No foreign policy is conducted in a void. The words themselves imply a definition of relationship: a foreign policy operates within an international framework which is not itself rigid but subject, from the pressure of change, to constant alteration in form. The period of this volume, 1961–65, was one in which Australia, in response to new challenges, achieved a degree of maturity in both the shaping and the execution of policy. In narrow Australian terms, it opened with events which by 1962 had produced a major diplomatic defeat for Australia in the outcome of the West New Guinea dispute; it was to close with a remarkable Australian diplomatic success in the conduct of relations with Indonesia. The basic objective of policy, the safety of Australia itself, was consolidated and indeed secured for a foreseeable time by the United States relationship. But this was coupled with large uncertainties about the extent and nature of the growing political, military, and economic involvement in South-East Asia, and perhaps Asia generally.

The international outlook of any community, at any stage in its development, is likely to be determined very largely by the interaction of four overlapping factors: geographic position with its strategic requirements; racial composition and resulting prejudices; economic interests, actual and potential, and, by no means least in importance, traditional policies and ideological trends. The relative strength of these several influences varies from period to period. Their individual content may change considerably under pressure of events either inside or outside the community, including the impact of party politics and of powerful personalities. They nevertheless have much to contribute to an understanding of the involved and complicated behaviour patterns of democratic societies in their relations with foreign states and peoples.

The principal objective of defence policy is national security. National security is, of course, concerned with far more than the state of the armed forces. The level of military power is dependent on a host of complexities including national assessments about the external environment, the scope for conflict with potential adversaries and the help that might be expected from allies.

A radical is one who recommends fundamental reform. Since change of an essential sort can be effected by those who stand on either the right or the left of the political spectrum, radicalism is a diverse calling, descriptive of very different doctrinal positions indeed. However far apart we think these endpoints might be, they also possess certain characteristics in common. In this respect the left/right continuum is not linear, but circular, the extremes bending back like a key-ring to where they lie parallel, though still of course separate and opposed.

Despite all the burgeoning ’Institutes of Futurology’, the record of predictions of political events has been, up to date, most unimpressive. Wisdom after the event has been the most ego-preservative role of political scientists. Nevertheless, attempts to foresee at least parts of the future, often in the hope of making preparations to absorb, or even to redirect process of social and political change, seem to be a psychological necessity for man.

It has been remarked in earlier volumes in this series that the pattern of Australia’s relations with the United Nations to a degree can be categorised according to the personnel principally involved. Thus, one may refer with some validity to an Evatt period and to a Spender- Casey period. The period under review here, 1961–65, does not lend itself easily to a similar identification. Dr Evatt held the External Affairs portfolio in the Curtin and Chifley Governments throughout most of the 1940’s; his successors in Menzies Governments, Sir Percy Spender and (the then) Mr R. G. Casey, were of similar mind and, with Sir Percy later moving freely between his embassy in Washington and the United Nations in New York, they were closely associated throughout most of the 1950’s in the United Nations context.

“Instead of living in a tranquil corner of the globe, we are now on the verge of the most unsettled region of the world.” In these words the Minister for External Affairs, Mr. R. G. Casey, neatly summarised both the main problem of Australian foreign affairs and the changed situation in which any policy framed by an Australian Government must now function. It may also, perhaps, be thought that the Minister’s words convey a hint of that wistful regret for a more simple, clearly defined, situation which is still prominent in the attitude of most Australians towards the complex problems of the New Asia. It all used to be so easy: there was Britain, controlling the seas, ruling in her Indian Empire the main land mass of southern Asia. Holland occupied the regions immediately adjacent to Australia; peaceful, civilised Holland. The French in Indo-China removed that area from any need for consideration. China was weak, divided, and dominated by the foreign powers. There was only Japan, a real but distant menace.

Australian interests in the Middle East in general and the Suez area in particular have traditionally been of two kinds: military and economic. Imperial and Australian defence planning in the first half of the twentieth century had been based on the assumption that there would be a string of imperial bases between London and Singapore or Darwin which would make effective Commonwealth defence plans in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean areas. Gibraltar, Malta, Suez, Aden, Colombo and Singapore had been the normal naval and/or air bases regarded as vital to the safeguarding of the Dominions east of Suez. Commonwealth security had been maintained through dominant British influence at key strategic points along what had frequently been described as the jugular vein of the Commonwealth. It was for this reason that Australian forces had served in the Middle East in two world wars. Political and economic stability in the sensitive Middle Eastern area was regarded as a matter of vital concern to the Commonwealth as a whole.

