This was the first major land victory. However, there were changes in policies. The most important one was in 1941 when John Curtin, the Prime Minister, declared that Britain could no longer be Australia's number one ally. This was declared because Singapore, said to be an impenetrable fortress, was defeated by the Japanese, which just showed that the British were too tied up with their own war in Europe that they could not be relied upon to protect their territories in Asia. This forced him to become strong allies with the USA that still lasts to this day.
After World War 2 there were also changes in policies and attitudes concerning foreign affairs. After Japan had been defeated and the European powers weakened, many Asian and Pacific nations wanted independence. Australia at first supported this, like when they helped Indonesia become independent from the Dutch colonial forces, which was a change in policy from before the war when they would have supported their traditional ally, Britain, which had colonies in the region. Although Australia supported de-colonization, when the problem arose it was strongly against communism, in support for their new ally, USA. The reason the USA was against communism was because it was during the Cold War in which the two major powers in the world, Russia, which was communist, and USA, which was democratic, seriously distrusted each other. To combat the threat of communism, Australia joined two anti-communist alliances. The first was ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States) which was formed in 1951 and the second was SEATO (South-East Asia Treaty Organization) which was formed in 1954. The purpose of these alliances was for the countries in them to protect any country that was also in them from a direct threat from communism. Another policy that the Australian government implemented was the "Forward Defence Policy" which was implemented so defence forces could move forward into Asia to stop any perceived threat from communism.
