CHAPTER 5

An Unwelcome Ally

Following the arrival of a new U.S. administration in 1953, the British government resumed its efforts to improve its position in the Asia-Pacific. The need for greater influence in the region would only become more pressing as there began a serious shift of strategic focus by Australia away from the Middle East and toward Southeast Asia, which the United Kingdom and to a lesser extent New Zealand were keen to arrest. France’s military difficulties in Indochina had encouraged Australia’s decision to shift strategic emphasis, which also increased the risk of New Zealand mirroring such behavior. This potential redirection of antipodean interests presented a major challenge to the United Kingdom’s defense plans for prioritizing security in Western Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East by diverting the resources of the wider British Commonwealth.

The United Kingdom again sought membership in ANZUS but also offered an alternative in the form of a Pacific security pact. This larger alliance would provide a more comprehensive global defense umbrella that would allow the British government to continue to prioritize the defense of its preferred regions. The United States rejected such proposals, fearing that any Pacific security pact would inevitably involve greater contributions to the region and risked drawing it into the defense of other territories. U.S. policymakers and diplomats again used the concept of race to defend British exclusion, however, rather than stressing strategic or economic concerns. In contrast to the events of the preceding year, the United States reacted more forcefully against British efforts and adopted rougher diplomacy with Australia and New Zealand. Formal cooperation between all four powers in the Asia-Pacific looked unlikely by the close of 1953.

Redoubled Efforts

From early 1953 onward, Churchill redoubled his efforts to join ANZUS or, if this proved impossible, to undermine the treaty and encourage the creation of an alternative that would include British membership. In the estimation of British policymakers, ANZUS had resulted in a contradictory situation whereby existing arrangements within the ANZAM understanding produced overlapping areas of interests, but the organizations were answerable to different authorities.1 The British government proposed to Australia and New Zealand that all three states should seriously reexamine their existing ANZAM security commitments. London sought to give clear evidence to both Canberra and Wellington that it was far more concerned with the Asia-Pacific than had hitherto been the case. While Churchill was not placing the region on par with the Middle East or Europe, he was providing a clear sign that the region’s security was important. The prime minister believed that further consultative measures would improve ANZAM, which would consequently dwarf ANZUS, and could encourage Australia and New Zealand to insist that ANZUS incorporate ANZAM defense planning. Such developments would in turn provide the United Kingdom with a greater influence over strategic decision making in the Asia-Pacific region.²

The gradual recovery of the British economy and the development of an indigenous nuclear weapons program afforded Churchill’s suggestions of a more active foreign policy a greater degree of credibility.³ His designs were somewhat ambiguous, however, as he was proposing both the creation of a Five Power Staff Agency, comprising the United States, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and France as well as a broader Pacific Defense Pact, which would bring together these five powers with the Philippines, Singapore, Malaya, India, and Pakistan. In a sign that Churchill understood the necessity to placate U.S. racial arguments previously used against him, the inclusion of these “nonwhite” states helped undermine the arguments against a broader security alliance that included the United Kingdom.⁴ Although it seems unlikely that British policymakers fully accepted U.S. arguments about race, they nevertheless conceded the need to engage with them.

Churchill had his first opportunity to see whether he could gain support for his new plans when he met with Menzies and Holland in December 1952 during the London Economic Conference. The British prime minister made, as the Australian delegation noted, “the usual arguments” for British inclusion in ANZUS. Menzies attempted to justify the continued exclusion of Britain. To push the United States too quickly on this subject, he reasoned, could bring an “end of effective planning and a grave danger to security of information.”5 Moreover, the Australian prime minister stressed that ANZUS was not designed to push the United Kingdom’s influence out of the Asia-Pacific. Rather, as he explained, it served to contain future Japanese or Chinese power throughout the region and to free up resources for use in the wider Cold War. Menzies also challenged accusations of disloyalty from the British press and sections of the Conservative Party. Australia had always served the British Empire and would continue to do so.⁶ The New Zealand prime minister went further in trying to address British concerns. Holland suggested that he supported Churchill’s proposal and “was convinced that satisfactory machinery leading to a ‘marriage of ANZUS and ANZAM’ could be achieved” along the lines advocated by Churchill, potentially as a prelude to “joint machinery” or detailed international planning for control of the Asia-Pacific, including Southeast Asia. Moreover, “admission of [the] United Kingdom as an observer in ANZUS would be quite insufficient,” given the lack of influence that such status provided.⁷

Menzies and Holland agreed to issue a communiqué at the end of the discussions, which stated that Australia would approach the United States for a “friendly discussion” about the future security provisions of the Asia-Pacific.⁸ Menzies had also given his support to Churchill’s idea of a Pacific security agreement and consequently avoided descent into a broader political confrontation. As one contemporary report noted, the meeting between the prime ministers managed to “sooth” relations between the three countries.⁹ Yet Menzies and Holland had not done so at the expense of relations with the United States. By agreeing to have a “friendly discussion” with Washington about ANZUS, the Australian prime minister provided only vague assurances to London and did not commit to a definite course of action. Holland had gone further in suggesting a “marriage of ANZUS and ANZAM,” but this remained a vague solution. Nor did Holland propose anything to which Menzies had not already indicated he was supportive, stating only that it was necessary to “arrange liaison on high military level between ANZUS and ANZAM.”¹⁰ Given that a new administration was now in power in Washington, a “friendly discussion” on a matter of supreme importance to Australian interests was a natural undertaking. Thus, by the exercise of astute diplomacy, Menzies had placed any responsibility for altering ANZUS squarely with the United States.

President Eisenhower came to office in January 1953. Eisenhower had secured an overwhelming electoral victory, aided in large part by rising fears of the Communist threat and the United States’ impasse in the Korean War.11 Churchill believed that this changed situation provided him with a valuable opportunity for advancing Britain’s ambitions concerning ANZUS. During World War II, both men had worked closely together as Eisenhower rose up the ranks to assume the position of supreme allied commander and led the liberation of occupied Europe. The prime minister believed that he would be able to exploit his personal relationship with the president to help guide U.S. foreign policy along a course more amenable for British interests. As Churchill viewed matters, Eisenhower’s election to office was an opportunity to bolster his chances of exercising influence over policymaking in the United States.¹²

Many U.S. political commentators seemed to suggest that Churchill’s ideas for expanding ANZUS would meet with a receptive audience in the new Eisenhower administration.¹³ Such hopes soon proved illusory. While always respectful of Churchill, Eisenhower believed that given his age he was no longer suitable for public office in the changed circumstances of the Cold War. As the president suggested, perhaps regrettably given his successor’s eventual performance during the Suez Crisis, the prime minister should have moved over for younger men.¹⁴ Churchill would never enjoy the degree of influence over Eisenhower that he initially believed possible, especially given the economic and strategic risks his proposals posed to the United States.

Eisenhower’s decision to appoint John Foster Dulles as his secretary of state dealt a blow to British ambitions. Dulles had demonstrated during the ANZUS and Japanese peace treaty negotiations, as well as in the question of recognizing the People’s Republic of China, that he was willing to challenge British interests in the Asia-Pacific.¹⁵ Churchill and Eden also disliked Dulles for what they believed was his overly moralistic and legalistic approach to foreign affairs. Dulles had a long history of advocating Christian principles in U.S. foreign policy. During his tenure as the chairman of the Federal Council of Churches’ Commission in the 1930s, for example, he openly criticized the legitimacy of European colonialism. Dulles had become even more vehemently committed to such principles in the decade before he took office for a mixture of idealistic reasons and political expediency.¹⁶ British statesmen feared that Dulles’s Christianity would encourage him to engage the United States in some sort of neo-crusade against the godless Communist powers. The secretary of state’s public claims attacking the Truman administration’s policy of “containment,” engaging in the “rollback” of Soviet Communism, and public musings about nuclear weapons did little to quell London’s fears about Dulles.17 His sanctimonious demeanor only exacerbated tensions. Eden’s frustration with Dulles was clear in his statement that he had found Nazi foreign minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop easier to handle.¹⁸ Churchill’s first meeting with Dulles as secretary of state went so poorly that in a fit of pique, he declared he would have nothing further to do with him.¹⁹

Dulles had originally negotiated the terms of ANZUS, and so his appointment suggested no change in U.S. policy toward Britain’s membership in the treaty. Achieving a greater say in Asia-Pacific strategy was also unlikely given Dulles’s lack of sensitivity to British opinion throughout the negotiations for the Japanese peace treaty. For the secretary of state, only the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and Japan could act as great powers throughout the region; the British were only of importance to the Middle East and Europe. As Dulles noted to MacArthur, “The United States and Japan are the only significant sources of Western power in the Pacific, we actual, they potential.”²⁰ Eisenhower had also signaled his belief that the British should concentrate their efforts on areas much closer to home. Churchill chose to ignore these signals and remained determined that the United Kingdom should retain influence in the Asia-Pacific region.²¹

Eisenhower’s major priorities were U.S. relations with the Soviet Union, checking the rise of Communist China, balancing the federal budget, and limiting the growth of federal power inside the United States. When it came to U.S.-UK relations, the president was far more concerned with intelligence and nuclear cooperation alongside developments in the Middle East.²² British grievances about ANZUS were therefore of limited concern. The president had been careful not to commit to any specific policies in relation to the treaty.²³ As Dulles noted about the Churchill-Eisenhower meeting in January 1953, “Mr. Churchill made it very plain that he was much put out by the exclusion of Great Britain from the ANZUS Council and went through the familiar arguments as to why Great Britain should be included. General Eisenhower was apparently non-committal.”²⁴

During these discussions, Churchill requested full membership in ANZUS or, at the very least, for Britain to secure observer status in the organization.²⁵ Once again, however, U.S. officials demurred and suggested that British membership was not at this point possible.²⁶ In an effort to overcome arguments that British membership in ANZUS would establish a “white man’s pact,” London proposed that the treaty could be turned into a broader Pacific security pact that included “nonwhite” countries. The United States rejected these proposals. As private discussions in Washington reveal, racial inclusion failed to convince policymakers of the merits of a broader Pacific security pact. The proposal instead only stoked fears of additional and unwanted economic and military contributions to the region.27

New Zealand and Australia were aware that Churchill had made a “tremendous plug” to Eisenhower for British membership in ANZUS and that he had suggested the merging of ANZAM and ANZUS planning.²⁸ In February 1953, Churchill put forward a more detailed proposal for the creation of a Five Power Staff Agency—which would bring together the United States, Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand to discuss and plan logistical, intelligence and “operational planning to counter Chinese aggression.” He also proposed the establishment of a “central machinery” to govern allied strategy in the Asia-Pacific.²⁹ Such proposals were deeply concerning for the Menzies government. As Percy Spender warned Canberra from Washington: “I know the grand old man [Churchill] does not like ANZUS and will do his best to reduce it to bare bones—perhaps by putting forward the Five Power Staff Agency, and by seeking agreement to broad political directives—which can always be interpreted as one is disposed to interpret them—directed to the Staff agency. But we have achieved a special place in the Pacific through ANZUS and I know you will forgive me when I say, we must hang on to it.”³⁰ Spender’s advice reflected the strategic and political rewards that ANZUS afforded Australia. If London could attain some sort of separate agreement with Washington, it could potentially marginalize Canberra’s interests. Although keen to protect the treaty, Wellington was less apprehensive, believing that Churchill’s intervention would not necessarily lead to disastrous results for the future of ANZUS.³¹

To Canberra, London was simply unable to accept the realities of the postwar world where Menzies, and not Churchill, would agree to alterations in Australia’s security policies. The Five Power Staff Agency or the creation of some “central machinery” to coordinate allied strategic policy was especially concerning as Australian officials perceived it as a potential downgrade to Australia’s status vis-à-vis the United States. The Australian government currently enjoyed direct access to Admiral Radford in Honolulu whereby it could discuss Asia-Pacific planning. The establishment of the Radford-Collins Agreement allowed for the coordination of ANZAM and United States’ plans for a maritime war in the Asia-Pacific.³² As the Joint Chiefs in Washington noted, the “exchange of intelligence” and “plans with Australia” was ongoing through the Radford channel.³³ Agreeing to some new organization risked future access to U.S. strategic planning. Furthermore, reexamining the entire ANZAM concept was a concern for Australian diplomats, who feared the British idea was a ploy designed to destroy ANZUS because of their continued exclusion from the organization.³⁴

The fashion in which the British had put their proposals forward for reexamining the ANZAM concept, which they pushed via military and not diplomatic channels, also raised concerns for Australian and New Zealand policymakers. While the British Joint Chiefs of Staff routinely entered into discussions with their antipodean partners, it was evident that these talks did not focus on purely military matters. Instead, the latest proposals put forward by the British clearly had a number of political and diplomatic matters on the agenda, which included the relationship of the United Kingdom to ANZUS, the future of ANZAM planning, and the Australian attitude to the British-inspired plan for a broader Pacific security pact. Canberra was therefore concerned that London would pressure Australia and New Zealand into undertaking major alterations to each state’s security commitments through the back door, thereby antagonizing the United States.35

As Australian concern grew, British efforts began to encounter greater opposition in Canberra. Alan Watt, the secretary of the Department of External Affairs, remarked that the British proposals were all designed to “submerge ANZAM and ANZUS in a wider arrangement and to put Australia on the fringe.”³⁶ Other influential policymaking figures inside the Menzies government were similarly skeptical about British motivations concerning a reexamination of ANZAM. Churchill’s style of diplomacy was also increasingly unpopular. Menzies, for instance, described one letter from Churchill on this subject as a “stinker.”³⁷ The Australian government decided that it would defer making any firm decisions. As Watt informed the United States, it was unwise at this stage to allow British membership in ANZUS.³⁸ In a further blow to British ambitions, Canberra informed London that military talks about ANZAM could be undertaken but this would be the only matter for discussion. Under no circumstance would talks about ANZAM be allowed to develop into a discussion about Britain’s relationship to ANZUS.³⁹

Canberra nevertheless recognized that British proposals could offer some potentially valuable political leverage in their dealings with Washington. Churchill’s proposed Pacific security pact was especially useful because it could encourage a major U.S. military commitment to the Asia-Pacific region, which had been a long-term ambition of Australian foreign policy. Canberra perceived such a security commitment to be increasingly important as intelligence assessments suggested that the region would be an area of growing strategic competition in the Cold War.⁴⁰ Such developments, however, could not come at the expense of existing agreements. One memorandum by the Australian minister for external affairs and defense clearly articulated such thinking: “It is an essential Australian interest that there should be effective defence arrangements in the Pacific and South East Asia … it must be ensured that any new arrangement preserves both the status and advantages now enjoyed by Australia throughout membership of ANZAM and ANZUS. It will also be desirable to devise means by which the sensitivity of some Asian states at exclusion from such arrangements can be kept to a minimum.”41 Australian policy-makers remained conscious that ANZAM and ANZUS held overlapping interests despite being answerable to different authorities.⁴² The Menzies government was therefore in agreement with its British counterparts that the outstanding questions related to the relationship between ANZAM and ANZUS had to be resolved. New Zealand military officials shared this opinion. Air Commodore Cyril Kay had pushed for this discussion to take place during a meeting with his British and Australian counterparts in London in February 1953.⁴³ Nevertheless, while all three powers sought greater clarity on the ANZUS-ANZAM issue, Canberra clearly differed from Wellington and London on the preferred answer to such questions.

Following the advice of his defense and foreign ministers, Menzies concluded that in any reexamination of ANZAM, the United Kingdom would have to accept that Australia had a “special position” in the region.⁴⁴ Only then would Menzies consider whether military planning could be directly coordinated with ANZUS. Menzies appeared to be opening the door for the British government to achieve membership of ANZUS. By bringing together ANZAM with ANZUS, the Australian prime minister hoped that strategic planning in the region would come to reflect “reality” by making “the Americans realize the significance of ANZAM,” which would lead to a “system of liaison on high military level between ANZUS and ANZAM.”⁴⁵ If Menzies could successfully reinterpret the ANZAM arrangement, he could potentially obtain an improved position for Australia vis-à-vis the United States and United Kingdom. ANZAM would benefit from greater attention from the United Kingdom and cement Australian leadership in the strategic planning for the area. Marrying ANZAM to ANZUS could also potentially create an effective security alliance in the Asia-Pacific. U.S. policymakers consequently faced British and Australian pressure to reassess their existing Pacific security commitments. Reexamining U.S. commitments to the region and to the entire ANZUS concept would become a subject for serious discussion throughout the summer and winter of 1953.

The reaction of the New Zealand government to Churchill’s proposals for a Five Power Staff Agency was rather more relaxed than that of the Menzies government. Wellington took a detached position whereby it monitored the evolving diplomacy between Canberra and London before assuming any firm policies itself. As New Zealand officials accurately noted, “Australia is particularly apprehensive lest the Five Power Agency resolve itself into a NATO type Standing Group of France, United States and the United Kingdom with Australia and New Zealand out in the cold.”46 Wellington had not yet adopted a position on the proposal but soon came under pressure from London and Canberra to support their respective approaches to the creation of the five-power agency. Canberra was especially keen to shore up support. Menzies wrote to Holland requesting that Wellington back Canberra’s stance toward London, namely that Churchill had to clarify what he meant by a five-power agency before either country could endorse its creation.⁴⁷ Wellington eventually agreed to follow Canberra’s lead. Both antipodean powers agreed that prudence was required at this stage. With the details still unclear, there was little advantage in pressing ahead too quickly.⁴⁸

Debating Inclusion

British, Australian, and New Zealand suggestions that the United States needed to reassess its Asia-Pacific security commitments met with considerable opposition in the U.S. Economic considerations help explain much of the resistance. To be sure, existing security arrangements provided a measure of economic reward for the United States. ANZUS, for instance, provided a forum in which the United States could ask the antipodean powers to make trade concessions and support the restoration of Japan.⁴⁹ Nevertheless, U.S. Treasury Secretary George Humphrey warned Eisenhower soon after the president took office that existing levels of U.S. public expenditure were unsustainable. Cost savings were essential, which would include significant reductions in the defense budget. The president had complained at length before entering the White House about the Truman administration’s profligacy. For Eisenhower, economic imperatives meant that the United States would have to devise a different strategy for fighting the Cold War. This would come about in the form of the “New Look” national security strategy, which attempted to better balance military commitments with financial resources.⁵⁰

In one cabinet session held soon after Eisenhower entered office, Humphrey talked at length about the dangers inherent in the United States’ economic position if it continued to run current account deficits, which partially reflected substantial rises in defense expenditure. In 1948, for example, the United States spent just under $11 billion on defense. When Truman left office, this figure had grown to approximately $50 billion.⁵¹ Humphrey argued that substantial cutbacks in U.S. defense expenditure were now required. Eisenhower’s cabinet were divided in their support of this recommendation. Dulles was especially keen to point out that defense cutbacks had broader strategic ramifications. Nevertheless, there was general acceptance that existing levels of public expenditure required substantial reduction. A new strategic posture was required that would reflect Eisenhower’s wish to reduce the size of government spending.52

