The Future of the United States-Australia Alliance: Evolving Security Strategy in the Indo-Pacific by Scott D. McDonald & Andrew T. H. Tan

Author:Scott D. McDonald & Andrew T. H. Tan [McDonald, Scott D. & Tan, Andrew T. H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General, International Relations, Arms Control, Diplomacy, Security (National & International), Treaties, Globalization, Peace, Political Freedom, Intelligence & Espionage, Commentary & Opinion, Reference
ISBN: 9781000326611
Google: LdsGEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 54880800
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-12-15T09:24:27+00:00

From strategic competition to dependence

Anglo-American competition

Although the US—Australia strategic relationship is now strong and dependable, it had inauspicious beginnings. Throughout the 19th century, it was largely subject to Whitehall’s great power competition with Washington. The Australian colonies were generally apprehensive about the US’s strategic intent and emerging naval power. The first American interest in Australia was a by-product of interests in Asia. By 1792, American ships trading to China around Cape Horn found that they could profitably call in at Port Jackson with a cargo of stores for the settlers (Bell 1988: 7). The mid-19th century gold strikes also promoted interaction between the US and Australia. At the time of the Eureka Stockade (1854), there were more than 1,000 Americans living in Victoria (Bell 1988: 7). During the Crimean War (1853–1856), the main British enemy was Russia, which was enough of a threat for the NSW colony to construct a stronghold in Sydney Harbour (Fort Denison). Australian colonists also had their concerns about the French (operating from nearby New Caledonia) and the Americans (Bell 1988: 9). In November 1839, for example, two American warships entered Sydney Harbour at night and anchored without being detected until the next morning. This illustrated the potential for a hostile power to control Australia’s colonial sea-borne trade or coerce the settlements with the threat of bombardment (Grey 2008: 20).

The first armed conflict that saw Australians fight alongside (and against) Americans was the Civil War (1861–1865). Approximately 100 native-born Australians and New Zealanders fought in the conflict (Crompton 2008). Of particular note are the 42 Australians (from the colony of Victoria) who joined the crew of the Confederate cruiser the CSS Shenandoah when it docked in Melbourne in 1865. They sailed 96,500 kilometres around the world and were responsible for destroying 32 Union merchant ships, ransoming six, and capturing more than a thousand prisoners (Smyth 2015: 9). The Shenandoah was involved in the final armed conflict of the American Civil War and was the last of the Confederates to surrender, which it eventually did in Liverpool, England on 6 November 1865 (Smyth 2015: 274). The Melbourne recruit George Botriune Canning made history by firing the last shot of the war and by being the last man to die in the service of the Confederacy (Smyth 2015: 269). Since the Shenandoah had originally been a British ship, and Victoria was still a British colony at the time, the US Government successfully sued the British Government for £15 million in damages (Bell 1988: 7).

In the 1890s, a surge in French and German colonial activity throughout the Pacific created tension with Britain and anxiety within the Australian colonies. Furthermore, the Spanish-American War of 1898, and the subsequent US annexation of the Philippines, brought the US to the forefront as a major security player in the Pacific (Bell 1988: 10). The US did, in fact, end up developing naval plans to invade Sydney Harbour as a contingency in case it went to war with Britain (Reckner 2001). As early as

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.