This chapter explains how the artificial creation of the Nigerian state – spurred principally by colonialism – drove colonial and eventually Indigenous officials to promote a system of regionalism to accommodate the creation of a federal system of government. In doing so, the concept of ethnicity was arbitrarily and crudely introduced to the complex and diverse patchwork of peoples inhabiting what would become Nigeria. Regionalism fostered self-interested political groups, whereby the individual interests of Nigeria’s three principal regions (North, West, and East), each dominated by one of three major ethnic groups (Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo), competed amongst one another for power, leading to extraregional conflicts. Complicating this system was the presence of many hundreds of other, much smaller, minority ethnic groups. The promotion of regionalism would ultimately give rise to ethnonationalism, in which Nigeria’s three largest ethnic groups were given precedence over minority groups, leading to intra-regional conflict. The concepts of regionalism and ethnicity would become inseparably intertwined and would significantly hamper decolonization and efforts at building a consolidated and equitable state.

The dramatic impact of the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington sharply intensified relations between Australia and the USA. The bilateral relationship was reconfirmed as the two states joined in war against an elusive, and unexpected, enemy. As the war on terrorism broadened, Australia enthusiastically joined the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’, sending troops to fight in Afghanistan and, more controversially, deploying forces alongside the USA in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. From late 2001 commentary in Australia invariably accepted that ‘relations with the United States dominated Australian foreign affairs’ or more subtly observed that ‘the central dynamics of Australian foreign policy revolved around the issue of relations with the superpower, and the implications of this relationship’ for the broader exercise of Australian foreign policy.

Short of war, public interest in foreign policy would seem negligible. A national poll taken in October 1980 found that only 3 per cent of those surveyed viewed foreign policy as a major issue. Of course, had the term foreign policy been substituted with overseas debt, Japanese investment, Asian immigration, the greenhouse effect or disarmament, the response may well have been different. On the whole the media, too, has adopted an uneven approach to foreign policy. ABC television and radio and most of the so-called quality newspapers have specialist reporters covering the area. However, tabloid papers, commercial television and commercial radio devote little attention to serious foreign policy analysis. Aside from periods of major international crises, such as the war in the Persian Gulf, even a cursory glance at the Australian media’s daily output shows foreign policy coverage very much lagging behind domestic politics, sport and entertainment.

For Australians in 1991, the old and traditional answers will no longer suffice. ’Kith and kin’ attachments to the United Kingdom have less and less meaning. Anglo-Celtic migrant Australia, the very basis of foundation settlement and the predominant force in society until well after the Second World War, has been substantially diluted by the great waves of postwar Central European and Asian migration. Australia passed through war against fascism as one of the imperial allies with a relatively monolithic and native born population. In 1947 less than 10 per cent of its 7.5 million citizens were born elsewhere, and many of these were born in the United Kingdom anyway. At the last official census in 1981, over 20 per cent of its 14.9 million population was born overseas, and a minority of that astonishing figure were Anglo-Celtic (7.78 per cent). Australia was indeed becoming a ’new society’ with a vengeance. Combined with tourism, and an increasing awareness of its Asian regional context, Australians admitted to living in a plural society, almost as much indeed as official multicultural policy of government kept declaring.

Foreign policy has not been a matter of continuing concern in Australia: the professionals have given constant attention to it, but the public has normally been involved with it only when it was a matter of war or of problems involving allies. Raising the public temperature has been possible in such matters as the Vietnam War or the US alliance, but the disputes have not been of great importance in the body politic, though it matters greatly at times for such bodies as the Democratic Labor Party in its heyday, or the fringe leftist groups which are always a vocal part of the Australian political scene. Such a state of affairs is not accidental, but arises from the situation of a country which has no land-based boundaries with others, and so is not excited by territorial disputes or by the presence of its people as persecuted minorities in other countries; which is relatively homogeneous in its society, though multicultural to a certain degree; and which is greatly concerned with domestic issues. There is not much scope in such a situation for the quarrels with other countries (especially neighbours) which have traditionally provided elsewhere the stuff of an absorbing foreign policy and fuelled the fires of political indignation.

Australian–American relations had never been worse than they were in 1975. It was reasonable to expect that they would improve in 1976. The reason was simply the change of government in Canberra in December. Labor Prime Minister E. Gough Whitlam had been unquestionably sincere when he claimed in 1973 that his policies would bring the trans-Pacific relationship to a new maturity, and place it upon foundations firmer than those on which it had rested previously. The fact was that during his term of office the two nations drifted from one disagreement to another, interspersed with occasional confrontations.

In formulating its foreign policy any country tends to distinguish between areas of central and of peripheral importance, between those areas where it can exert considerable influence and those where it can exert little influence. This is the choice facing small and middling countries like Australia. The great powers have to make similar choices to conserve their resources – political, economic and diplomatic – but are still able to exert considerable or even overwhelming power from time to time in areas which are normally peripheral but which may, because of shifts in the power balance, become less peripheral and more central from the point of view of global policies.

