One would think that given the fact that the U.S. underwrites the NATO Treaty, the U.S. could rely upon member-states of NATO to give unequivocal support to the president in this precarious moment.  The E.U.'s dominant power, Germany, did not.  Angela Merkel of Germany uttered not a word of support for the president of the United States and his position on the substantial threat from the despot of North Korea.

But from obscurity came a voice from the antipodes, a Southern Pacific neighbor of Guam in the Western Pacific Ocean, supporting the president of the USA.  Last Friday, at the height of the crisis, Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull declared:

Be under no misapprehension – in terms of defence we [Australia and US] are joined at the hip".

"Let's be very clear ... If there is an attack on the United States by North Korea, then the ANZUS Treaty will be invoked and Australia will come to the aid of the United States, just as if there was an attack on Australia, the United States would come to our aid."

We Aussies are obliged, and quite willing, to stand by our friend and ally, to confront, to engage, and to defend Western civilization against a barbarian who callously executes members of his own family.

Australia was one of many nations that fought gallantly alongside the U.S. in the Korean War, often dubbed "the forgotten war."  Australia also gallantly fought alongside U.S. troops in Vietnam, having command of Nui Dat in Phuoc Tuy Province.

This coming Friday, 18 August, is the 51st anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan in Vietnam, in which a company of Australian Diggers (108) defeated a combined force of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong numbering some 2,500 and more in a rubber plantation, resulting in the deaths of 17 Australians, with the enemy losing at least 246 of their own.  It was a practice of the enemy at the time to take the bodies of their dead with them so as to confuse the Allies (intelligence) as to the significance of an engagement.

The birth of Australia came about directly from the American War of Independence (1775-1783) with English authorities having nowhere else to dump their convicts.  So on 26 January 1788 Governor Phillip, Admiral Arthur Phillip, raised the Union Jack over Sydney Harbor.

Since then Australia has stood shoulder to shoulder with the U.S. in the First World War (1914-1918); Second World War (1939-1945); and of course Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere.