Network Connections and the Emergence of the Hub-and-Spokes Alliance System in East Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-50
Author(s):  
Yasuhiro Izumikawa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Social Exchange ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Alliance Politics ◽  
Japanese Imperialism ◽  
Alliance System

Why did the so-called hub-and-spokes alliance system emerge in East Asia after World War II instead of a multilateral alliance? Realists and constructivists offer various explanations, pointing to such factors as the United States' preference for bilateral alliances, the absence of a collective identity, and historical memories of Japanese imperialism. None of these explanations is satisfactory, however. Indeed, the historical record reveals that the United States sought a multilateral alliance in East Asia until the early 1960s. A theoretical model based on a social exchange network approach explains how a specific form of network can develop among potential allies. In East Asia, three U.S. allies—Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—contributed to the emergence and shape of the hub-and-spokes system, which came into being as an unintended consequence of their interactions. The preferences and behavior of these allies proved at least as consequential as those of the United States in shaping this system. The implications of this finding could be significant for alliance politics in contemporary East Asia.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
David J Ulbrich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Culture Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Pacific Basin ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
World War ◽  
The Pacific

The introduction to this anthology connects a diverse collection of essays that examine the 1940s as the critical decade in the United States’ ascendance in the Pacific Rim. Following the end of World War II, the United States assumed the hegemonic role in the region when Japan’s defeat created military and political vacuums in the region. It is in this context that this anthology stands not only as a précis of current scholarship but also as a prospectus for future research. The contributors’ chapters eschew the traditional focus on military operations that has dominated the historiography of 1940s in the Pacific Basin and East Asia. Instead, the contributors venture into areas of race, gender, technology, culture, media, diplomacy, and institutions, all of which add nuance and clarity to the existing literature of World War II and the early Cold War.

The Place of the American Republics and Canada in the New World Order

1946 ◽  
Vol 3 (02) ◽  
pp. 161-167
Author(s):  
Joseph F. Thorning
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
The Other ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
Franklin Delano Roosevelt ◽  
Good Neighbor

In the terrible flames of World War II, the Good Neighbor policy, as conceived by its architect, Sumner Welles, and promulgated by its popularizer, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, met the supreme test of “blood, sweat and tears.” Tried in the crucible of worldwide conflict, inter-American friendship met the challenge of totalitarian Nazi-Fascism triumphantly. As our Good Neighbors themselves often proclaimed in the course of the last five years, “Las Américas unidas, unidas vencerán.” “The united Americas will find victory in their united front.” To emphasize the contribution of the other American Republics and Canada to our recent victory is a simple act of justice. The historical record discloses that, almost immediately after the Japanese sneak-attack at Pearl Harbor, the tiny Republic of Costa Rica, democratic to the core, hours before the Congress of the United States of America swung into action, had declared war upon the warlords of Tokyo. Although only Canada and the United States of Brazil actually despatched complete army divisions to fight on the battlefields of Europe, the other peoples in this Hemisphere, in overwhelming numbers, sympathized effectively with our cause, while their Governments, one by one, broke diplomatic relations with the Axis powers. In a most critical hour for the peoples of the Western Hemisphere, the spiritual unity of the American Republics and Canada established itself as a precious, sacred reality. Our enemies were regarded as the enemies of America; our friends the faithful allies of humanity, liberty and democracy.

Powerplay: Origins of the U.S. Alliance System in Asia

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 158-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor D. Cha
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
East Asia ◽  
The United States ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Republic ◽  
A Chain ◽  
Alliance System ◽  
Postwar Planning ◽  
Security Structure ◽  
The U.S

In East Asia the United States cultivated a “hub and spokes” system of discrete, exclusive alliances with the Republic of Korea, the Republic of China, and Japan, a system that was distinct from the multilateral security alliances it preferred in Europe. Bilateralism emerged in East Asia as the dominant security structure because of the “powerplay” rationale behind U.S. postwar planning in the region. “Powerplay” refers to the construction of an asymmetric alliance designed to exert maximum control over the smaller ally's actions. The United States created a series of bilateral alliances in East Asia to contain the Soviet threat, but a congruent rationale was to constrain “rogue allies”—that is, rabidly anticommunist dictators who might start wars for reasons of domestic legitimacy and entrap the United States in an unwanted larger war. Underscoring the U.S. desire to avoid such an outcome was a belief in the domino theory, which held that the fall of one small country in Asia could trigger a chain of countries falling to communism. The administrations of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower calculated that they could best restrain East Asia's pro-West dictators through tight bilateral alliances rather than through a regionwide multilateral mechanism. East Asia's security bilateralism today is therefore a historical artifact of this choice.

The Place of the American Republics and Canada in the New World Order

1946 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-167
Author(s):  
Joseph F. Thorning
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
The Other ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
Franklin Delano Roosevelt ◽  
Good Neighbor

In the terrible flames of World War II, the Good Neighbor policy, as conceived by its architect, Sumner Welles, and promulgated by its popularizer, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, met the supreme test of “blood, sweat and tears.” Tried in the crucible of worldwide conflict, inter-American friendship met the challenge of totalitarian Nazi-Fascism triumphantly. As our Good Neighbors themselves often proclaimed in the course of the last five years, “Las Américas unidas, unidas vencerán.” “The united Americas will find victory in their united front.”To emphasize the contribution of the other American Republics and Canada to our recent victory is a simple act of justice. The historical record discloses that, almost immediately after the Japanese sneak-attack at Pearl Harbor, the tiny Republic of Costa Rica, democratic to the core, hours before the Congress of the United States of America swung into action, had declared war upon the warlords of Tokyo. Although only Canada and the United States of Brazil actually despatched complete army divisions to fight on the battlefields of Europe, the other peoples in this Hemisphere, in overwhelming numbers, sympathized effectively with our cause, while their Governments, one by one, broke diplomatic relations with the Axis powers. In a most critical hour for the peoples of the Western Hemisphere, the spiritual unity of the American Republics and Canada established itself as a precious, sacred reality. Our enemies were regarded as the enemies of America; our friends the faithful allies of humanity, liberty and democracy.

Securing Asia for Asians

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simeon Man
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
South Korea ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
World War ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

This chapter describes the U.S. buildup of the armed forces of allied nations in East Asia immediately following World War II, focusing in particular on South Korea. The United States justified militarization in the name of teaching Asians how to defend their newly acquired freedom from communism, and, more broadly, of building an Asia for Asians. The chapter argues that this effort carried unintended consequences, as the attempt to incorporate “free Asians” into the U.S. military empire simultaneously heightened the specter of subversive Asians within the military and in the United States in the 1950s.

FRUSTRATED ALIGNMENT: THE PACIFIC PACT PROPOSALS FROM 1949 TO 1954 AND SOUTH KOREA–TAIWAN RELATIONS

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junghyun Park
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
South Korea ◽  
East Asia ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
The Cold War

This research deals with South Korea–Taiwan relations from 1949, when the concept of a “Pacific Pact” was first introduced, to 1954, when the Asian People's Anti-Communist League (APACL) was formed. Thus far, studies on the regional order of East Asia during the early Cold War period have focused on U.S. policies toward East Asia and U.S. relations with individual East Asian states. In contrast, this present work examines the multilateral nature of the international relations in the region at the time. The extended cooperation, conflict, and competition between South Korea (ROK) and Taiwan (ROC) over the Pacific Pact from 1949 to 1954 vividly show how actively the two nations attempted to engage in the international arena to ensure their own security. Certainly, the primary purpose of this pact was not to form an autonomous regional alliance independent of the United States. In post-World War II Asia, the United States sought to reorganize a new regional order in Asia, with Japan at the center of this proposed order. Under these circumstances, Taiwan and South Korea, standing at the front line of the Cold War, were desperate to attract the U.S.'s attention. Once the two new nations had secured U.S. military and economic aid, however, they no longer pursued their former aggressive and expansive diplomatic strategies. After the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, signed on December 2, 1954, Taiwan discarded the Pacific Pact as an offensive and defensive treaty and concentrated on the APACL. South Korea, for its part, did not further pursue the Pacific Pact after the ROK–U.S. Mutual Defense Agreement was concluded on October 1, 1953.South Korea and Taiwan maintained an exceptionally close relationship even after signing individual treaties with the United States. At times, the two nations competed to play a leading role in the international relations of Asia. Yet, their differences of opinion did not cross the line of cooperation between the two countries until the collapse of the Soviet Union brought an end to the Cold War system: South Korea then normalized relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1992.

Thai-American Relations in World War II

1963 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
James V. Martin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Eastern Asia ◽  
Japanese Imperialism ◽  
Western Power ◽  
Sphere Of Influence

World War II brought a degree of complexity and intensity to Thai-American relations that contrasted sharply with their quiet uneventfulness in the era preceding it. Before the war, Thai relations with the United States had been friendly, but not close since Thailand was within the British financial and commercial sphere of influence. The factors chiefly responsible for altering diese former relations were the emergence of Thai nationalism in association with Japanese imperialism and the eclipse of Western power in eastern Asia during World War II.

Interstate Rivalry in East Asia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Khoo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Territorial Disputes ◽  
World War ◽  
China Sea ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Interstate Rivalry

It is difficult to overstate the importance of East Asia to U.S. national security policy. East Asia was an important venue of contestation for the United States during World War II and the Cold War. Presently, the United States has multiple regional alliances and partnerships and is deeply integrated with the region’s political economy. The region is also the site of a number of critical interstate rivalries that directly impinge on U.S. interests. This chapter evaluates the literature on the U.S.-China relationship and territorial disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea. This chapter contends that neorealist theory offers a particularly illuminating lens in which to understand interstate rivalry in East Asia.

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