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Many historians of U.S. foreign relations think of the post-World War II period as a time when the United States, as an anti-colonial power, advocated collective security through the United Nations and denounced territorial aggrandizement. Yet between 1945 and 1947, the United States violated its wartime rhetoric and instead sought an imperial solution to its postwar security problems in East Asia by acquiring unilateral control of the western Pacific Islands and dominating influence throughout the entire Pacific Basin. This detailed study examines American foreign policy from the beginning of the Truman Administration to the implementation of Containment in the summer and fall of 1947. As a case study of the Truman Administration's Early Cold War efforts, it explores pre-Containment policy in light of U.S. security concerns vis-a-vis the Pearl Harbor Syndrome.
The American pursuit of a secure Pacific Basin was inconsistent at the time with its foreign policy toward other areas of the world. Thus, the consolidation of power in this region was an exception to the avowed goal of a multilateral response to the policies of the Soviet Union. This example of national or strategic security went much further than simple military control; it included the cultural assimilation of the indigenous population and the unilateral exclusion of all other powers. Analyzing traditional archival records in a new light, Friedman also investigates the persisting American notions of a Westward moving frontier that stretches beyond North American territorial bounds.
List of contents
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Modified Mahanism: Pearl Harbor, the Pacific War, and the Mobile Defense of the Postwar Basin
The "American Lake" Effect and U.S. Pacific Basin Security Policy in the 1940s
The "Bear" in Paradise?: U.S. Intelligence Perceptions of Soviet Power Projection in the Pacific Basin
The Limitations of Collective Security: The United States, the Allied Powers, and the Pacific Basin
Chosen Instruments and Open Doors in Paradise: United States Strategic Security and Economic Policy in the Pacific Islands
"Races Undesirable from a Military Point of View": United States Cultural Security and the Pacific Islands
"As a Forward Bulwark of the American Way of Life": Americanization as a Strategic Security Measure
Conclusion: Out with the Old, in with the New?: Continuities and Changes in American Pacific Policy
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Hal M. Friedman is a full-time modern history instructor at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Michigan, where he also teaches courses in modern American and modern world history. In addition, he teaches upper-division and graduate courses for Central Michigan University-Metro Detroit. He has MA and PhD degrees in the history of international relations from Michigan State University. Dr. Friedman has 10 articles, 11 book reviews, and 6 encyclopedia entries in print or forthcoming, most of which concern U.S. strategic consolidation over the post-World War II Pacific. This is his first monograph.