Implementing this new strategic course involved difficult choices. An end to the war in Korea would achieve savings somewhere in the region of $5 billion per annum. Long-term savings would nevertheless have to come from the United States’ existing arsenal and changes to the makeup of its national force posture. After a summer of indecision and bureaucratic infighting, Washington agreed that the United States would reduce its reliance on conventional forces and rely more heavily on nuclear armaments. As Eisenhower argued, the Soviet Union would never challenge the core interests of the United States because of the risks of nuclear retaliation. Providing a similar deterrent in conventional terms was simply unaffordable.⁵³ Eisenhower also altered the premise of overall U.S. grand strategy. Under Truman, symmetrical containment had essentially been the basis of U.S. Cold War policy. Such a strategy meant that the United States met every action made by the Soviet Union with an equal and opposite reaction.⁵⁴ Eisenhower instead adopted an asymmetrical approach to containing the Soviet Union. The United States should identify its core interests and ensure they were not lost to the Soviet Union or its proxies. Areas such as Western Europe and the Middle East thus remained the highest priority, but the U.S. would now not necessarily meet Communist challenges in areas of lesser significance.

This alteration in U.S. strategy meant that the president had no intention of placing additional conventional forces into areas where considerable commitments already existed or expanding obligations elsewhere, which included the Asia-Pacific region. Eisenhower would therefore continue to reject suggestions that the United Kingdom gain membership in ANZUS for any such agreement could potentially obligate the United States to defend British interests in the region, such as Hong Kong and Malaya.⁵⁵ Churchill’s plan for a broader Pacific security pact was equally unwelcome, as it would require additional expenditure and resources to establish and maintain, as well as potentially drawing the United States into France’s open conflict in Indochina. Expanding ANZUS membership could also lead to the dilution of British commitments inside Europe or the Middle East if the United Kingdom was to move additional armed forces into the area. Furthermore, Australia and New Zealand could perhaps utilize British membership as leverage in convincing the United States to provide additional resources to the defense of the wider Asia-Pacific.

Concerns with appearing to act in a racist or in an imperial fashion also informed broader U.S. strategic considerations. The creation of ANZUS had already unsettled a number of Asian countries that claimed the United States had excluded them in favor of working with other Western powers in the defense of the region.56 As one U.S. official warned Dulles in January 1953, expanding ANZUS to include the United Kingdom would only “intensify that impression” and undermine U.S. relations with a number of key Asian states.⁵⁷ Senior U.S. officials suggested that British membership in ANZUS could also encourage “the implication that ANZUS represented either a revival of ‘western imperialism’ or an instrument of ‘white supremacy’” in the Pacific.⁵⁸ Racial sensitivities remained secondary to more pressing strategic concerns, however, which explains why this pact continued to exist with only “white powers.” Indeed, ANZUS was already fundamentally “Western” or a “white man’s club” without the United Kingdom, so the propaganda rewards of continued exclusion were relatively limited.

Yet the United States could not simply dismiss Churchill’s proposals concerning the Asia-Pacific given Britain’s global importance. The United States required the United Kingdom’s cooperation in upholding the Western financial system as well as containing the Soviet Union in Europe and throughout the Middle East. British military officers were also involved in the Five Power talks conducted in Honolulu to discuss Southeast Asia and Pacific security more broadly.⁵⁹ Yet in the Eisenhower administration’s assessment, the question of British participation in ANZUS, or a future Pacific security pact, was a peripheral issue that should not undermine U.S.-UK cooperation in other areas of vital significance. Eisenhower therefore sought to compartmentalize points of difference in order to push ahead with cooperation in Europe and the Middle East.

Dulles consequently looked at ways in which the United States could provide some type of a “gesture” that would placate British criticisms. Churchill’s persistence, despite opposition from Australian and U.S. officials, had eventually yielded the potential for some rewards. What this gesture would involve was unspecified but its limits were clear. In February, Dulles informed his Australian counterpart that he would prefer the United Kingdom to assume an “informal” association with ANZUS; he explicitly ruled out membership.⁶⁰ The British nevertheless sought membership in ANZUS—which they believed was the only way to influence events in the region significantly—or a new Pacific security pact. Dulles’s vague offer therefore proved unsatisfactory.

With Washington clearly opposed to British membership in ANZUS and critical of any new Pacific security pact, Canberra and Wellington had to reconsider their approach to the issue. Assessments about international threats in the Southern Hemisphere encouraged the Australian prime minister in his belief that it was essential to improve security provisions for the Asia-Pacific. The death of Stalin in March 1953 did little to change this position. A DEA briefing paper for Menzies remained skeptical of future cooperation or the possibility of a “peace opportunity” between East and West: “the phrase ‘change of heart’ is meaningless in this context: it implies a subjective approach to history which a communist by definition cannot accept…. The fundamental objective of Soviet and world-communist policy must remain the establishment of a communist world.”61 For the Australian government, Communist objectives in Asia remained ambitious and deeply threatening. Australian fears included the unification of Korea on Communist terms, the absorption of Formosa into the PRC, and the establishment of Communist rule throughout Indochina.⁶² New Zealand shared with Australia many concerns about the future of the Cold War in the Asia-Pacific. Doidge noted that “it will be a cardinal objective of Soviet policy to bring Japan within the Communist orbit.”⁶³ Others throughout New Zealand policymaking circles held similar assessments about the expansionist nature of the Communist powers and their ambition to seize territory throughout the Asia-Pacific.⁶⁴

In the estimation of Australia and New Zealand, which reflected the ongoing influence of domino theory on strategic thinking, the likelihood of Communist expansion throughout Southeast Asia was growing ever more likely. The latest successes of the Viet Minh in inflicting heavy losses on the French forces fighting the Indochina War caused concern that Communist intentions were not restricted to Vietnam only. If Communist forces assumed control of Vietnam, they would have a secure base in which to launch their revolutionary ambitions into Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. From here, revolution could spread to Malaya. The Menzies and Holland governments had committed to fight the Communist insurgency inside Malaya in part because of the fear that the country could function as a future Communist base to directly launch assaults against the Australian mainland. Obtaining sufficient security provisions therefore remained the central objective of policymakers in Canberra and Wellington.

