page_title: Menzies Government (1949–66)
section_title: Treaties and defence
hierarchical_section_title: Menzies Government (1949–66) / Terms in office / Foreign affairs / Treaties and defence
caption_attribution_description: Percy Spender (1897-1985), Australian politician and ambassador to the United States as well as judge (1958-1967) and president (1964-1967) of the International Court of Justice.
context_page_description: The Menzies Government refers to the second period of federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Robert Menzies. It was made up of members of a Liberal-Country Party coalition in the Australian Parliament from 1949–1966. Menzies led the Liberal-Country Coalition to election victories in 1949, 1951, 1954, 1955, 1958, 1961 and 1963. Robert Menzies was Australia's longest serving Prime Minister. He had served a previous term as Prime Minister as leader of the United Australia Party from 1939–1941.
context_section_description: Australia signed the official Peace Treaty with Japan in San Francisco in 1951, but by this point, the world had entered a new and tense period in international relations – the Cold War. With the memory of Japanese expansionism fresh in the Australian experience, and with the commencement of the Cold War seeing the Soviet Union dominating Eastern Europe, the Chinese Communist Party winning the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and Communist North Korea invading South Korea in 1950, Australia sought security outside its traditional allegiance to Britain.
  In June 1950, Communist North Korea invaded South Korea. The Menzies government responded to a United States led United Nations Security Council request for military aid for South Korea and diverted forces from occupied Japan to begin Australia's involvement in the Korean War.  The entry of Communist China into the war saw allied forces driven backwards down the peninsula. After fighting to a bitter standstill, the UN and North Korea signed a ceasefire agreement in July 1953. Australian forces had participated in such major battles as Kapyong and Maryang San. 17,000 Australians had served and casualties amounted to more than 1,500, of whom 339 were killed.
  Analysts voiced fear of the "domino theory", according to which South East Asia would fall to Communism state by state. In defence policy, Menzies moved Australia to a policy of "forward defence" and committed troops against Communists insurgencies in South East Asia – the Malayan Emergency, and Indonesia's policy of Confrontation and, near the end of Menzies' prime ministership, the early stages of the Vietnam War.
  In 1951, the first call ups were made under the National Service Act, which provided for compulsory military training of 18-year-old men, who were then to remain on the Army Reserve for five years. The Scheme trained 227,000 men between 1951 and 1960 (when it ended). In 1952, a program of British nuclear weapons testing began in Australia. The program was based at Maralinga, South Australia from 1954 until 1963 (and was later the subject of a Royal Commission investigation). National Service was reintroduced in 1964, in the form of the National Service Lottery, under which Marbles of birth dates were drawn from a lottery barrel. The Scheme remained in place until 1972 and saw 63,000 men conscripted.
  The Menzies Government entered the first formal military alliance outside of the British Commonwealth with the signing of the ANZUS Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States in San Francisco in 1951. External Affairs Minister Percy Spender had put forward the proposal to work along similar lines to the NATO Alliance.  The Treaty declared that any attack on one of the three parties in the Pacific area would be viewed as a threat to each, and that the common danger would be met in accordance with each nation's constitutional processes.
  In 1954, the Menzies Government signed the South East Asia Collective Defence Treaty (SEATO) as a South East Asian counterpart to NATO.
  In 1959, Australia signed the Antarctic Treaty agreeing a legal framework for the management of Antarctica.
caption: Sir Percy Spender negotiated the ANZUS Treaty alliance with the United States and Colombo Plan for aid and development assistance for Asia.
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