more than neighboring partner. Historically Australia seems to be willing to accept the major role in military interventions in the surrounding area as can be seen in East Timor.

As we have seen there was a genuine fear of communism in Asia spreading to Australia which was known as the ‘Domino Theory’ and as it can be stated that one of the main reasons Australia got involved in the Vietnam War was the ‘Foreign policy’ and ‘SEATO’. Furthermore Australia’s strategy against a possible threat to Australia’s security from Asia was called ‘forward defence’. The idea was to meet any possible threat before it came too close to Australian shores. ‘Forward defence’ meant that Australia would willingly commit troops to conflicts well beyond its shores to counter potential threats. This strategy was behind the decisions made by the Menzies government to contribute forces to conflicts in Asia, where it was thought that communists were attempting to take power. Australian troops were sent to the Korean War (1950-1953) in support of both Britain and the USA as part of a UN force, The Malaya Emergency

Australia responded with 30 military advisers. Their arrival in South Vietnam in July 1962 was the beginning of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War. According to the Australian war memorial website the arrival of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV) in South Vietnam during July and August 1962 was the beginning of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War. Australia's participation in the war was formally declared at an end when the Governor-General issued a proclamation on 11 January 1973. The only combat troops remaining in Vietnam were a platoon guarding the Australian embassy in Saigon, which was withdrawn in June

Australia 's US alliance is unquestionably its single most important security relationship. The security relationship between Australia and the U.S. was sealed with the introduction of the Australia New Zealand United States treaty (ANZUS) which was signed in 1951 (Taylor, 2016). The ANZUS treaty was instigated by the three nations to protect the security of the Pacific. Although New Zealand no longer holds security ties with U.S., the treaty is still in place and was the first of many formal alliances between Australia and the U.S. (Taylor, 2016).

As a great family of nations, involved in a struggle greater than us, Australia’s assistance for South Vietnam commenced in early 1960’s to enforce the policies of other prosperous nations to limit the spread of communism in Asia (RSL NSW, 2014). From the time of the arrival of the first forces in 1962 approximately 60,000 fellow Australians, including ground troops and airforce and naval force work force, served in Vietnam (NFSA, 2017). To you we are thankful.