"We Err If We Regard the Americans as Our Blood Cousins": Interwar American-Australian Relations

Shortly after the outbreak of the Pacific War Australian Prime
Minister John Curtin famously announced “Without any inhibitions
of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to
America”. This paper argues that Curtin’s famous statement did
not herald a sudden shift in Australian foreign policy as is
commonly believed, but rather “the look to America” represented
a continuation of Australian interwar foreign policy which had
focussed on securing an American alliance to complement Imperial
defence, a foreign policy that continued into the post-war
period and culminated with the 1951 ANZUS Treaty.
This paper focuses on Australia’s attempts to form an
informal alliance with the United States during the interwar
period and pays special attention to the role Australia’s being
an island had on Australia’s interpretation of American policy
and strategic outlook and how cultural misunderstandings
hindered efforts to form an American-Australian alliance in
spite of repeated governmental visits to Washington and visits
of Americans statesmen to Australia. This paper is based on
American, Australian, and British documents, newspapers,
journals, and novels many of which have not been consulted
previously by historians.