Abstract
Australian defence and foreign policy experienced a great shift in 1942. From that year on, the nation began to think of itself as an independent entity, and a key player in Southeast Asia. The first armed conflict that Australian units participated in after the end of the Second World War was the Malayan Emergency, where all service branches contributed forces to the successful counterinsurgency war. The aim of this article is, firstly to look at the events and factors that initiated this shift in Australian policy, and secondly to analyse the forces the nation committed to fighting the Emergency. This analysis includes the fighting forces of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Army as well as the Navy.
Highlights
Australian Involvement in the Malayan EmergencyAustralian defence and foreign policy experienced a great shift in 1942
Australia’s relationship with Southeast Asia has always been a very interesting and at the same time a significant one
In a minutes entitled Trends of Events in SE Asia and dated the 14th of November 1954, Anthony Head, Secretary of State for War of the United Kingdom writes to UK Prime Minister Anthony Eden urging the swift creation of “a joint Australian, New Zealand, American and British planning organisation which can consider the whole situation and make proposals for stiffening up the defence of Malaya against subversion etc., in a cold war.” [5: 80] The ink had barely dried on the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) agreement—signed on the 8th of September—yet one of the founding nation’s Secretary of War already thought of a new organization to sufficiently deal with the Malayan situation
Summary
Australian defence and foreign policy experienced a great shift in 1942. The nation began to think of itself as an independent entity, and a key player in Southeast Asia. The aim of this article is, firstly to look at the events and factors that initiated this shift in Australian policy, and secondly to analyse the forces the nation committed to fighting the Emergency. This analysis includes the fighting forces of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Army as well as the Navy.
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