Conclusion

The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand had all cooperated closely in the Second World War. In the postwar period, they continued to enjoy close relations in many quarters and came to recognize the potential for future global conflict. All four states’ interest in securing the Asia-Pacific grew steadily in response to the evolving Communist threat in the region. Formalized cooperation could have allowed policymakers in each country to prepare for these threats more effectively, helping them to share the burdens of containment in the region as well. Progress toward mutual security planning was nevertheless slow and difficult.

Scholars who focus on power politics to explain state behavior will find much in the archives to support their claims. All four states prioritized security in the main, pursued their own interests, and struggled to fully understand the intentions of their allies as well as their rivals.1 Competing security assessments certainly explain much of the Western powers’ dis-unity in the Asia-Pacific. These states shared many threats, to be sure, but they could also interpret them differently. For instance, domino theory increasingly informed strategic planning in Washington, London, Canberra, and Wellington in the postwar period. Yet policymakers in all four capitals often concluded that these dominoes could fall in different directions at different times.² As such, what alarmed one state could prove far less threatening to another, which complicated planning and undermined strategic cooperation.

The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand dealt with problems that arose in their strategic relations with each other largely through negotiation. Nevertheless, relations between these democratic states were not always smooth; rough diplomacy did sometimes occur.3 Defection was never contemplated, but all four states made limited threats of abandonment to advance their interests. The United States threatened to withdraw from ANZUS, for instance, to squash antipodean calls for British membership in the treaty. During the negotiations preceding the ANZUS Treaty, the antipodean powers intimated that they were willing to reassess their commitments to the Middle East if a U.S. security guarantee was not forthcoming. The United Kingdom also employed similar threats to Australia and New Zealand in pursuit of membership in the same security pact.

However close these four powers might have been to one another, they remained separate, sovereign states with their own economic and military interests. The United States and the United Kingdom were reluctant to surrender scarce resources to the Asia-Pacific, which they considered to be of lesser strategic significance than Europe or the Middle East, up until the 1950s. The cost of collective security was merely one strand of each state’s broader economic interests. The Cold War had divided the world into two economic blocs, but significant disagreements persisted among Western states in their own bloc.⁴ Trade policies and broader financial considerations slowed progress toward formalized strategic cooperation. Tensions between the United States and the British Commonwealth states concerning the revival of Japan or its inclusion in any alliance, for instance, were more than merely the result of strategic differences about how best to effectively oppose Communism in the Asia-Pacific. Disagreements also reflected competing ideas about economic practices in the wider region, most notably the persistence of the imperial preference system between members of the British Commonwealth and the challenges to international trade posed by the revival of a significant competitor in the region.

Security and economic concerns were important but represent only two drivers of strategic disunity. The archives also offer some support for scholars’ attempts to explain international politics with reference to domestic politics and social or cultural influences.⁵ Doubts about public support, concerns about reelection, or respect for the norms of democratic behavior informed decision making in all four capitals. Leaders were sometimes reluctant to cooperate with one another when facing potentially unpopular outcomes. Perceptions about foreign peoples and national identities also influenced U.S., British, Australian, and New Zealand actions in the Asia-Pacific as political scientists have claimed.6 The international composition of ANZUS and SEATO, for instance, reflected more than just security or economic concerns. Nevertheless, domestic-political and ideational forces should be understood in conjunction with security and economic-based concerns. Leaders sometimes justified their decisions in disingenuous or misleading ways. Although political concerns or ideas about race and imperialism could certainly drive and deter foreign policies, governments sometimes used them to downplay or legitimize the pursuit of strategic or economic interests that were more difficult to justify to domestic and international audiences.

Archival research in four countries, focusing on policymaking over the course of a decade, helps refine and advance the work of historians and political scientists. The historiography has tended to overlook or downplay the significance of imperialism and race, international economics, and domino theories in complicating postwar diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific.⁷ Scrutiny of relevant government and private papers also helps political scientists, and scholars of international relations in particular, by informing their theoretical and empirical claims. Detailed analysis of high-level decision-making casts light on the foreign policies of democratic states and the intricacies of international security cooperation.⁸ A deeper appreciation of quadrilateral diplomacy helps us grasp the complex and shifting nature of strategic dis-unity in the early Cold War.

Complications befell the security agreements that emerged in the Asia-Pacific in the 1950s. ANZUS continued to function as a limited security alliance but failed to survive in its tripartite form following New Zealand’s suspended membership in 1985. SEATO would face ongoing military and economic challenges and, following Communist success in Indochina, eventually dissolved in 1977. Focusing on the limitations of these security agreements, however, threatens to obscure their historical significance. Closer attention to ANZUS and SEATO helps cast light on key events in the early Cold War, ranging from the emergence of a lenient Japanese peace treaty through to the withdrawal of antipodean military commitments in the Middle East and Mediterranean. Agreements reached in this period also help explain the participation of Australia and New Zealand in the Vietnam War and Britain’s absence from the conflict.⁹ An analysis of ANZUS and SEATO highlights the complexity and difficulty of international cooperation. Security treaties do not always emerge naturally or efficiently in the face of shared and significant threats.