Many antipodean policymakers saw Communist movements throughout the Asia-Pacific as a credible and growing threat to their own security interests.⁶⁵ The growing economic improvement of Japan and its reassertion as what one Australian report termed the “senior partner” in Asian diplomacy were also concerning. The antipodean powers recognized that the United States would want their support in the form of trade concessions to help Japan secure exports in Southeast Asia, which would certainly come at their expense.66 A mixture of fears that surrounded a reassertion of Japanese militarism and the growth of Communist advances lay at the heart of Australian and New Zealand thinking about why British proposals remained worthy of consideration. Despite the promise of ANZUS, military planning between the United States, Australia, and New Zealand had since failed to achieve the desired levels of military cooperation.⁶⁷

The Eisenhower administration’s unwillingness to provide additional resources for the Asia-Pacific region complicated efforts to improve the security situation for the Menzies and Holland governments. Both powers recognized that it was pointless to discuss how to defend areas such as Malaya within the framework of ANZUS without Britain being a part of the discussions.⁶⁸ The United Kingdom was providing the vast majority of forces for quelling the Communist insurgency inside Malaya. British naval assets would also be required to support the Australian Royal Navy if the sea-lanes were to remain open in the event of any Communist takeover of power in Southeast Asia.⁶⁹ From Canberra and Wellington’s perspective, it would be helpful to involve the United Kingdom in order to manage external security challenges effectively.

Nevertheless, Churchill’s ideas about ANZUS and ANZAM had become steadily less attractive to both Australian and New Zealand policymakers. They appreciated that the United States did not want Britain in ANZUS for its own set of reasons, and overcoming this obstacle appeared insurmountable. As such, discussing the subject of British membership in ANZUS would only delay discussion on other matters. Moreover, British plans for Pacific security did not necessarily prioritize Australian interests. One Australian briefing memorandum from the DEA makes this concern clear: “The United Kingdom wants a voice in Pacific strategy appropriate to her interests. These interests include not only the defence of United Kingdom possessions but also the opportunity to influence American policy on major strategic issues.” As the briefing starkly pointed out: “The United Kingdom tends to look at Pacific defence from a European point of view, her interests do not necessarily coincide with ours.”⁷⁰

New Zealand did not view British intentions to be quite as self-interested or manipulative as policymakers across the Tasman did. As far as Wellington perceived matters, it was essential to overcome the imbroglio over British membership in ANZUS to focus on the practical process of planning a credible defense for the broader Asia-Pacific region. Yet, as was well known in New Zealand circles, the United States remained opposed to such proposals: “One fact remains abundantly clear. The United States authorities have no present intention of establishing any agency, either on the political or military level, which would have overall responsibility for the regional defence of the Far East as NATO may be assumed to have in respect of Europe.”71 Without such a commitment, as the prime minister was warned, “ANZAM will be ineffective unless linked with United States for overall Pacific Defence.”⁷²

Differing interests concerning the promotion of security in the Asia-Pacific divided the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand despite a shared belief about the growing Communist menace throughout the Asia-Pacific and specifically in Southeast Asia. The United States had no enthusiasm for British plans to expand ANZUS or to establish a new Pacific security pact. Australia was less opposed to such ambitions and New Zealand remained sympathetic, but, largely because of U.S. resistance and the value they placed on ANZUS, both powers chose at this time not to promote British plans.

The British Commonwealth meeting of June 1953 saw these differing strategic assessments on how best to promote collective security come to a head. The briefing materials provided to Menzies by his staff reveal considerable apprehension about the meeting with Churchill due to continuing British exclusion from ANZUS.⁷³ Holland was keenly aware of the need to pacify British complaints.⁷⁴ Both the Australian and New Zealand governments had been right to worry about the outcome of these talks. As the U.S. ambassador to London informed Washington, there had been a “desultory and inconclusive private conversation on ANZUS” between Churchill and Menzies.⁷⁵ Newspaper reports went further, explaining that there was a clash between the two leaders. While Menzies would publicly describe such reporting as a “monstrous invention,” the minutes of the meeting appear to corroborate this assessment of events.⁷⁶

During this meeting with Menzies and Holland, Churchill took the opportunity to press his case about the current objectionable state of affairs.⁷⁷ Stressing that “very intimate relations … might be impaired in future if a solution were not found to the problem of planning Pacific strategy,” he concluded that “in view of the difficulty of associating the United Kingdom with ANZUS, some wider form of Pacific pact should be considered.”⁷⁸ It seems reasonable to conclude that Churchill’s comments were suggestive of a threat to reconsider current British security commitments to Australia and New Zealand if a solution to the current impasse failed to emerge.

Menzies refused to accept Churchill’s argument that the United Kingdom deserved membership in ANZUS. The suggestion of a new Pacific security also received little support. As Menzies explained, the idea was worthy of consideration but the matter needed more thought before Australian commitment would be given.79 After further discussions, Menzies made it clear that he would not allow the question of British admission to disrupt ANZUS. Holland likewise endorsed Menzies’s stance.⁸⁰ Churchill’s diplomacy was evidently failing to achieve its ambitions. With U.S. opposition clear, both antipodean leaders concluded that for the time being the status quo was preferable to seeking ANZUS expansion and running the risk of losing the American commitment.

The Melbourne Herald captured the essence of the meeting when it declared that Menzies had taken a “firm stand” over the issue of British membership to ANZUS.⁸¹ Press attention on this matter meant that the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand could no longer so easily hide their obvious disagreement concerning the future of security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. On returning to Australia, Menzies informed the press that “we understand and sympathize with the desire of Britain to be associated with ANZUS, but if America is not willing to extend the membership of ANZUS, there is nothing Australia … can do about it short of breaking up the treaty; and this we are not willing to do.”⁸² Such statements irritated Washington for they rightly believed Menzies was placing the blame for Britain’s ANZUS exclusion entirely and publicly on the Eisenhower administration. New Zealand officials instead appear to have avoided discussing the matter in public or in any detail. Nevertheless, both antipodean powers received a warning from Washington that apportioning blame on the Eisenhower administration was “contrary to the tripartite understanding.”⁸³

Australian sympathies to the British cause were now wearing thin. Menzies made it clear to his colleagues that he would no longer allow ANZUS to be “disrupted” by the question of British admission. In a prepared speaking note, he explained that he felt like a “battered punching ball” because of British criticism, stressing that “if you [UK] want to destroy ANZUS you’re going the right way about it.”⁸⁴ His foreign minister, Richard Casey, had also become adamantly opposed to British admission. Casey resented the implication that the Australians required British “hand holding” in any alliance with the United States. Moreover, Churchill’s ideas for a broader Pacific security pact could now endanger the existing U.S. security commitments to the Asia-Pacific. Eisenhower’s New Look strategy meant the United States would be looking to limit any further security commitments. Reopening the subject of ANZUS membership could therefore precipitate the Eisenhower administration’s reassessment of its entire commitment to Australian security.⁸⁵ Australian policymakers believed that the current political climate in Washington, which was becoming further embroiled in McCarthyism, would only encourage isolationist foreign policies.

Spender was particularly concerned with Churchill’s proposals. In a lengthy note from Washington, he warned of the dangers:

I specially want to stress, if we allow anything to interfere with ANZUS, whether on the political or military plane, we will lose the only means we have of any effective entry into USA political and military thinking at a high level and the intimacy which ANZUS unquestionably affords us. For the first time we have got a toe hold into the councils in USA which affect the world and its destiny at a high and acknowledged level through ANZUS. I cannot tell you how glad I am that you are resolved that we shall not relinquish it.86

Spender’s comments echoed opinion inside Canberra’s foreign policymaking elite, which believed that ANZUS’s real importance was that it “provides our one means of access to American thinking on global war.” Australia should therefore resist British proposals that could potentially disrupt this access.⁸⁷

The opinion of the Australian defense establishment also cautioned against hasty agreement with the British government. While cooperation with the United States had not been as full or as wide as initially hoped in Australian circles, there were some recent signs suggesting that the U.S. now considered ANZUS to be a proper security pact. As a case in point, Washington offered to dispatch a delegation to Melbourne to begin discussions on strategic planning. Admiral Radford’s promotion to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had also led to encouraging signs that the United States was now prepared to enter more comprehensive U.S.-Australian defense cooperation. Although the United States accepted that “there exists a sound basis for de facto” cooperation between ANZUS and ANZAM planning, it also signaled that it did not want ANZUS cooperation to become “married to ANZAM.”⁸⁸ Swiftly improving strategic cooperation between the U.S. and Australia was conspicuous given recent British offers of improved alliance cooperation. Delaying agreement with the British government therefore served Australian interests by encouraging and improving U.S. cooperation.⁸⁹

Canberra subsequently informed London in June 1953 that Australia had decided not to request that the United States allow British membership in ANZUS. Writing to Churchill, Menzies argued that “the ANZUS arrangement has political reality in New Zealand and the United States as well as in Australia. It is a political fact of the first magnitude. In any of these countries, moves which had the effect of destroying or even weakening this arrangement would be liable to serious misunderstanding.”⁹⁰ Familiar U.S. excuses had also taken root in the Southern Hemisphere by summer 1953. Australian policymakers suggested that British membership in ANZUS would create the impression that it would create a “white man’s club” and would therefore damage relations between its members and other Asian powers.91 This explanation was largely disingenuous as the decision to exclude the United Kingdom from ANZUS had more to do with U.S. pressure and Australia’s changing interests. The emergence of concerns about racial justice was curious given that they had not previously played a major role in Australian security panning. Such justifications were nevertheless useful to temper domestic and international criticism for unpopular policy choices.

In contrast, the New Zealand government had not yet given up hope of securing British membership for ANZUS. Its minister in Washington, Leslie Munro, quietly raised the issue of British membership with the U.S. State Department in July 1953. The U.S. position, however, remained consistent.⁹² U.S. reluctance was clear, but the State Department had hinted Washington could open talks with London about “joint planning under ANZAM-ANZUS on the defence of territories for which [the] United Kingdom were responsible.”⁹³ As Munro noted, this would be a “desirable line of development.”⁹⁴ Such optimism proved misplaced as Radford vetoed the opening of any talks with London about ANZUS-ANZAM defense discussions. For his part, Dulles believed that such talks were also unnecessary. Given the obvious lack of enthusiasm in Washington and Canberra for British membership in ANZUS, Wellington conceded that it would be better not to pursue the matter.⁹⁵ Much like their antipodean neighbor, New Zealand highly prized the ANZUS arrangement not least because it was the country’s only avenue by which to obtain access to the United States’ strategic thinking on the highest level.⁹⁶ This evidence tempers claims of the “ANZAC dilemma.” Australia and New Zealand may have felt “the pull between old habits of thought and emotion and the necessities imposed by geography and the present state of world affairs,” but their preferences were sufficiently clear to lessen the difficulty of any such choice.⁹⁷

The absence of any real support from the other members of the treaty had once again undermined Churchill’s ambition of obtaining ANZUS membership. The British prime minister, however, refused to accept defeat. Throughout the remainder of 1953, Churchill stepped up his diplomacy with the U.S. and Australia. His long-held commitment to British influence in the region, and an appreciation that ill health could soon remove him from office, drove Churchill’s unwillingness to accept exclusion from ANZUS.⁹⁸

Maintaining Exclusion

Antipodean rejection of Churchill’s proposals was hugely frustrating for London but failed to strike a decisive blow against British ambitions. Having achieved little with Australia and New Zealand, Churchill again looked across the Atlantic to see if ANZUS membership for the United Kingdom was possible. The British ambassador to Washington Sir Roger Makins, who had replaced Oliver Franks earlier in the year, met with U.S. representatives in September 1953 to press the case for British inclusion in ANZUS. Membership, he learned, was no longer a possibility for the United Kingdom. The explanations offered in defense of this position focused on familiar fears of a “white man’s club,” which would offend Asian sensibilities. Establishing a broader Pacific security pact was also unpopular as such an organization would involve French participation and thereby threatened to bring the United States directly into France’s Indochina war.99

As Dulles privately told the Australian government, expanding ANZUS into some broader Pacific security pact would only lead to a mess.¹⁰⁰ The Joint Chiefs of Staff were unequivocal in rejecting British membership in ANZUS. In their assessment, the British received a “free flow of information” on matters concerning ANZUS military planning so Britain’s actual membership was not required. Churchill’s continued demands for ANZUS membership therefore reflected “considerations pertaining to prestige” or “internal politics.”¹⁰¹ Although the assessments of the JCS had accurately identified some of the influences motivating British foreign policy, they downplayed or neglected many other pressing strategic concerns. For New Zealand’s part, there was a clear sense that the United States was growing increasingly impatient with the continual pressing for British membership in ANZUS. As Wellington was informed, efforts to even raise the issue of opening discussion about U.S. contributions to ANZAM defense had been brushed aside.¹⁰²

Explanations based on race, which still continued to obscure the pursuit of more pressing national interests, were empowered by the worsening position of France inside Indochina. As U.S. diplomats argued, extending ANZUS would be either a “racist” undertaking as it would be an exclusively “white man’s pact” inside Asia or a discriminatory one as it would not afford French membership, to which they were surely entitled given their interests in the region. Moreover, if France secured membership in ANZUS, Dulles suggested that it would give the impression that ANZUS was a “colonial organization.”¹⁰³ Consequently, the United States rebuffed Churchill’s proposals for either British membership in ANZUS or a new Pacific security pact.¹⁰⁴

