Have just read a piece by Prof Cyr on the AUS-US partnership published recently in the Arkansas News online.
http://www.arkansasnews.com/opinion/20180227/arthur-i-cyr-australia-us-partnership-remains-crucial?start=2
Just a few points on that...
Turnbull's quote to USA Today was no more than a cynical attempt to portray himself as the archetypal Australian. If he is representative at all, it is of the Landed Gentry - the enemy of the ordinary person, just as Trump represents only one aspect of the US national character.
The Australian public was deceived regarding Japanese intentions in order to have public support for aiding the US. The Japanese never intended to conquer Australia (and I am aware Prof. Cyr never stated they were going to, but it is something that some may infer, or take for granted).
To quote from a 2002 story published in The Age:
Japan never seriously intended to invade Australia, a fact known to the Australian Government by mid-1942 and confirmed by intelligence reports, principal historian to the Australian War Memorial, Peter Stanley, said yesterday at a conference examining the events of 1942.
"I'm sick of the myth; it's time to knock it on the head," he said. "A lie told for wartime propaganda stays with us. "From 1942, Australia's war contracted to its surrounding territory. The invasion myth helps justify the parochial view Australians took of their war effort. I'm arguing that there was in fact no invasion plan, that the Curtin government exaggerated the threat."
Australia's strategic planners had a long-term view that Japan had designs on Australia. With the fall of Malaya (now Malaysia) and Singapore, that prediction appeared to be coming true.
The shock of Japanese bombers attacking Darwin in February, 1942, raised fears to a fever pitch. Certainly the actions of the Curtin cabinet display disquiet if not panic. Even before the fall of Malaya, New Britain or Singapore, Mr Curtin had appealed for help to British prime minister Winston Churchill and to US president Franklin Roosevelt.
Mr Curtin claimed that "it is beyond our capacity to meet an attack of the weight the Japanese could launch" on Australia.
By early March, cabinet, on the advice of the Australian chiefs-of-staff, anticipated a landing around Darwin in early April and a landing on the east coast by May.
Dr Stanley states there was no Japanese invasion plan before 1942 and that Australia barely rated a mention in the 1941 conferences which planned Japan's strategy. In early 1942, in the euphoria of Asia-Pacific victories, some middle-ranking naval officers in Tokyo proposed that Australia should be invaded to forestall it being used as a base for an Allied counter-offensive.
"The plans got no further than some acrimonious discussions," Dr Stanley said. "The army dismissed the idea as "gibberish", knowing that troops sent further south would weaken Japan in China and in Manchuria against a Soviet threat. Not only did the Japanese army condemn the plan, but the navy general staff also deprecated it, unable to spare the million tonnes of shipping the invasion would have consumed.
"By mid-March the proposal lapsed. Instead, the Japanese adopted a plan to isolate Australia, impeding communication between Australia and the United States by the occupation of islands to Australia's north-east."
https://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/05/31/1022569832145.html
Australia historically, has sycophantically and compulsively followed whatever the US has dictated to us. The only one to try and buck that unequal "relationship" was Gough Whitlam and I am sure most know about the bloodless coup he suffered as a result. Which is why Gillard, who ostensibly belonged to the same faction as Whitlam, was not about to deny the US what it wanted.
Worse fates of course have been met by any Latin American leader demanding equal footing in trade and treaty terms. They end up dead, ousted, or in exile, going at least as far back as 1948 (Jorge Gaitan, Colombia). It is no coincidence that 1948 was the year after the CIA was formed.
Prof. Cyr concluded his piece by stating:
Australia provides diplomatic leadership. Americans, take note.
Please. The Turnbull government is an absolute shambles, incapable of providing leadership within it's own three-ring circus, let alone to the international community.