Australia in the Korean War 1950–53
Australia in the Korean War 1950–53 is the official history of Australia's involvement in the Korean War. The series consists of two volumes covering Australia's strategy and diplomacy in the war and the Australian military's combat operations respectively. Both volumes were written by Robert O'Neill, and they were published in 1981 and 1985.
Australia–Canada relations
The triumph of communism in China and the outbreak of war along the Korean Peninsula in June 1950 transformed the postwar landscape. The Cold War spilled beyond its European origins and emerged as a global phenomenon with a unique Asian dimension. Once again, Australian and Canadian troops found themselves fighting together, this time in Korea under the auspices of the United Nations. However, good relations remained elusive. The defeat of Chifley's Labor government and the election of Robert Menzies' conservative coalition threatened to make things worse. Ottawa worried that the new government's aggressive anti-communism and its increasingly suspicious attitude towards Indonesia might inhibit the West's ability to secure cold war allies among Asia's newly independent states. Australia was equally critical of Canada's cautious approach to the desperate challenges facing Asia. Percy Spender, the coalition's first minister of external affairs, held Canada partly responsible for the frustrating delays he encountered in establishing an aid program for South-east Asia. Spender's "brutal and eccentric" tactics in pursuit of what eventually became the Colombo Plan were deeply resented in Ottawa. The tense international situation left little room for such disputes. Growing allied tension over the strategy to be pursued in response to Chinese intervention in the Korean War threatened the Anglo-American harmony upon which both Canada's and Australia's foreign policy was predicated. A new Australian minister of external affairs, Richard Casey, set out to tackle this problem when he was appointed to his post in the spring of 1951. An experienced diplomat, who had served in both London and Washington, Casey possessed a clear conception of the role that Canada and Australia might play in the Anglo-American relationship. He lost no time in making Pearson aware of his views: