Word: australia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...first foreign policy dispute of the second Reagan Administration bubbled to the surface last week from two improbable spots: New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, Australia. What had begun last year as a policy by New Zealand's new Labor government to establish the country as a nuclear-free zone was suddenly transformed into a threat to the 33-year-old ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, U.S.) defense pact between Washington and its longtime allies in the South Pacific...
...antinuclear position. Hawke had faced a similar threat from antinuclear forces within his own Australian Labor Party but had managed to stave off efforts to prevent U.S. Navy ships from visiting Australian ports. If the U.S. considered Hawke's letter to Lange to be a "forthright expression" of Australia's support for ANZUS, many New Zealanders tended to see it as meddling by a neighboring country they sometimes regard as a bullying older brother...
...ANZUS pact has been a vital part of its global defense obligations. For Australia and New Zealand, the treaty has provided a measure of protection under the U.S. nuclear shield--even if external threats to life and freedom have seemed remote in the South Pacific. The U.S. is specifically concerned about the growth of the Soviet Union's blue-water navy, pointing to increasing Soviet use of facilities at Cam Ranh Bay, once the main U.S. military complex and naval base in Viet Nam. Says a U.S. official: "We are facing a real problem of Soviet penetration...
...apparent that most Australians and New Zealanders do not take that threat as seriously as Washington does. In the past five years, antinuclear movements have made headway in both countries. In Australia, Hawke has managed to contain the antinuclear demands of left-wing Laborites without compromising Australia's defense commitments, even though he has come under fire for not consulting enough with his party's caucus--especially in recent days over the MX issue. In New Zealand, Lange seems determined to fulfill his campaign pledge of denying access to nuclear ships...
...result has been a series of U.S. threats, both explicit and implied, to suspend military cooperation with New Zealand if Lange refuses to give in. Such an approach may raise hackles Down Under even more. New Zealanders resent any kind of pressure, from Australia or the U.S.; Australians are only slightly less sensitive to strong-arm tactics, wherever they may come from. New Zealanders are divided in the current national debate. Recent polls show that while 58% of the New Zealand population of 3.2 million opposes visits by nuclear-armed warships, 59% would not be troubled by calls by ships...