‘War for the Asking’ Is a Timely Lesson in the State’s Lust for Foreign Conflicts

by | Feb 15, 2018

‘War for the Asking’ Is a Timely Lesson in the State’s Lust for Foreign Conflicts

by | Feb 15, 2018

In 1981, when Michael Sexton’s War for the Asking was first written, much of the information revealed was no doubt a sobering and cold shower for those interested in the facts regarding their governments’ foreign adventures. The foreign adventure described in this book is, of course, Australia’s entry into the Vietnam conflict.

Australia is a nation that has a confused narrative. It is a young democracy, a European transplant at the bottom of the Asias, and a place of self-righteous virtue often defied by very sinister foreign and domestic policies. Early on, this eagerness at imperialism abroad was done with an attachment to Empire, a supposedly voluntary obedience to the crown and the English way to make the world better and safer for “democracies” — or at least Empire and her allies.

This lead to an eagerness after Federation to fight in South Africa against the Boer, to fight in Flanders, New Guinea, and the Dardanelles in the first World War, and to eventually adding a declaration of war against Hitler’s Germany over his invasion of Poland in 1939. None of which saw Australia’s military defending our shores from foreign aggression.

The realities of World War soon revealed an isolation of Australia; that great separation from England and England’s own weaknesses saw Australia seek an attachment to another great power. It was with Japan’s entry into the war against the Allies that Australia, for the first and only time in its history, found itself truly under threat. Japan’s entry had also introduced the United States’ official entry into the war. It was here that a new allegiance and loyalty soon began to form.

After the war with the realities of the Cold War, Australia found itself in a confused state between Empire and Americanism. This saw the national governments eagerly lead Australia into the Korean War, Malayan Emergency, and operations in Borneo. It was with the growing tensions in South East Asia that Australia, much like many other “Western” nations, began to view those former colonial states as being distant frontiers: desolate and worthless but integral in checking an apparent spread of global communism. But much of it was mostly directed against independent nationalism surging among former colonial possessions. Communism was often the blanket by which to drape collective fears.

The book delves into the early days of Australia’s interests in Indochina to its jockeying to see a wider American involvement in the region. Many Australians have a perspective that “we” were asked to join the conflict and not that “we” essentially invited ourselves and insisted that the South Vietnamese government “formally” request our forces to deploy.

The Australian government’s interests in the region were based on a consideration for forward defense, in the belief that somehow the contagion of communism would spread from nation to nation until it was finally in our streets. And not merely communism but the Asiatic horde that had frightened Australian governments since federation, with the Boxer Rebellion in China and the Japanese victory over Russia in 1905 being two earlier conveyors of this frightful reality. A world where a white-faced (notably Anglo), powerful empire lacked presence in the pacific frightens Australian political elites as much as it did then as it does today.

Should the United States find itself embroiled in conflict in East Asia, then Australia would have a constant friend strategically located regionally as a safeguard against Red China, fascist Indonesia, and even the emerging trading giant, Japan. Australian strategic thinkers needed the United States to direct its attention to Asia, not Europe, to make Australian political and academic animals feel safe in their beds at night so that the Moscow and Peeking boogeymen should not stir their sleep. After all, Australia was a white blemish within the Asiatic ocean of barbarity, as many saw it.

The book does not cover the war itself, but Sexton provides scores of primary documents and direct dispatches, speeches, and facsimiles that show the level of deceit exhibited by the Australian government, and the jingoistic corruption of our media, in ensuring that Australia enters another war. This alone makes this book a splendid source for references and quotes as far as historical figures go in relation to the war and wider policy.

It is chic to look back on Vietnam as a painful mistake, as though Western adventures abroad can be so relegated as a past err by otherwise “great men.” The legacy of such “mistakes” are buried in unmarked graves, continue to poison generations of the unborn, and still remove the limbs of children in the distant jungles far from those capital cities that enjoy making such historical mistakes. The war is simply not a distant fog for those inside South East Asia; its legacy still stings and seeps with misery. For many of Australia’s political and intellectual elites, however, it is an ancient period simply overlooked.

While it would be criminal enough to simply view the war in Indo China as an isolated mistake, and this book depicts clear cynical arrogance and disregard for human misery on the part of key Australian officials, present events and not-too-distant histories reveal an obedience and trust in our Allies and Officials when it comes to deployments abroad. This is then married with a nationalistic and militant lust for the pornographic and romantic depiction of war abroad that befalls the Australian populace. Such romantic delusions will continue to see Australia send elements into foreign regions, especially as a member of any wider coalition, so long as it has a bigger friend to serve.

While this book may be somewhat dated, and many of the players mentioned are long dead, the methods and institutions by which “they” lied and volunteered “us” into war are still very much alive today. While this may be history, the lessons are clearly unlearned, and these methods have instead become refined and advanced for the worse.

War for the Asking is a key anti-war read. It reteaches many of the lessons that deserve to be retaught when it comes to not only the state’s torpidness, but also it’s desire to outright murder in the name of pragmatism and policy.

Kym Robinson

Kym Robinson

Kym is the Harry Browne Fellow for The Libertarian Institute. Some times a coach, some times a fighter, some times a writer, often a reader but seldom a cabbage. Professional MMA fighter and coach. Unprofessional believer in liberty. I have studied, enlisted, worked in the meat industry for most of my life, all of that above jazz and to hopefully some day write something worth reading.

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