From time to time, the Commonwealth parliament in Canberra hears a formal ministerial statement on foreign affairs in which the minister expresses his government’s view of current international developments and lists the fundamental bases of its foreign policy. Over a period, these lists show interesting priority variations but in the case of one item, the United Nations, variation is not quite the right term. In March 1947, for example, the priorities listed by the Labor government’s Dr H. V. Evatt were: first, full support for the United Nations; second, stronger British Commonwealth ties; third, regional participation; fourth, area security arrangements with the United States and others. His successor in the Liberal-Country Party coalition government, P. C. (later Sir Percy) Spender, in his first statement of principles on 9 March 1950, raised the American security alliance to second place and dropped the United Nations to fourth, and at that hedged by reservations.

On first inspection the five years from 1976 to 1980 appear to be a period of little moment in the history of Australian defence policy. No Australian servicemen were engaged in combat, no direct threat to Australia emerged even of a minor nature, no far-reaching organisational changes in the armed services or the Department of Defence took place, and relatively little new equipment found its way into the hands of the Defence Force. Moreover, the Liberal-National Country Party government retained office throughout the period, defence policy being a minor issue in the elections of 1977 and 1980, and Mr D.J. Killen remained Minister for Defence. Nor, despite early projections, did defence spending increase significantly between 1976 and 1980, fluctuating between 2.6 per cent and 2.8 per cent of Gross Domestic Product.

Perhaps the most important question to be examined in a review of Australian defence policy during 1971–75 is how much fundamental change occurred. There is a strong prima facie case for holding that the period was the most consequential five years for Australian defence policy since the Second World War. The change of governing parties in late 1972 marked the end of an era when foreign and defence policy issues played a significant part in determining the outcome of the seven successive general elections won by the Liberal and Country Parties between 1951 and 1966. Even in 1969, Australian involvement in Vietnam was not sufficiently unpopular to unseat the Gorton Government which was troubled on many fronts. Because defence was an important electoral issue throughout the 23 years of Liberal-Country Party rule, it seemed only reasonable to expect marked changes in this area following their loss of office.

Australian policy relating to the United Nations falls into two well-marked periods. The first is that of the Labour Governments of Mr. John Curtin and Mr. J. B. Chifley, from the Dumbarton Oaks Conference of October 1944, when the foundations of the United Nations Organisation were laid, until the defeat of the federal Labour Government at the general election of December 1949; throughout that period, Dr. H. V. Evatt was Minister for External Affairs. The second period is from December 1949 until the time of writing (April 1956), when a coalition Government of the Liberal and Country parties has been in power under Mr. R. G. Menzies as Prime Minister; until May 1951, the Minister for External Affairs of that Government was Mr. (later Sir) Percy Spender, and subsequently it has been Mr. R. G. Casey, but Sir Percy Spender resigned from the Government only to become, for the rest of the period, Australian Ambassador in Washington and a frequent member, often leader, of Australian delegations to the United Nations.

Australian relations with the United States were broadly peripheral in 1939. Commercial contacts were very old, dating to the beginnings of Australian settlement when Thomas Patrickson put in to Port Jackson with the Philadelphia in 1792. Yet the expansion of Australian-American trade had been gradual, and in 1939 the United States ranked only as Australia’s sixth customer, although substantial American imports made her an important source of supply. Cultural contacts, except for the films, were relatively few, and only a handful of Australians attempted post-graduate work at American universities: the main stream of students was directed towards Britain, following the well-trodden paths of Australian senior academics. Press links were primarily with London: Reuters and Australian Associated Press supplied by far the greatest volume of news, even of the Pacific and North America. American periodicals trickled through by sea mail on direct subscription. Direct cable services and information centres in New York, Chicago and San Francisco were still at the infant stage.

In pursuit of its economic interests as a growing high income country, Australia continued to play an active part in world economic affairs during the ’sixties. Hitherto largely dependent on the West – particularly the United Kingdom – for much of its development capital and trade, it has increasingly felt negative pressures from Europe fortunately offset by positive opportunities in Asia and the Pacific. There has been a diversion of an increasing proportion of its trade to these latter areas, and a ready acceptance of a growing amount of capital from North America as well as from the United Kingdom.