There were misunderstandings on both sides. The ideas embedded in Service tradition grew out of the history of imperial defence, and subordinate attachment to allied commands wherever governments sent them. Much of our national history was so made.

During the 1950s Australia’s defence concerns became more focused geographically. Leadership of the alliance fell on the Americans in the Pacific and the British in Malaya/Singapore. Our alliance did not specify a role for Australia, as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization did for its members. Casey, while Minister for External Affairs, tried without success to get access to American plans in the Pacific in order to see where Australia fitted. The Americans fended us off with the argument that they maintained flexible capabilities not tied to specific scenarios—and probably because our capabilities in respect of the Soviet Union and China were so limited that we should confine ourselves simply to maintaining operational compatibility with the Americans against the day when we might be needed somewhere in concert with them.

Not surprisingly therefore, the Services, in Defence Committee discussions, derived Australia’s role from generalisations, such as ‘limited war’ of no defined location and ‘support of allies’. In those days I saw no reason to object. The government of the day, while prudently avoiding commitment to some American ideas on new military engagements in the Pacific, subscribed to the view that our main defence lay in America honouring an obligation under the ANZUS Treaty. In party politics, the Menzies-led Coalition claimed a unique ability to ensure that support. Questioning whether there was certainty of that support, including military action in every circumstance, was forbidden as, to use the political jargon, ‘downgrading ANZUS’.

In 1959 I argued in the Defence Committee for a strategic posture that called for more capabilities that could operate independently, from which Australian contributions to allied-led operations could be drawn. The idea was incorporated in the Strategic Basis recommendation sent up for Cabinet policy direction. It was rejected by Cabinet. I was later told by Sir Garfield Barwick that a senior Minister warned Cabinet that the concept was an invitation to the Chiefs to demand more money.^[9] So much for national self-reliance.

I wanted to get competent officers into positions requiring dealings with the Defence Department and with British, American and other officials, in Canberra or in the respective capitals. Notable contributors from External Affairs were John Quinn (later an Ambassador tragically killed in an aircraft crash in North Africa), David (later Sir David) Hay, Alan Eastman, Robert Furlonger, and Malcolm Booker. Later others followed.

The substance of advice given to Ministers during these years is not part of this narrative. I am describing the awakening of my knowledge of defence matters on a road that was later to lead to a decade in the Defence Department. In these years I saw evidence of the high regard in which Australian Service officers were held by other countries for their standards of operational efficiency. I also began to form opinions that I retained in later years about their limitations in strategic analysis and about the grip on them of historical experience that was not always relevant to the present and the future. Inescapably I formed judgements about such matters as educational background and intellectual quality.

While External Affairs was much involved in these strategic assessments in the 1950s, we had no role in decisions about the shape of our defence capabilities. In earlier years Menzies had proclaimed ‘we cannot stand alone’. In November 1959 the Defence Minister, Athol Townley, told Parliament that ‘the primary aim of our defence effort should therefore be the continual improvement of our ability to react promptly and effectively with our allies to meet limited war situations’. There was ambiguity in the definition of ‘threat’ in Defence usage. Reflecting our historical engagement in allied operations worldwide, the term had an open-ended connotation, although the assumed area of any Australian military action was now much narrower.

By the early 1960s, Defence programming was putting more emphasis on a capacity to act independently. In 1963 Townley spoke of the desirability of being able to ‘react … by ourselves’. A trend in attitude was beginning to appear. Although the size of our forces increased little, it coincided with growing apprehension about developments to our immediate north, where the reactions of the Americans could not be predicted. The growing bellicosity of Sukarno, and the use of intimidation and some force to disrupt the incorporation of Borneo and Sabah into Malaysia, were frequently reviewed in the Defence Committee, which recommended increased defence provisions because of our long military association with Malaya. In these years it was a Defence axiom that threats could arise with little or no warning, demanding that adequate Australian forces be available for deployment.