US-Australian ties

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Sep 18, 2015 at 04:31

Hi, Waz

Our local paper is a Leftist rag, which fortunately doesn't dwell too much on international events. Newsworthy stories among Lefties here are like that of a treesitter trying to save three 140-year-old sequoia trees from being cut down. I am sympathetic with him to an extent, because sequoias are the largest and oldest living things on the planed, and are on the species endangered list. If any tree merits saving, then, I guess these have good credentials.

On the other matter, the "Five Eyes", of course, are the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Presumably, we freely share intelligence among ourselves; but nowadays it's assumed taken for granted that we all spy on and lie to each other, just as we do to everyone else. For a couple of decades now, New Zealand has shied away from the US; but they still have close ties with Australia.

America's (and therefore the West's) mutual defence commitments hail back to the Atlantic Charter, agreed upon between Britain's Churchill and the US's FD Roosevelt. As dominions of Britain at the time, Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, joined the US and UK early the next year in the "Declaration of the United Nations", along with the USSR, China, British India, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Yugoslavia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Rep., El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Those, of course, were the allies who fought against Germany and its allies. The European partners were all governments in exile, but most had considerable overseas holdings.

America's intelligence sharing with the "Five Eyes" remained strong after the war. The most important sharing was our nuclear programs. When the Soviet-American relations degenerated into the Cold War, NATO was formed as a counterweight, adding Germany and Italy to the fold.

At the time of the Suez Crisis in 1956, the US joined with the Soviets against the UK, France and Israel, in what was probably the most severe Anglo-American rift since the outbreak of WWII. During the Vietnam War, the Brits and Canadians both parted with us: The former openly traded with our enemies, and the latter harbored our deserters and draft-dodgers. Australia and New Zealand, though, stuck tight with us. They have continued to be close to us ever since, especially Australia; and I, for one, have not forgotten this.

I have to reboot. Cheers.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".