Australias Involvement in the Cold War Korea, Malaya, Malaysia and Vietnam

By David Horner Part of the Australias Military History For Dummies Cheat Sheet As a member of the Western Alliance, Australia fought in two of the biggest conflicts of the Cold War the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Australian forces also supported Britain in Malaya and assisted Britain and Malaysia against Indonesia. Korean War, 1950 53. Australia sent contingents from the three services to fight with the United Nations in Korea. Most of the UN force was American, but with contingents from other countries. The 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR) served from September 1951 to July 1953. Significant battles were Kapyong (April 1951) and Maryan San (October 1951). Malaya, 1950 60. Australia sent units from the three services to assist Britain and the Malayan Government fight Communist Terrorists in the Malayan Emergency. Australian battalions served on rotation for periods of two years beginning in 1955. There were no major battles and only a few ambushes and patrol clashes. Malaysia, 1965 66. Australian forces assisted Britain and Malaysia in countering Indonesias Confrontation with Malaysia. Two Australian battalions, two Special Air Service (SAS) squadrons and several engineer squadrons served in Borneo. There were several deadly ambushes and patrol clashes, but no major battles. South Vietnam, 1962 72. Australian forces assisted South Vietnam and the United States in the Vietnam War. In 1962 Australia sent army advisers. In 1965 a battalion was deployed. The following year this battalion was replaced by a task force with two and later three battalions operating in Phuoc Tuy Province. The RAAF sent helicopters, Canberra Bombers and Caribou transport aircraft. The RAN generally had a ship operating offshore. Major battles were Long Tan (August 1966), CoralBalmoral (May 1968) and Binh Ba (June 1969).

Australia in the cold war: A Historical Review

The last years of the twentieth century highlighted the role of historical consciousness in the attitudes of Australians to their countrys foreign relations. Commonly accepted perspectives on Australias experience during the cold war, which maintained that the period had been characterized by Australias servility to the United States, influenced the public response to issues such as Australias military commitments in the Persian Gulf in 1991 and 1998, and demonstrated the appeal of

an Australian version of the Vietnam Syndrome. While for Americans the most powerful lesson of the Vietnam War has been reluctance to send military forces abroad, the events in the Gulf suggest that the consequence for Australian governments of collaboration with the United States is likely to be widespread criticism of it as marking a return to the allegedly obsequious Australian stance during the Vietnam War. Similarly, the paucity of US military assistance to Australia during the East Timor crisis of 1999 evoked a widespread sense of betrayal, shared, to judge by their public statements, by both the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the leader of the federal opposition, Kim Beazley, bringing into sharp relief two dominant perspectives on the history of the Australian-US alliance. One, an optimistic view of the benefits to Australia, was sustained by the assumption that the United States would, in some circumstances, be willing to act out of a sense of loyalty to Australia rather than wholly on the basis of considerations of the US national interest. The other emphasized the costs of the alliance for Australia: that since 1950, Australia had gone out of its way to be loyal to the United States to the point of servility jeopardizing its own interests, especially its relations with its Asian neighbours, in the hope that such sacrifices would be redeemed by US protection.

Brief Intro of Cold War and Imp Cold war events

The Cold War is the name given to the conflict that developed between the United States and the Soviet Union after the Second World War. Simply put, the Cold War was a conflict of opposing ideologies - capitalism and communism. Although there were no actual battles or physical conflicts, the fear and hostility it produced on both sides made it a war as dangerous as any other. The US/USSR antagonism began in postwar Europe, when the Soviet Union brought Eastern Europe under its control and the United States exerted its influence in Western Europe. Germany had been divided into two nations; the wall that separated its former capital Berlin, came to symbolise the mutual exclusion of the two ideologies. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 signalled the end of the Cold War; the breakdown of the Soviet Union soon followed, in 1991.

Significant Cold War events

Australian forces sent to Malayan emergency - June 1950 The Malayan Emergency was declared in June 1948 in response to Communist insurgency. Australian involvement began in June 1950 when RAAF units arrived in Singapore. By 1955 when Australian ground forces became involved the Emergency was winding down but much mopping-up remained to be done. Australia, Communist powers referendum defeated September 1950 The Menzies Government was elected in 1949 with a platform which included banning the Communist Party. A Bill for this purpose was passed, but later declared by the High Court to be constitutionally invalid and a Referendum to amend the Constitution giving the Commonwealth the power to ban communism was narrowly defeated. Atomic weapons tests A series of atomic weapons tests were conducted in Australia at the request of the British Government between 1952 and 1956. Twelve weapons were exploded in Australia, three at the Monte Bello Islands off north Western Australia and the remainder in the central desert regions of South Australia, at Emu Field and Maralinga. Hundreds of minor trials, mostly involving components of nuclear weapons, also took place in South Australia 1953 and 1963. Petrov defection - 19 May 1954 Vladimir Petrov, a Soviet diplomat and spy, sought and was granted asylum in Australia. Petrov provided documents and oral information about Soviet espionage activities in Australia to the Australian security service and a Royal Commission was established to inquire into the affair. Australia announces initial military involvement in Vietnam - May 1962 Following representations by the United States, the Australian Government announced in May 1962 the commitment of 30 military advisers to assist the Army of the Republic of [South] Vietnam. The Australians were initially deployed as instructors and were not permitted to accompany the South Vietnamese into combat. In 1965, Australia's commitment to the war was stepped up to include combat troops.

Australian forces engaged in Confrontation - March 1965 Confrontation was a small undeclared war fought between 19621966 during which Indonesia sought to destabilise the newly independent Malaysia. After two Indonesian raids on the Malayan peninsula in 1964 the Australian government deployed a battalion in Borneo. Indonesia and Malaysia signed a peace treaty in 1966.