alt Hacker NewsAustralia's alignment with the US was a major consequence of World War 2 and the aftermath of that.
Pre WW2 we were basically in lockstep with the UK. However after Singapore fell to the Japanese it became increasingly obvious that the UK could not be relied upon to defend Australia. At the time most of the elite Australian troops were fighting in North Africa (El-Alamein, Tobruk etc). and there was a genuine perceived threat that Australia could be invaded. PNG which was Australian territory at the time was invaded. The Japanese bombing of Darwin only intensified this.
Almost overnight our foreign policy swung behind the US instead. Post WW2 this led to things like the ANZUS Treaty. It is the reason there are US military bases in Australia and the reason why we have followed the US into all of their wars which we arguably had no business involving ourselves in (Vietnam, Iraq etc.).
Personally I feel the recent actions of the US are not beneficial to Australia's interests at all. Trump has squandered an awful lot of accumulated goodwill already, even if another government is elected in US a lot of damage has already been done.
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>Almost overnight our foreign policy swung behind the US instead.
We still had dual citizen brits running government departments making pro UK decisions until like the 70s or 80s. The UK/US have sort of shared us until the 90s. We let the poms nuke SA.
I've been thinking the silver lining of the current situation is that we'll be less inclined to send troops to aid US in their latest Middle East boondoggle, in the expectation of reciprocation in the future.
In other online spaces, I've seen some conservative commenters from the US asserting that America is so powerful, the rest of the world has no choice but to go along with them, and therefore there is no need to maintain good relationships and the US should do what most immediately benefits itself at all times. Certainly, there are some areas where we simply have to play along with the US, but I think they are underestimating the amount of things where they will no longer be our first choice to deal with.