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Asian community, though Australians were still determined not to pay the price of their own
security or interests (Levy, 175).
When the French were unexpectedly defeated at Dien Bien Phu and withdrew from
Indochina, Ho Chih Minh assumed the role of the evil Mongol Emperor for many in Australia.
Fearing the fall of Southeast Asia to the communists, Australia argued for the partition of
Indochina and increased involvement of the United Nations. In Malaysia rebel activity
increased so rapidly that Australia chose in 1955 to engage its troops in the fighting there. The
sense of isolation crept back in as Australia felt itself forced into fighting against communist
aggression, for its own self-defence, and to prevent a wider conflagration (Levy, 189). Falling
back on its ANZUS allies, Australia found itself supporting the American build-up in Vietnam
in the 1960s. The Americans shared the policy of separation through engagement, but the
Australians discovered that this policy was incompatible with desires to develop closer
relations with its Asian neighbours.
The sense of isolation persisted as strongly as ever as the seemingly simple security of
the past was being overwhelmed by the confounding uncertainties of the future. Aubrey
Hardwick voices this sentiment in C. J. Koch’s Highways to a War when he tells Mike
Langford,
When Britain does pull out of here—when Phoenix Park closes down—that
will be the final end of the empire. Funny: I believe an Australian of my
generation finds this more bloody poignant than the Brits themselves do;
they've lost interest, or numbed themselves. But the facts are the facts. The
most successful empire since Rome’s: finally gone. And Australia naked: our
shield in Asia taken away. (HW, 92)
Australia was looking for a sense of self in international relations but was finding itself
being swept along by events. The perception of the foreign wars in which Australia
participated, always carriers of meaning more mythical than geographic, changed radically.
Whereas exotic place names like ‘Gallipoli’, ‘Villers Bretonneux’ and ‘Kokoda’ had stood for
‘national sacrifice, courage and virtuosity’, ‘Vietnam’ became ‘a signifier of internecine social
conflict, of clumsy diplomacy and military malpractice’ (Gerster, Asian Destinies, 62).
Australia’s participation in the Vietnam War drew it into the international dissident movement
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