Australia, the United States, and the Indochina Crisis of 1954

Bibliographic Data

ID16529607
AuthorsGregory Pemberton (Family Court of Australia, corresponding author), GREGORY JAMES PEMBERTON
Year1989
Volume13
Issue1
Pages45-66
Publication date1989-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDiplomatic History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0145-2096 • E-ISSN: 1467-7709
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-7709.1989.tb00043.x
OpenAlexW2017449829
LanguageEN
Citations received9

The development of history as an academic discipline has been intimately linked with the development of the nation-state. Historical writing has tended to reflect this connection in that often it has been confined to studies of a particular nation-state as an entity, or of developments within a nation-state. This has been especially true of the writing of diplomatic history. Multinational historical writing has been less common. Behind the philosophical reason for this tendency has been the very real problem of the time and expense, and in some cases the simple impossibility, of examining the archival materials of other countries. The excellent Foreign Relations series of the U.S. State Department has made it far easier for foreign scholars to use that country's diplomatic archival material. But in most cases the same facility does not exist for American scholars when dealing with foreign countries. Inevitably, there has been a tendency for American scholars to neglect the role of minor allies of the United States when writing on American foreign policy. This paper uses extensive and previously unpublished Australian archival material to examine a particular instance where the role played by a minor power, Australia, may have had a decisive impact on the course of U.S. decision making. Indeed, in this instance, the Indochina crisis of 1954, Australia may in effect have exercised a veto over the decision of the United States whether to intervene militarily in Indochina. In general, American scholars have not detected Australia's importance to the United States during this crisis

Foreign policy · Foreign relations · Great power · Impossibility · Minor (academic · Multinational corporation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · State (computer science · Veto · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies