Australia and the United States became close allies in World War II, when the U.S. took up a more active role in Asia following several defeats of the British in Asia, which left Australia in fear of an imminent Japanese invasion. Since then there has been a robust relationship underpinned by shared democratic values, common interests, and cultural affinities. At the governmental level, relations between Australia and the United States are formalized by the ANZUS security agreement, the AUKUS security partnership and the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA). They were formally allied together in both World War I and World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and the war on terror, although they had disagreements at the 1919–1920 Paris Peace Conference. Australia is a major non-NATO ally of the United States, and the two nations have held an annual meeting, the Australia–United States Ministerial Consultation, with one another most years since 1985.
The United States and Australia share some common ancestry and history, having both been British colonies. Both countries have indigenous peoples (Native Americans in the United States and Aboriginal Australians), who were dispossessed of their land by the process of colonization. Both states have also been part of a Western alliance of states in various wars. Together with three other Anglosphere countries, they comprise the Five Eyes espionage and intelligence alliance.
History 18th century In the 17th century during the Stuart period, many convicts were sent to North America, both in the West Indies and on the mainland, which was novelized in the Daniel Defoe novel, Moll Flanders. Formal legislation would later become codified with the Piracy Act 1717, although the only legal stipulation for containment of penal transportation was that convicts not return to Britain during their seven-year sentences, in return for clemency. There was not yet a dedicated overseas social space in isolation, but this changed over the course of the 18th century during the Hanoverian period, when prison reform resulted in more professionalism.
In 1732, the Province of Georgia was founded, which was the first penal colony of the Kingdom of Great Britain. This was primarily a pressure release valve to reduce overcrowding in London debtors' prisons, providing an alternative, utopian setting for penitential activities like smallholding agriculture. Between 1775–1783, the American Revolutionary War prompted Parliament to reconsider locations discovered by Captain James Cook in the meantime, which eventually led to the 1787 commencement of the peopling of Australia with the First Fleet to Botany Bay.
Due to the legal status of penal settlements, there were far less family units comprising pillars of community from back in Britain, so they became more original societies formed in situ. Inhabitants were forbidden from visiting hometowns to instigate chain migration, unlike the free colonies of America where there were no such restrictions save for the individuals barred from returning. Although most of the 13 Colonies were founded by and for freemen who had the choice of socializing with Britain, even including indentured servants who were (not confined to Georgia and) less financially predisposed to, American separation from Britain produced a reverse situation to that of Australia, which would thenceforth be ruled by Britain who kept Australia apart from them until the time of abolition.
19th century The discovery of gold in New South Wales in 1851 caused a massive influx of prospectors. Experienced gold diggers came from California, where gold had been discovered in 1848. Many others came from the Australian colonies, Britain and the British Empire, and China.Jay Monaghan, Australians and the gold rush: California and down under 1849-1854 (Univ of California Press, 2023) online.David Goodman, Gold Seeking: Victoria and California in the 1850’s (Stanford University Press, 1994) online.
1900 to 1919
In 1908, Prime Minister Alfred Deakin was worried about possible threats from Japan, which had just defeated Russia in a major war. He invited the American Great White Fleet to visit Australia during its circumnavigation of the world. The fleet stopped in Sydney, Melbourne and Albany. Deakin, a strong advocate for an independent Australian Navy, used the visit to raise the public's enthusiasm about a new navy.Richard Waterhouse, "The Beginning of Hegemony or a Confluence of Interests: The Australian-American Relationship, 1788-1908." Australasian Journal of American Studies 9.2 (1990): 12-19. online
The visit marked the first occasion that a non-Royal Navy fleet had visited Australian waters. Many saw the visit of the Great White Fleet as a major turning point in the creation of the Royal Australian Navy. Shortly after the visit, Australia ordered its first modern warships, a purchase that angered the British Admiralty.
The United States and Australia both fought in World War I with the Allied Powers. However, at the Paris Peace Conference they disagreed over the peace terms for the Central Powers. While the U.S. delegation under President Woodrow Wilson favored a more conciliatory approach in line with Wilson's Fourteen Points, the Australian delegation under Prime Minister Billy Hughes favored harsher terms such as those advocated by French premier Georges Clemenceau.
Australia forcefully pressed for higher German reparations and Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles against U.S. opposition. Although U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing had guaranteed German leaders that Germany would only be given reparations payments for damages it inflicted, Hughes tried to press for an expansive definition of German "aggression" so that the British Empire and Dominions, including Australia, could benefit. Hughes also opposed Wilson's plans to establish the League of Nations despite French and British support. Australia also demanded that it be allowed to annex German New Guinea as a direct colony rather than a League of Nations mandate, although on this point it was overruled when the United Kingdom and its other Dominions sided with the United States.
