Thompson Werk

At some point during this semester my dissertation topic must be narrowed down into an original research project.  In the most basic sense, my dissertation will deal with the relationship between the United States and Australia during the Vietnam War.  Wanting to better understand how the US Army and the Australian forces in Vietnam worked together is not groundbreaking.  Ideally, I would like to demonstrate that the Vietnam War was not just a US issue, but rather a conflict that tested America’s relationship with the Commonwealth, particularly Australia.  As a result, I need a new angle to examine the military relations between the two Allies.

While the Vietnam War is the most pronounced topic of my dissertation, the research must examine more than just armies.  One idea requires looking at the how the US Military Assistance Command (MACV) and the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV) differed in how they advised and trained elements of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).  Moreover, did ARVN units trained by Americans perform better, or worse, than those trained by Australians?  Following-up on that question, what possible controversies emerged from Australia’s training programs?  A second idea involves studying the fallout from North Vietnam’s 1968 Tet Offensive.  Did the Tet Offensive affect the two Allies differently?  Also, did one nation respond better to the attack?  A third research possibility involves comparing the legacies of the Vietnam War from American and Australian perspectives.  How do the two nations look back at the war and how has the war affected current military-civilian relations?  Perhaps there is a way to combine all three of these ideas into a wider examination of the Vietnam War?  Additionally, these ideas may lack substantial originality.  These are just the ideas that I have come-up with thus far, so a good deal of development remains to be done.