The 1970s marked a watershed in Australia’s relations with the world, a watershed which, while less dramatic than that of World War II, may well prove to be more significant and profound. Central to this process has been the reassessment of Australian–American relations and the redefining of the ANZUS treaty which took place in the years 1971–75.

Australian foreign policy during these years (1966–70) was formulated in the shadow of the powerful figure of Sir Robert Gordon Menzies who resigned as Prime Minister in 1966 after a record term of 17 years. His successor, Mr Harold Holt, followed in the Menzies tradition until his tragic death in December 1967. Mr John Gorton, a dark horse candidate for Prime Minister, held office from 10 January 1968 until his defeat for the leadership on 10 March 1971. A large measure of continuity in foreign policy was given by Mr (later Sir) Paul Hasluck who succeeded Sir Garfield Barwick as Minister for External Affairs in 1964 and held office until he became Governor-General in 1969. A professional in this field, he was succeeded by Mr Gordon Freeth whose brief tenure as minister ended with his defeat in the federal election of 1969. His successor, Mr W. McMahon, a very experienced professional politician, retained the portfolio until succeeding Mr Gorton as Prime Minister in March 1971.

There has been a perception in Australia, at least since 1945, that official relations between Australia and the US, similar to earlier relations with Britain the first ’great and powerful friend’, have been smoother under a Liberal-Country Party (LCP) government than under Labor. There is serious disagreement, however, regarding the explanation for the difference. Although it is easy to exaggerate the differences which existed between Washington and the Labor governments of the 1940s and 1970s, US–Australian relations certainly improved when the LCP returned to office in Canberra after November 1975. Yet the material basis for the close Australian–US political-strategic cooperation of the 1960s had withered away following the American defeat in Vietnam and the election of a Democrat administration in 1976. By 1978, the USA had pulled its troops out of Taiwan and Thailand, while promising to leave Korea by 1984. So, despite the resumption of military activity in Southeast Asia in 1979, the region no longer had the global significance of previous years which had made it the venue for American military action and hence close cooperation with Australia.

The 1980s were a decade of fundamental change for Australia’s relations with the South Pacific. Australia began the decade with a clear desire to exercise regional leadership, an aspiration largely accepted by the Pacific Island countries and by larger powers with interests in the area. By the end of the decade, Australia’srole was being openly challenged by the leaders of the Pacific Island states. Inplace of the earlier acceptance of Australia’s approach was a widely shared view that it was overstepping the mark. Underlying the reported joking among Pacific Island delegates to the 1990 South Pacific Forum, that Australia should be demoted from full membership to the status of other larger powers – that of dialogue partner – lay a serious message: Australia was no longer to be seen as part of the region; rather it was to be viewed as an external power with fundamentally different values and interests. Australia’s relative importance in regional affairs was further diminished by the rising influence of larger powers such as France, the United States and Japan, which began to take an active interest in the area for the first time since the Second World War.

For the Australian economy, the 1980s were different from other decades. Many of the major differences between the 1980s and other decades reflected, or were reflected in, the Australian economy’s links with the global economy. Particularly important during the 1980s were the responses to structural changes taking place in the global economy that were a result of increasing economic interrelationships across national borders. This chapter examines these changes from three aspects. First, it describes briefly what happened to the Australian economy in its international dimensions during the decade; second, it analyses the major changes in the international economy that affected Australia; and third, it examines Australia’s response to these developments.

As a small middle power in the Pacific, Australia’s major foreign policy problem is the problem of creating a framework of security within the general context of the United Nations and the specific geographical context of South-East Asia or the South-West Pacific. The traditional security afforded by the British navy disappeared after 1939 as effective British power contracted towards Europe and the United States became a major Pacific power. Attempting to pursue an independent policy, Australia has found that the global strength of the United States has set limits within which diplomatic manoeuvring is possible, and consequently that one of the major tasks of Australian diplomacy has been to collaborate with the United States and to influence, perhaps attempt to orientate, American policy in an area that is often of peripheral interest to Washington. London and Paris, Ottawa and Berlin, Moscow, Peking and New Delhi are all points of greater focal importance than Canberra to the United States.

On entering the 1980s, Australia’s defence planners were still coming to terms with the demise of our earlier policy of ’forward defence’ following the US defeat in Indochina and its subsequent (and continuing) withdrawal from our region of interest. While it was generally recognised that Australia had to become more self-reliant in defence, little progress had been made in formulating the strategies and organisational structures needed for this new role. Australia’s higher defence establishment had been reorganised between 1973 and 1976, in part to reflect our changing strategic circumstances, but its armed forces were still structured along single service lines and continued to be equipped and trained to operate as part of larger allied armies.

The 1980s brought far-reaching and often unsettling changes to Australia. In retrospect, it was a time of transition from the earlier postwar decades when Australia could, with little effort, bank on high international prices for its commodity exports and when its security seemed to be safely locked into the American alliance. It became increasingly evident that the accustomed benefits of isolation from international turbulence, and the comfortable economic and security margin over its Asian neighbours were all drawing to a close.