A Negotiated Alliance

2019 ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Thomas K. Robb ◽  
David James Gill
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
The United States ◽  
Truman Administration ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Security Treaty ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the Australia, New Zealand, and United States Security Treaty (ANZUS). United States policymakers increasingly recognized the importance of Japan in the Cold War. Indeed, the Truman administration concluded that the recovery of Japan was strategically and economically essential for the security of the Asia-Pacific region. Imperative to achieving such ambitions was ending formal occupation by Allied forces and providing a Japanese peace treaty that would allow for its full economic and industrial recovery. However, U.S. plans encountered considerable opposition. The United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand resented a new commercial challenger in the region and feared a Japanese military revival. As all were signatories to the Japanese instruments of surrender, their support was essential to secure the two-thirds majority required to end formal occupation. The United States' desire for a Japanese peace treaty provided Australia and New Zealand with the opportunity to push for their longtime goal of a security treaty with the United States. Following negotiations, the ANZUS Treaty emerged in February of 1951. The United States, however, excluded the United Kingdom from this newly formed security pact. Washington also brushed aside London's efforts at drafting its own Japanese peace treaty, instead pushing forward a more lenient agreement that largely reflected U.S. wishes.

Divided Action

2019 ◽  
pp. 134-155
Author(s):  
Thomas K. Robb ◽  
David James Gill
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Strategic Alliance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Security Planning ◽  
Military Support ◽  
British Commonwealth

This chapter looks at how, throughout 1954, the United States began to consider seriously the creation of a wider strategic alliance in the Asia-Pacific that would include the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Such a policy reversal reflected growing concerns about Communist expansion in Southeast Asia. The United States consequently looked abroad for support for collective action. Only a small number of states, however, could provide substantial military resources. Washington focused its attention on London, Canberra, and Wellington. Fundamental disagreements among all four states concerning Cold War strategy persisted throughout negotiations. Although welcoming the opportunity for closer cooperation in the realm of security planning, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand all resisted U.S. ideas about immediate and major military commitments in the region. Even the existence of the ANZUS Treaty proved insufficient motivation for Canberra and Wellington to agree to support Washington's request for military support. The treaty instead appeared to have the opposite effect as antipodean officials feared the dilution or dissolution of existing trilateral strategic arrangements in favor of a wider alliance. All three British Commonwealth powers instead drove debate away from immediate military action toward longer-term alliance building.

An Unwelcome Ally

2019 ◽  
pp. 110-133
Author(s):  
Thomas K. Robb ◽  
David James Gill
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
British Government ◽  
The United Kingdom

This chapter details how, following the arrival of a new U.S. administration in 1953, the British government resumed its efforts to improve its position in the Asia-Pacific. The United Kingdom again sought membership in the ANZUS Treaty but also offered an alternative in the form of a Pacific security pact. This larger alliance would provide a more comprehensive global defense umbrella that would allow the British government to continue to prioritize the defense of its preferred regions. The United States rejected such proposals, fearing that any Pacific security pact would inevitably involve greater contributions to the region and risked drawing it into the defense of other territories. United States policymakers and diplomats again used the concept of race to defend British exclusion, however, rather than stressing strategic or economic concerns. In contrast to the events of the preceding year, the United States reacted more forcefully against British efforts and adopted rougher diplomacy with Australia and New Zealand. Formal cooperation between all four powers in the Asia-Pacific looked unlikely by the close of 1953.

Selective Membership

2019 ◽  
pp. 87-109
Author(s):  
Thomas K. Robb ◽  
David James Gill
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Middle East ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Asia Pacific Region ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Existing Form

