ANZUS
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| Abbreviation | ANZUS |
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| Formation | 1 September 1951 |
| Type | Military alliance |
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Membership
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3 member states: Australia New Zealand (Partialy suspended) United States
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Official language
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English |
The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS or ANZUS Treaty) is the 1951 collective security agreement which binds Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the United States, to co-operate on military matters in the Pacific Ocean region, although today the treaty is taken to relate to conflicts worldwide. It provides that an armed attack on any of the three parties would be dangerous to the others, and that each should act to meet the common threat. It set up a committee of foreign ministers that can meet for consultation.
The treaty was one of the series that the United States formed in the 1949–55 era as part of its collective response to the threat of communism during the Cold War. New Zealand was suspended from ANZUS in 1986 as it initiated a nuclear-free zone in its territorial waters; in late 2012 the United States lifted a ban on visits by New Zealand warships leading to a thawing in tensions. New Zealand maintains a nuclear-free zone as part of its foreign policy and is not part of ANZUS, as the United States maintains an ambiguous policy whether or not the warships carry nuclear weapons, however New Zealand resumed key areas of the ANZUS treaty in 2007 (today bilateral meetings of ANZUS are held between Australia and United States only).
The treaty was previously a full three-way defence pact, but following a dispute between New Zealand and the United States in 1984 over visiting rights for ships and submarines capable of carrying nuclear arms or nuclear-powered ships of the US Navy to New Zealand ports, became between Australia and New Zealand and between Australia and the United States, i.e. the treaty has lapsed between the United States and New Zealand, although it remains separately in force between both of those states and Australia. In 2000, the United States opened its ports to the Royal New Zealand Navy once again, and under the presidency of Bill Clinton in the US and the government of Helen Clark in New Zealand, the countries have since reestablished bilateral cooperation on defence and security for world peace.
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