There were many reasons as to why Australia participated in the Vietnam war from 1962-72. These range from fear of communism and the Domino Effect, to defending Australia far from its shores and proving our loyalty to our Great and Powerful Ally America.
Communism had been a threat to democratic society since the rise of the Soviet Union, however after World War II many other countries began to fall to its might. Australia with many of its other westernised allies feared that communism would spread further west and south in accordance with the domino effect and eventually feared to threaten Australia's democracy. Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist, communist leader who wanted to reunite Vietnam, whose popularity was of great concern to the leaders of the western world. He created the Revolutionary League who fought for the independance of Vietnam through the extensive use of guerilla warfare.
The image below shows the spread of communism throughout Europe by 1949.
Australia had a number of foreign policies in 1949, one of these included the tactic of 'forward defence'. This was a policy that would see Australia fight the threat of communism far from the home front. Examples of this were the Korean war, Malayan war and finally the Vietnam war. This policy insured that if we lost we would suffer minimum damage. This involved setting up military bases in foreign countries, it also meant that we could choose our opponents and analyse whether we would be victorious.
Australia was well aware that if we were ever threatened by an Asian country we would have inadequate military power to defend oursleves. For this reason it was in Australia's best interest to have
America committed to fighting in Asia. Our involvement in the War also help strengthen our relationship with the US again building up our military security.
On April 29th 1965 John Menzies announced that Australia had gone to war with the justification that the defeat of South Vietnam would be a direct military threat to National Security as Communism would spread. Menzies introduced conscription during the Vietnam war as it was not very popular amongst the
Australian citizens at the time.
Referencing
http://members.tripod.com/~leavis/aussie.htm
www.awm.gov.au
www.britains-smallwars.com/Vietnam.AATTV.htm
Image 1: http://www.alternatehistory.com/foralltime/images/Europe1949.gif "Communist States" (Alternate History)
Image 2: http://barkeryear10vietnam.pbwiki.com/f/vietnam-war-photo.jpg "War Photo" (Uploaded to Barker Wiki)
Image 3: http://www.nndb.com/people/663/000092387/robert-menzies-2-sized.jpg "Robert Menzies Portrait" NNDB - Tracking the Entire World
By Daniel Chilton and Jacqui Goldfinch
Edited a little bit By Daniel Sayers and James Taylor
Comments (7)
Anonymous said
at 8:54 am on Jun 13, 2007
The heading is attention grabbing, but very hard to read. Too much text, can't be bothered reading all of it. Well structured, easy to see where its going. Information is mostly correct, and very relevant to your topic. Well referenced, can eaasily navigate to the other pages relevant to your topic. The blue text is very pleasing to my eyes, as is the the flashy heading, and overall the pictures add meaning to the page. It is rather vague in some areas, but overall a very well done wiki.
Anonymous said
at 8:59 am on Jun 13, 2007
okay so you guys made a quite good efort. i think that it is attention grabbing but i am not sure therwe is enough info. you guys tried but i think you guys are capable of better. overall though very nice 90% is the mark i would give but not alowed
Anonymous said
at 9:01 am on Jun 13, 2007
It was easy to understand, cause all I was reading was the heading. I will give you 44.73/44.74
Anonymous said
at 9:03 am on Jun 13, 2007
The information was valuable. I learnt not to trust Jackie and Daniel with pictures envolving little kiddies. I will give you 56/56
Anonymous said
at 9:11 am on Jun 13, 2007
NICE EFFORT GUYS!! =)
It really makes you want to read the information (not that i have)
Love u's both xoxoxo
Anonymous said
at 2:59 pm on Jun 15, 2007
good info, fix your title!!!
Anonymous said
at 3:15 pm on Jun 15, 2007
I guess this page is not good for our age demographics (aye). Title is ok, but have a little more fashion sense please. Information was inapplicable to our age demographics (double jinx).
Love you both very much from the bottom of my heart from Luke Davis
XOXOXOXOXO
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