Powerful Friends: the Colombo Plan, ANZUS and SEATO

Alliances, treaties and forums in the 1950s. The reasons for the establishment of the ANZUS Treaty and its defensive nature; Australia's involvement in the Colombo Plan (1951) and its political, economic and social motives; Australia's position in SEATO and the ideological motives of the organisation; and the influence of the significant concepts of 'powerful friends' and regional security in the context of communism.