Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

148 Missing Pieces
The end of the Pacific War brought a reaffirmation by the Australian Government of
its links to the Commonwealth, but it also demanded a more prominent position in
the decision-making machinery of that organisation, especially in matters concerning
defence. 442 The British were willing to grant this request, as it offered a way of sharing
the post-war Commonwealth defence burden, and it ensured Australian interest in
British programs in which its participation was practically essential. 443 For Australia,
access to British weapons and nuclear technology would boost its own defence capacity
and enable it to play a larger physical and political role in the region to its north through
which the Japanese threat had materialised.
Separately, the Chifley Labor Government committed itself wholeheartedly to the
principles of the United Nations (UN) Organisation as a way of forestalling any
attempt by a foreign power to wage war on Australia or its interests. The government,
and particularly the Foreign Minister, Dr Herbert Evatt, took a prominent position
in generating support for the new organisation. The Americans and even the British
were concerned at Evatt’s attitudes and pronouncements in the UN General Assembly,
where his enthusiastic espousal of the principles of the UN Charter regarding the use
of force to resolve disputes and the right to independence of colonial peoples incurred
the displeasure of Australia’s principal allies. It also raised suspicions in American
minds about the ideological ‘soundness’ of the government. 444
Meanwhile, Australian strategists and defence planners were considering where
the next threat to Commonwealth security might come from, and how it could be
met. The clear enemy was seen to be communism. The close attention being given
by the Soviet Union to fomenting unrest in the colonies of European powers, not to
mention the Chinese Civil War, raised the probability that Australia would have to
face a deteriorating security situation on the Asian mainland to its north. This later
became the ‘domino theory’, but at that time it seemed a relatively distant prospect.
The British view was that the Soviets would concentrate their efforts on destabilising
the Middle East, seeking to isolate the West from its sources of oil, and cutting Britain
off from its Asian colonies, and Australia. 445 This appeared a more proximate concern,
and Australian defence planning proceeded on the assumption that Australia would
be required to provide forces in the Middle East, as she had in the two previous world
wars. For its part, the Australian Government remained ambivalent on the issue and
sought to restrict Australian defence commitments within an arc extending about
2400km from the Australian coastline, as far north as Malaya. In time, this became
known as the ANZAM region, the acronym reflecting the several defence concerns
of the Australian, New Zealand and British governments in the stability and security
of Malaya.
Defence planners had a separate concern. The Australian Government was pursuing
post-war reconstruction, and sought to cut other expenditures to the irreducible
minimum. There had been a rapid large-scale demobilisation on the cessation of