Independence in foreign policy
The political and economic changes brought on by the Great Depression and Second World War, and the adoption of the Statute of Westminster 1931, necessitated the establishment and expansion of Australian representation overseas, independent of the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Australia established its first overseas missions (outside London) in January 1940. The first accredited diplomat sent by Australia to any foreign country was Richard Gavin Gardiner Casey,Australian Dictionary of Biography - https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/casey-richard-gavin-gardiner-9706 appointed to Washington in January 1940.F. K. Crowley, ed., Modern Australia in Documents: 1939-1970 (1973) 2: 12-14.Roger John Bell, Unequal allies: Australian-American relations and the Pacific war (Melbourne University Press, 1977).
World War II
Australia's foreign policy became primarily dependent on American protection after 1942 due to the collapse of British power in Asia. The fall of Singapore and the Japanese bombing of Darwin demonstrated that Britain could no longer guarantee Australia's security, forcing a fundamental shift in its strategic outlook. The first US Embassy opened in Canberra in 1943.Geoffrey Bolton, The Oxford History of Australia, volume five, 1942 –1988 (1990) pp. 6–20, 47–49.Russel Ward, A Nation for a Continent: The History of Australia, 1901–1975 (1977) pp.247–248.Peter Edwards, "Curtin, MacArthur and the 'surrender of sovereignty': A historiographical assessment." Australian Journal of International Affairs 55.2 (2001): 175-185.T.V. Millar, Australia in peace and war: External relations. 1788–1977 (1978) pp.135–161.
US General Douglas MacArthur was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the South West Pacific Area, which included many Australian troops. After the fall of the Philippines MacArthur's headquarters moved to Australia until 1944; Australian forces remained under MacArthur's overall command until the end of the war.Peter Love, "Curtin, Macarthur and conscription, 1942–43" Historical Studies (1977), 17(69), 505–511. https://doi.org/10.1080/10314617708595568
Over one million American military personnel passed through Australia. At their peak in 1942–1943, there were 150,000 stationed in camps near Brisbane, Rockhampton, and Townsville in the far northeast, as well as Melbourne and Sydney. Washington shipped in weapons, materiel and civilian supplies; indeed two-thirds of the nation's imports came from the U.S."United States forces in Australia" Australian War Memorial (2020) online Aussies beefed that the Yanks were "over-sexed, over-paid and over here"; there were fistfights over women but no serious violence apart from one episode in 1942. By mid-1944 the last combat units left Australia for the island battles to the north. Many of them left Australian brides behind. When the war ended about 2500 Americans permanently stayed in Australia. The rest returned home, some with brides and babies, and most with favourable memories. They had made many friends, one of whom says she, "will never stop giving thanks to those ice-cream eating, beer-swilling, meat-eating gorgeous Americans who saved our lives."Daniel Potts and Annette Potts, Yanks Down Under, 1941-45: The American Impact on Australia (1985) pp.397–402, quote on p.402.
Cold War After the war, the American presence in the southwest Pacific increased immensely, most notably in Japan and the Philippines. In view of the cooperation between the Allies during the war, the decreasing reliance of Australia and New Zealand on the United Kingdom, and America's desire to cement this post-war order in the Pacific, the ANZUS Treaty was signed by Australia, New Zealand and the United States in 1951.Full text of the ANZUS Treaty This full three-way military alliance replaced the ANZAC Pact that had been in place between Australia and New Zealand since 1944.
Australia, along with New Zealand, has been involved in most major American military endeavors since World War II including the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War and the Iraq War—all without invocation of ANZUS. The alliance has only been invoked once, for the invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon.
Notably Australia, as a founding member of SEATO, directly supported the United States in the Vietnam War at a time when the United States faced widespread international condemnation from even many of its allies over the war. Australian prime minister Robert Menzies feared the expansion of communism into Asia-Pacific countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, if the communists won the war and a resurgence of isolationism if the United States lost. Under Menzies's successor Harold Holt support for the war waned due to strategic differences between the U.S. Armed Forces and the Australian Defence Force and the changing strategic situation in the region with the 1965 Indonesian coup d'état and founding of ASEAN. In 1967 Holt refused to provide a larger troop commitment after a visit from President Lyndon B. Johnson's advisors Clark Clifford and Maxwell Taylor. Australia's increasing hesitance to continue the war led to its de-escalation and eventually President Richard Nixon's Vietnamization policy.
War on terror