Australian Foreign Policy

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EVEN at the end of the last world war it would have been difficult to speak of an Australian Foreign Policy. It is a very recent growth, as sudden and as important as the profound changes in the world situation which have made it necessary. Two factors above all have led to the emergence of a distinctive Australian foreign policy. First, the dramatic change in Britain's international position; secondly, the emergence of Asia as a decisive force in world affairs. The decline of Britain's military and economic power has made it impossible for Australia to rely any longer upon British military protection or to leave the initiative in political and economic matters affecting Australia entirely to the United Kingdom. The emancipation of Asian national States, comprising over a thousand million people, has exposed the isolated position of Australia and New Zealand as outposts of European civilization and the white race, situated far from the sources of Western strength and civilization. These main reasons for the reorientation of the Australian position are familiar enough. It is far less easy to indicate the direction of such a reorientation. As a result of war and post-war developments, it may be said that Australian foreign policy is determined by four major factors which are not always easy to co-ordinate. In the first place, Australia is and remains an active and loyal member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. In the second place, Australia's sense of isolation, and the change in the world balance of power, is leading her to look to the United States as the major protector against the dangers of the near and, even more, of the distant future. In the third place, Australia is faced, more urgently and inescapably than any other white country, with the problem of a complete readjustment of political, social, and human relations with the new nations of Asia. Lastly, Australia has played an active and at times an outstanding role in the United Nations as well as in the functional international agencies. Many Australians are critical of the British (although the term 'Pommy' is not always meant derisively). They have a lingering reminiscence of the days when the British used Australia mainly as a country of profitable investments and a cheap source of raw materials. Many Australians link the depression of the early nineteen-thirties with the dictation of British banking and financial interests. The large Irish Catholic element, influential particularly in the Labour Party, shares much of the traditional Irish hostility to the British. Yet all these factors hardly detract from the strong and unquestioned attachment of Australia to Britain and the British