Reasons for Australia's Changing Attitude Towards the Vietnam War
Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War started in 1962-75. Some of the reasons for Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War were mostly to do with the fear of communism and using the “forward defence” strategy to prevent the domino theory from happening. During this time Australia’s attitude towards the war changed due to the protesting of anti-war groups such as ‘save our sons’, it was believed that it was more of a civil war then a communism war, and because it was a television war.
Communism was greatly feared in Australia, and Australia would've done anything to keep it out of the country, “It took us not five minutes to decide that when this thing came to the point of action we would be in it…”- Robert Menzies. The Australian government made the public aware of communism and fear the domino theory by cartoon on cereal boxes, newspapers and on television. To prevent the domino theory the Australian Government made the decision to support South Vietnam along with the US and New Zealand in war by using the “forward defence” strategy, this is where the country goes to where the war is and tried to stop it there before reaching their country. Certain treaties were made during the cold war such as the SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation) and the ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty), these treaties were formed to stop communism growing in Asian (SEATO) and support from New Zealand and the US is Australia was in war (ANZUS).
However, as the war went on peoples attitude towards the war began to change, the more people thought about it the more they realised it was more of a civil war rather than war about communism which lead to the thought that it wasn’t our war to fight. Unlike other wars in the past, the Vietnam War was the first war to be filmed and broadcasted on the media, for the first time the public was able to see the violence and brutal effects of war. The war was also negatively published in newspapers, '... The
Communism was greatly feared in Australia, and Australia would've done anything to keep it out of the country, “It took us not five minutes to decide that when this thing came to the point of action we would be in it…”- Robert Menzies. The Australian government made the public aware of communism and fear the domino theory by cartoon on cereal boxes, newspapers and on television. To prevent the domino theory the Australian Government made the decision to support South Vietnam along with the US and New Zealand in war by using the “forward defence” strategy, this is where the country goes to where the war is and tried to stop it there before reaching their country. Certain treaties were made during the cold war such as the SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation) and the ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty), these treaties were formed to stop communism growing in Asian (SEATO) and support from New Zealand and the US is Australia was in war (ANZUS).
However, as the war went on peoples attitude towards the war began to change, the more people thought about it the more they realised it was more of a civil war rather than war about communism which lead to the thought that it wasn’t our war to fight. Unlike other wars in the past, the Vietnam War was the first war to be filmed and broadcasted on the media, for the first time the public was able to see the violence and brutal effects of war. The war was also negatively published in newspapers, '... The