Creating an American Lake

United States Imperialism and Strategic Security in the Pacific Basin, 1945-1947

AvHal M. Friedman

Inbunden, Engelska, 2000

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Beskrivning

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.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2000-11-30
Mått:156 x 235 x 21 mm
Vikt:567 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Contributions in Military Studies
Antal sidor:256
Förlag:Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN:9780313313011

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Mer om författaren

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.

Recensioner i media

Hal Friedman, in his detailed study of U.S. military policy in the Pacific in the same time period, has rendered an important service to historians of the Cold War and of the U.S. international activities . . . [F]riedman shows how even innocent motives can and did lead to imperialist control over indigenous peoples of the Pacific and how it heightened rather than defused global conflict.

Innehållsförteckning

ForewordPrefaceIntroductionModified Mahanism: Pearl Harbor, the Pacific War, and the Mobile Defense of the Postwar BasinThe "American Lake" Effect and U.S. Pacific Basin Security Policy in the 1940sThe "Bear" in Paradise?: U.S. Intelligence Perceptions of Soviet Power Projection in the Pacific BasinThe Limitations of Collective Security: The United States, the Allied Powers, and the Pacific BasinChosen 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 MeasureConclusion: Out with the Old, in with the New?: Continuities and Changes in American Pacific PolicyBibliographyIndex