The relationship between Australia and the United States is undergoing an evolution today, but it is an alliance rooted in more than 100 years of history, said Australian Foreign Minister Robert Carr. The alliance goes back to President Teddy Roosevelt’s desire to have the Great White Fleet visit Australia on its worldwide tour, said Carr during an April 25 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. As the Japanese marched across the Pacific during World War II, and the British presence at Singapore faltered, Australia looked to the United States to help secure its territory and interests, he stated. Today, support for this alliance comes from a partnership codified in the 1951 ANZUS pact, he said. “Only earlier this month, we saw the evolution of this alliance,” said Carr, noting the arrival of the first company of US marines in Darwin, Australia, to begin training. That exchange will aid Australian forces’ ability to operate amphibiously and respond to natural disasters, he said.
The defense intelligence community has tried three times in the past decade to build a “common intelligence picture”—a single data stream providing the information that commanders need to make decisions about the battlefield. The first two attempts failed. But officials say things are different today.