New Zealand's limited military involvement in the Vietnam War
was overshadowed by the wide-ranging debate about the conflict
which erupted at home following the rise from the mid 1960s of
an organised anti-Vietnam War movement. Unlike similar
developments in both the United States and Australia, this
protest was not given momentum by anti-conscription sentiment,
though it echoed its American counterpart in terms of style and
in many of its criticisms of Washington's policies. At the same
time, by highlighting broader issues raised for New Zealand by
the Vietnam War, the anti-war movement challenged to an
unprecedented extent the alliance-based security doctrine on
which official Vietnam policy was based, thereby inaugurating a
new era of public debate about foreign policy. The anti-war
movement also helped unsettle some prevailing orthodoxies of New
Zealand domestic life, in part through its interaction with
other protest causes of the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as
the women's and anti-apartheid movemen