New era, new friends: ANZUS in the Straits of Malacca 1965-9

Abstract

This thesis examines the circumstances and factors that enabled the US to establish its network of friendly nations securing American strategic interests and concludes that it was the ANZUS treaty that provided a new defence framework for the region from 1969 onwards despite the presence of other western alliances like the FPDA. How did the US secure its interests along the Straits of Malacca with the cooperation of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and ANZ? Vastly different in outlook and domestic circumstances, they reacted differently to American approaches, although all countries mentioned agreed that America was going to be the only reliable bulwark against Communism in SEA. This thesis believes that the countries aligned themselves with the US primarily because of a congruence of national interests or a commonality of threats.