In retirement, Sir Robert Menzies, Australia’s longest-serving prime minister, reflecting on his 18 years in office declared that the ANZUS security pact with the United States was his “greatest achievement”. But Menzies was a late convert to ANZUS, only gradually coming to appreciate its unique confluence of both Australian interests and values.

On 1 September Australia and the United States commemorate the 70th anniversary of ANZUS, the Alliance that is the bedrock of Australia’s strategic and defence policy. While the ANZUS of 2021 is heavily steeped in values, it was shared interests that first brought us together.

When it came to foreign policy, Menzies was less of an idealist and more interested in power. According to his External Affairs Minister Percy Spender, Menzies initially thought of ANZUS as a superstructure built on a “foundation of jelly” but recognised that Australia needed a “great and powerful friend” when faced with the geopolitics of the 1950s. In the Cold War era and fearful of Communism’s approach, the United States was Australia’s natural ally.

For Menzies and others, World War II and its aftermath irreversibly changed how Australia viewed the world, and importantly who Australia could rely on for support when its territory was threatened. Britain, Australia’s traditional security provider, was distracted by the war fronts in Europe and the Middle East. Menzies, during his first term as prime minister, incredibly spent four months abroad in 1941, pleading with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill for more support to reinforce Singapore. It was to no avail.

The Fall of Singapore to the Imperial Japanese Army on 15 February 1942, followed quickly by the bombing of Darwin, was Australia’s Dunkirk. 15,000 members of the Australian Imperial Force were captured and imprisoned by the Japanese in Changi. The war had arrived on Australia’s shores.

Menzies’s instincts and affection were clearly with Britain, but the reality of British decline and distance meant it was in Australia’s interests to look elsewhere. Menzies knew, even in May 1941 that Australians needed to look “more and more to the east, to the great democracy of the United States of America”.

There is debate over who is the founder of ANZUS. Success, of course, has a thousand fathers and failure none. While US General Douglas MacArthur led Australian troops in the South-West Pacific from 1942-45, it was the Australian Sir John Monash at the Battle of Hamel in 1918 who first led Australian and US troops under one flag. Perhaps its Monash, an oft-underrated leader, who has the best claim as Father of ANZUS.

Let’s be clear, though. What convinced the US to sign up to ANZUS in 1951 was realpolitik rather than values. The US needed Australia’s support for a soft-peace treaty with Japan and wanted Australian ground troops to help defend South Korea from the communist invaders from the North. On both fronts Menzies was sceptical, and so were the British to whom Menzies felt a strong degree of loyalty.

While Menzies was enroute to the United States and incommunicado, Spender learned that the British were about to commit troops to Korea. Spender, seeing an opportunity to ingratiate Australia to the Americans, took a punt and got Acting PM Arthur Fadden to announce before Britain that Australia would commit ground troops. When Menzies arrived in New York, he heard of Fadden’s decision. Privately he was unhappy but publicly he took it in his stride and embraced it. This, along with Australia’s agreement to the Japan treaty, sealed the deal. ANZUS would be done.

ANZUS has not always been easy. Australian and US interests mainly converge, but not always. Periodically the Alliance has been under strain, even in Menzies’ days. US President John Kennedy refused to come to Australia’s aid in the event of an attack by Indonesia during the Konfrontasi in 1963. This was a time when US commercial interests and Australia’s security interests were not at one. The same can be said when it came to East Timor in 1999 when the US initially rebuffed Australia’s entreaties for assistance.

As we witness the chaos unfolding in Afghanistan following the US withdrawal, don’t forget that Australian troops were there because of ANZUS. What would Menzies think of the US leaving its friends in Afghanistan to the Taliban? We could guess he would be disappointed, but perhaps not surprised.

In the end, for Menzies and many Australians, it is ultimately the confluence of interests and values – the shared commitment to freedom, democracy, the rule of law and human rights – that has sealed ANZUS in our hearts. This is what makes ANZUS at 70 an enduring success and one of the greatest legacies of the Menzies era. We have Menzies to thank for that.

Originally published in the Australian Financial Review, 31 August 2021