ABSTRACT
Commonwealth involvement in the Korean War marked a further stage in the development of defense relationships between Britain and the participating Dominions, between those Dominions, and between all of these in their post-war relations with the United States. Commonwealth governments contributed ground, air, and naval components in various combinations. Involvement in the war raised difficult policy issues that reflected Britain’s continuing role as a colonial power in Asia, the geographic reality of Australia’s and New Zealand’s unfolding relationship with Asia in the aftermath of the Pacific War, Canada’s aspirations to “middle power” status, and the tensions within Commonwealth affairs between the “old” (white, Dominion) Commonwealth and the “new,” as exemplified by India. In the military sphere, participation threw up practical and policy issues both operationally and politically that continued to resonate after the war’s end, not least over prisoner of war (POW) issues.