This chapter assesses in detail the exclusion of Britain from the ANZUS Treaty, which embarrassed British policymakers and undermined many of the United Kingdom's interests in the Asia-Pacific region. Prime Minister Clement Attlee had initially accepted exclusion, but Winston Churchill's election to office in October of 1951 resulted in a concerted effort to gain membership. Although Australia and New Zealand remained sympathetic to an expanded treaty, both feared that pushing British membership too forcefully risked the United States dissolving the ANZUS Treaty. Despite enjoying a degree of recovery, economic limitations and ongoing commitments to Europe and the Middle East meant that the United Kingdom was unable to offer the antipodean states a credible alternative to existing arrangements. Australia and New Zealand consequently attempted to secure membership for Britain but prioritized ongoing cooperation with the United States. The major obstacle to British membership in ANZUS remained the United States. As far as U.S. policymakers interpreted matters, British inclusion provided few benefits and considerable economic and strategic drawbacks. Yet, U.S. officials preferred to use arguments about race and imperialism to justify British omission from the treaty. Ultimately, the United States remained committed to maintaining ANZUS in its existing form and rebuffed efforts by the antipodean powers to secure British inclusion.

Crisis and Cooperation

2019 ◽  
pp. 40-64
Author(s):  
Thomas K. Robb ◽  
David James Gill
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
National Interests ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Malayan Emergency

This chapter discusses events in Malaya and Korea, which, when viewed together, help explain progress toward closer cooperation throughout the Asia-Pacific. The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand slowly developed elements of strategic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region following crises in Malaya and Korea between 1948 and 1951. The extent of cooperation varied between states and rarely reflected purely strategic concerns. Whereas New Zealand supported the United Kingdom in the Malayan Emergency, the United States and Australia were initially far more cautious in offering assistance. Although the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand did support the United States in the Korean War, their efforts also reflected attempts to build closer strategic relations, generate diplomatic capital, and restrain their superpower ally from escalating the conflict. In both instances, all four states held different assumptions about the causes and management of conflict. Divergent national interests therefore weakened a coherent and united response to the Communist challenge from the Western powers.

Security Council

1954 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-517
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Security Council ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Peace ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Foreign Ministers

The question of the threat to Thailand was discussed by the Security Council at its 673d and 674th meetings. After again explaining the reasons for his government's belief that the condition of tension in the general region in which Thailand was located would, if continued, endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, the Thai representative, Pote Sarasin, again requested that the Peace Observation Commission establish a sub-commission of from three to five members to dispatch observers to Thailand and to visit Thailand itself if it were deemed necessary. The Thai draft differed from earlier Thai proposals, however, in that the original mandate of the sub-commission applie only to the territory of Thailand; if the sub-commission felt that it could not adequately accomplish its mission without observation or visit in states contiguous to Thailand, the Peace Observation Commission or the Security Council could issue the necessary instructions. Representatives of New Zealand, Turkey, Brazil, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Denmark, Colombia and France spoke in support of the Thai draft. They denied, as had been alleged by the Soviet representative (Tsarapkin) at an earlier meeting, that Council consideration or action on this question would be detrimental to the success of the negotiations between the Foreign Ministers of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Chinese People's Republic, Soviet Union and other states in Geneva. While agreeing that it would be impropitious for the Council to consider directly the situation in Indochina as long as it was being discussed in Geneva, they argued that the question raised by Thailand was quite separate and that the Council had a duty to comply with the Thai request.

Dietary Tryptophan Ratio and Suicide in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand

1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michio Kitahara
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Amino Acids ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Dietary Intake ◽  
The United States ◽  
Brain Neurons ◽  
Suicide Rates ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Per Capita

It was hypothesized that when relative dietary intake of tryptophan per capita is low compared to certain other amino acids, less serotonin is formed in brain neurons, and suicide rates tend to be high. The hypothesis was supported for males and for both sexes combined.

Trusteeship Council

1954 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-254
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Standing Committee ◽  
Rural Economic Development ◽  
The United Kingdom

The thirteenth session of the Trusteeship Council was held at United Nations headquarters from January 28 to March 25, 1954, with Leslie K. Munro (New Zealand) as president. After adopting an agenda of eighteen items, the Council appointed China, Haiti, New Zealand, and the United States as members of the Standing Committee on Administrative Unions, and China, France, Haiti, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States as members of the Committee on Rural Economic Development of the Trust Territories. The latter committee was not scheduled to meet during this session.

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