Australia became involved in the Vietnam War for a number of reasons. The main reasons included the fear of the spread of communism, Australia’s alliance with the USA and Australia’s membership of SEATO.
In the years after World War 2 Australians feared that communism would spread through South-East Asia and eventually to Australia. The fear grew more when China became a communist state is 1949, the reason why China became a communist state was because the vast majority of the citizen were desperately poor and overthrew the government in order to take over assets of local rich people.
At this time the USA was Australia’s most important ally because the USA was involved in the Vietnam War and was keen for Australia’s support in Vietnam. The reason why Australia supported the Vietnam War was because Australia wanted to be good friends with America and stay close allies with them incase a war broke out in Australia, so we would have all the help we could get and the forward defence policy.
Australia was also a member of the SEATO. The purpose of SEATO was to help ensure stability to South East Asia and stop the spread of communism to the area. It was designed to be similar to NATO and created because of the Truman Doctrine. The members of SEATO were: Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The US attempted to get help from SEATO's member nations in Vietnam but was unsuccessful. The organization disbanded in 1977 officially.
Thus, the main reasons that Australia became involved in the Vietnam War were the fear that communism would spread through Asia, the need to support Australia’s most important ally, the USA and the SEATO alliance of which Australia was a member.
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