In a further sign that the United States was determined to maintain ANZUS as an exclusive tripartite alliance, Dulles forcefully extinguished any lingering hopes that might exist in Canberra and certainly did exist in Wellington about supporting British membership in ANZUS. In a thinly veiled threat to any supporters of ANZUS expansion, the U.S. secretary of state made plain the consequences: “Efforts to enlarge ANZUS would result in its dissolution.”105 Although persuasion and compromise formed the bedrock of U.S. alliances during the Cold War, things were sometimes not so simple.¹⁰⁶ A communiqué issued at the end of the 1953 ANZUS Council meeting thus explicitly ruled out extending membership.¹⁰⁷ In the course of 1953, then, the antipodean powers had received veiled threats from both Britain and the United States concerning strategic abandonment. Even if such threats were unlikely to have been acted on, especially with the benefit of hindsight, they nevertheless underline the rough character of negotiations between Western powers at this time. Reinforcing Dulles’s rough diplomacy with Australia and New Zealand, the U.S. cemented its preference for existing arrangements without formal defense ties.

The issue of British membership in ANZUS had now reached its bitter conclusion. As the Melbourne Herald exclaimed, “ANZUS Ministers Say ‘No’ to Britain.”¹⁰⁸ The headline was accurate but obscured the fact that Dulles had insisted on British exclusion, just as he had during the original discussions in February 1951. Canberra and Wellington understood just how reluctant Washington was to allow British membership in ANZUS and finally bowed to its wishes on this matter.¹⁰⁹ Churchill’s hopes that Eisenhower’s ascension to the presidency would help the United Kingdom to gain access to ANZUS were evidently disappointed. Of the three members of ANZUS, only the New Zealand leadership remained hopeful that the United Kingdom could eventually join the organization. Holland, even after the latest round of talks with Dulles, suggested that Australia and New Zealand had to formulate a way of bringing the UK into ANZUS.¹¹⁰ It was Canberra, however, that suggested a partial solution in the form of offering London the right to discuss the military aspects of ANZUS planning privately. Both Washington and Wellington “raised no objection” to this proposal.¹¹¹

Nevertheless, the British could not be granted formal membership in ANZUS, nor could military planning between ANZUS or ANZAM or a combination of the Five Power Agency be merged.¹¹² By the end of the year, all three members of the ANZUS pact agreed to exclude the United Kingdom from the treaty. As the minutes of the ANZUS Council meeting of September 1953 read, “The Council affirmed its readiness to consider any measure which would strengthen the defense of the area. It unanimously concluded, however, that to attempt to enlarge its membership would not contribute materially to this end.”113

This final decision on the question of ANZUS expansion dealt a considerable blow to Churchill’s attempts to improve both Britain’s position throughout the Asia-Pacific and levels of strategic and economic cooperation among the Western powers in Southeast Asia. The ANZUS members, however, had to handle their British ally carefully. While the “mother country” could no longer provide for all the security needs of Australia and New Zealand, entrenched security, economic, political, and cultural ties remained in place. On the political front, Britain’s final omission from ANZUS sparked considerable protest inside the respective parliaments of Australia and New Zealand.¹¹⁴ Public diplomacy therefore followed, with Casey making a deliberate point of issuing a statement that British exclusion from ANZUS did not mean Australia was “drifting away from the British Commonwealth.”¹¹⁵ Wellington decided to avoid a public response and preferred to complain privately that they and Australia had been “unfairly subjected” to criticism by London.¹¹⁶

Washington was also keen to prevent disagreement over ANZUS affecting other areas of strategic cooperation with London. The U.S.-UK relationship involved extensive collaboration between the two powers, which senior U.S. policymakers were keenly aware helped promote U.S. interests. As Rad-ford put it, the U.S.-UK relationship was the “most important element in the defence of the free world.”¹¹⁷ Consequently, both Radford and Dulles requested that Canberra and Wellington inform London that all three members of ANZUS had unanimously agreed to exclude the United Kingdom. As Dulles further reminded his Australian and New Zealand colleagues, the entire security of the Western position would suffer from a serious chasm in U.S.-UK relations.¹¹⁸

It is important not to exaggerate the seriousness of the rift between the United States and United Kingdom over ANZUS. Both states recognized the need for continued strategic and economic cooperation in other parts of the world. Furthermore, the United States would soon welcome British support in the wider region. Owing to events in Indochina by the middle of the year, senior elements within the U.S. military had come to recognize the need for five-power planning, which would include the United Kingdom and France, for the defense of Southeast Asia. As such, Britain could now talk to the U.S. directly on the broader subject of security in the Asia-Pacific region and Southeast Asia in particular. Radford had not concluded, however, that military planning required any formal merging of ANZUS discussions with those taking place within the framework of ANZAM. Nor was Radford a convert to British membership to ANZUS. As Radford made clear to his antipodean opposite numbers earlier in the year, while “certain arrangements” had already been worked out at the military level between ANZUS and ANZAM, “no useful purpose would be served by establishing a formal relationship.”119

London issued a restrained statement, expressing only its pity at exclusion.¹²⁰ British policymakers nevertheless believed that the United Kingdom’s exclusion from ANZUS was wholly the fault of the United States. Understandably, Australian officials were keen to encourage the British to think in such ways. In contradiction to Dulles’s suggestion that the United Kingdom not learn that their exclusion was due to the U.S., Canberra informed London otherwise. Australian officials even noted the stern diplomacy Dulles had deployed against them to retain the exclusive tripartite nature of the ANZUS Treaty: “Mr Dulles at one stage professed readiness, if Australia and New Zealand, really wished it, to let the United Kingdom into Anzus. But he made it clear that if that happened, it would therefore be the end of Anzus as a treaty having any value to the three parties.”¹²¹

The antipodean powers made little mention of their own growing doubts about the consequences of British membership in ANZUS. Australia, having secured its security pact with the United States, was determined to hold on to it. Wellington remained more sympathetic to London’s plight, and conscious of British resentment, but recognized the need to pursue its own interests first. The comment of one senior New Zealand security planner captured this ambition succinctly: “I feel that so long as the United Kingdom are excluded (it is most difficult to see a way for them to come in) their opposition and suspicion of the Council will continue. But that, I hope, will not deter us from working it and securing our own interests here in the Pacific.”¹²² Ultimately, policymakers in Canberra and Wellington looked to promote their own security interests even if doing so created unease and irritation in London. Yet both the Menzies and Holland governments skillfully sought to shift any possible recriminations toward the Eisenhower administration and away from them.

By the close of 1953, Churchill’s expectations for obtaining British membership in ANZUS or establishing a new Pacific security treaty had radically diminished. As the Daily Telegraph correctly reported in the lead-up to the U.S.-UK Bermuda Conference in December, the British prime minister had decided not to push the case for membership of ANZUS with the U.S. president anymore. He also surrendered his Pacific security pact proposals. Churchill consequently left the subject alone during his discussions with Eisenhower. As he realized, the United States would not move on this subject, so it was counterproductive to aggravate relations when other important matters were open for discussion. Churchill was keen to obtain Eisenhower’s support for a great power summit to negotiate permanent solutions to geo-political differences and quietly shelved his pursuit of ANZUS.123

The ANZUS debacle had demonstrated the compartmentalization of the U.S.-UK relationship and the weakness of British power in relation to its superpower ally. Exclusion also mirrored global trends of comparative British decline and U.S. growth. In September, the United States finally reached agreement with Franco’s Spain to allow U.S. bases on Spanish soil. In Greece, the United States was pushing the Greek government to replace the existing Royal Navy’s mission with a U.S. one. Throughout the Middle East, British policymakers also believed that they were being pushed aside by the United States, even if such assumptions were questionable. When taken together it is unsurprising that commentators see this as a period of “Uncle Sam” superseding “John Bull” and of the United States ably assisting in Britain’s global decline.¹²⁴

The British Commonwealth’s strategic unity was also under growing strain by late 1953. The British Chiefs of Staff had rightly concluded that Australia was never going to provide the desired level of military force to the Middle East in the event of a global war. As such, it was now preferable to secure an Australian commitment to Malaya.¹²⁵ At subsequent talks conducted by the military staffs of all three countries in Melbourne in October, there was agreement that once the British Commonwealth Division from Korea had withdrawn, Australia would base two infantry battalions with supporting air and naval assets in Singapore permanently. In the event of a major war, Australia would now deploy its main forces to Malaya and not to the Middle East. Although the minutes of the meeting suggested “a cordial united family,” one of its members was exhibiting a far more independent attitude to global security.¹²⁶

Canberra had become increasingly concerned with events in Southeast Asia, in particular France’s precarious position in Indochina, which existed alongside ongoing tensions in Indonesia and Malaya. There were also ongoing doubts about U.S. security commitments in the region.¹²⁷ ANZUS had evidently failed to provide the desired level of access to U.S. military planning or to lead to the creation of joint staff talks. Nevertheless, the treaty provided a U.S. security guarantee, thereby presenting an alternative to the one supplied by the United Kingdom, which meant that Australia could be more flexible in the pursuit of its own security interests. In these circumstances, Australia now chose to prioritize its own regional security interests over those of the British Commonwealth.

Given these changed strategic realities, Australia would look to priori-tize the defense of its near north. During the ANZAM Council meeting of September 1953, Australian officials proposed the establishment of a British Commonwealth Strategic Reserve in Malaya, later known as the British Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve (BCFESR). This reserve would draw on forces from Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, in an effort to deter potential Communist Chinese aggression. Briefing material in preparation for this meeting reveals that Australia was clearly pushing for this change in policy.128 The Australians were worried that the United States would not be supportive of this policy shift. Prior to the ANZUS Council meeting, Australian officials had exhibited concerns that Dulles would push for them to increase commitments in the Middle East.¹²⁹ Yet there is limited evidence of any such reaction. As Australia announced the decision in an ANZAM Council meeting, the United States was not yet immediately aware of such proposals. Events in Indochina in the coming months, however, would help to override any concerns about this shift in strategic focus.

In the following months, the Australians entered detailed discussions with their New Zealand counterparts about reconsidering their efforts in the ANZAM region.¹³⁰ Subtly divergent policy preferences soon emerged. Although Wellington increasingly appreciated the dangers posed by Communism in Southeast Asia, and recognized shifting strategic circumstances in Europe, it urged Canberra to lessen the speed at which it was seeking to push through these major strategic planning adjustments. New Zealand policy-makers remained wedded to the idea that the Middle East, and not Southeast Asia or the near north as argued in Australian circles, should be the priority for British Commonwealth defense planning for the time being.¹³¹ Strategic thinking in Wellington mirrored Washington and London in prioritizing the resources and geographical position of the Middle East in the event of a global war with the Communist powers, and planning reflected this reality.¹³² While New Zealand accepted that its air forces would be required in Malaya in the event of a global war, it remained committed to sending its infantry division to the Middle East.¹³³ Practical considerations also informed thinking in Wellington. Any planning for defending the broader ANZAM region would require the cooperation of London and Paris, both of which had considerable military resources in the area. Planning without their cooperation would therefore be ineffective, a point that New Zealand diplomats and military officers explained forthrightly to their Australian counterparts and was a point on which they seemed to agree.¹³⁴

The decision by the Australian government to prioritize its strategic planning to the near north and Southeast Asia in particular was significant because it signaled the end of any pretense to a global British Commonwealth strategic defense policy. A key Commonwealth country was now prioritizing its own regional security to the detriment of any broader global plans. Furthermore, by shifting its security focus, Australia had managed to encourage the British government to look more closely at Southeast Asia and establish some sort of formal defense planning for the region. It is no coincidence that once the Australian government had confirmed its decision to prioritize the defense of Southeast Asia, the United Kingdom urged the United States to turn the current ad hoc discussions into “a political and military command structure along NATO lines for Southeast Asia.”135 By playing a greater and more formal role in Australia’s local security issues, the United Kingdom could promote its own preferences within broader British Commonwealth defense planning.

Although London was now willing to suggest that a new defense organization should emerge along the lines of NATO, Washington remained adamantly opposed. U.S. policymakers still preferred bilateral security agreements, as evidenced by the U.S.–Republic of Korea defense treaty of October 1953.¹³⁶ Yet support for formal strategic cooperation would soon emerge as growing threats made the region more important than ever before. The military situation inside Southeast Asia had deteriorated for the French throughout the second half of the year, and Western fears of Communist intervention in Indochina were rising. The United States would soon look to other countries for support in its defense of the region. Such interest in Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific more broadly would finally provide an opportunity to establish a formal strategic alliance comprising the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.