Creating an American lake: United States imperialism, strategic security, and the Pacific Basin, 1945-1947

US policy tn the Pacific during the first two years of the postwar period constituted an Early Cold War example of "security imperialism," expansion which was undertaken to consolidate strategic control in the region and ensure that the US never again experienced a Pearl Harbor-type attack from East Asia. While not as great a political priority as policy toward Europe, the Middle East, or East Asia itself, American Pacific policy was nevertheless historically significant because it was the only regional US policy which temporarily considered territorial annexation as the solution to post-war security anxieties. American Pacific imperialism was also important from an origins of the Cold War perspective because the region became intertwined in global political issues between the United States and the Soviet Union. In effect, the Pacific Basin became an arena for soured relations between those two powers as they disagreed about the postwar management of the world.Moreover, the author has found that policymakers, planners, and strategic thinkers thought of American "national security" in a much broader, multidimensional, and comprehensive manner than is commonly characterized by historians of American foreign relations. Disagreements with the Soviets over the postwar political status of the Pacific Islands north of the Equator demonstrated to most American officials that national security or "strategic security" in the region entailed absolute physical and military control over the region by the United States. Achieving this desired level of security, however, also entailed coupling the Pacific Islanders' future loyalty to the United States by the imposition of mainland American economic and cultural practices and institutions.