Over the past week, several security experts in the US have been revealing that the US Administration wants Australia to speak out more clearly about the supposed threats posed by China.

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That is clearly the view of the Trump Administration, even though it has not declared it.

But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shows no sign of doing anything about it. Indeed, his work to improve Australia-China relations and his proposed recognition of a Palestinian state have put some friction in Australia-US relations.

It is not new for Labor in Australia to hold back from falling in lock step with whatever the US does in the world, unlike the "All the way with LBJ" Coalition.

In 1965, Labor leader Arthur Calwell expressed vehement opposition to the decision of the Coalition Menzies government to commit Australian troops to join US forces in Vietnam.

In 2003, Labor leader Simon Crean opposed the Coalition Howard government's decision to join the US in the Coalition of the Willing to invade Iraq.

They both said they would be vilified as unpatriotic at the time, but be vindicated later: foresight, not hindsight.

The difference now is that Labor is in government. The pity is that Labor was not in government in 1965 and 2003, and our role in those disastrous wars would have been avoided.

This time, the question is over China and its increasing military presence in the South China Sea and its attitude that it would be legitimate to use force to bring Taiwan under the control of the Communist Party of China.

Can we learn from history and not follow the US blindly into conflict with China over Taiwan? We should because that history is littered with folly.

Vietnam was a civil war, not a war of communist expansion. The Taliban is back in control in Afghanistan.

The first Iraq war failed to capture and arrest Saddam Hussein, who was guilty of waging an aggressive war.

In the........

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