scholarly journals The ANZUS Treaty during the Cold War: A Reinterpretation of U.S. Diplomacy in the Southwest Pacific

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 109-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas K. Robb ◽  
David James Gill
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Coercive Diplomacy ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This article explains the origins of the Australia–New Zealand–United States (ANZUS) Treaty by highlighting U.S. ambitions in the Pacific region after World War II. Three clarifications to the historiography merit attention. First, an alliance with Australia and New Zealand reflected the pursuit of U.S. interests rather than the skill of antipodean diplomacy. Despite initial reservations in Washington, geostrategic anxiety and economic ambition ultimately spurred cooperation. The U.S. government's eventual recourse to coercive diplomacy against the other ANZUS members, and the exclusion of Britain from the alliance, substantiate claims of self-interest. Second, the historiography neglects the economic rationale underlying the U.S. commitment to Pacific security. Regional cooperation ensured the revival of Japan, the avoidance of discriminatory trade policies, and the stability of the Bretton Woods monetary system. Third, scholars have unduly played down and misunderstood the concept of race. U.S. foreign policy elites invoked ideas about a “White Man's Club” in Asia to obscure the pursuit of U.S. interests in the region and to ensure British exclusion from the treaty.

“Self-Interest Well Understood”: The Origins & Lessons of Public Confidence in the Military

Daedalus ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 142 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew A. Hill ◽  
Leonard Wong ◽  
Stephen J. Gerras
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Physical Defense ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
High Regard ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

In recent decades, the U.S. military has enjoyed high levels of public confidence. We argue that the rise (and sustainment) of public confidence in the military reflects two phenomena. First, the public has a high regard for the military and its mission, arising from a shift to a professional (nonconscript) force that is perceived to be competent, fair, and accountable. Second, the public has little fear of military abuses in the domestic arena, owing chiefly to the reduced domestic presence of the military in the post – World War II era, with less emphasis on the physical defense of the homeland; and to the military's careful cultivation of an apolitical culture since Vietnam. We conclude with a brief discussion of the military's efforts to develop and encourage public-mindedness among its members, and the challenges to replicating the military approach in other institutional settings.

scholarly journals THE CURRENT STATUS OF MAPPING IN THE WORLD – SPOTLIGHT ON OCEANIA

2016 ◽  
Vol XLI-B4 ◽  
pp. 95-102
Author(s):  
John C. Trinder
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Airborne Lidar ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Pacific Island Countries

A summary is presented of the results of questionnaires sent to mapping agencies in Oceania, covering Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Island countries, to investigate the status of mapping in those countries. After World War II, the Australian Federal Government funded the initial small scale mapping of the whole country leading to increased percentages of map coverage of Australia. Mapping at larger scales is undertaken by the states and territories in Australia, including cadastral mapping. In New Zealand mapping is maintained by Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) at 1:50,000 scale and smaller with regular updating. The results of the questionnaires also demonstrate the extent of map coverage in six Pacific Islands, but there is little information available on the actual percent coverage. Overall there are estimated to be an increases in the percentages of coverage of most map scales in Oceania. However, there appear to be insufficient professionals in most Pacific Island countries to maintain the mapping programs. Given that many Pacific Island countries will be impacted by rising sea level in the future, better mapping of these countries is essential. The availability of modern technology especially satellite images, digital aerial photography and airborne lidar data should enable the Pacific Island countries to provide better map products in future, but this would depend on foreign aid on many occasions.

scholarly journals United States and the Middle East after the Cold War

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Yusuf Ibrahim Gamawa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Region Of Interest ◽  
The United States ◽  
Short Paper ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

The United States emerged as the most powerful country after World War II and as such found itself in an influential position to be involved in the future and destinies of many countries across the globe. The U.S. played a major role in the post War economic reconstruction in Europe and rendered assistance to many European states. American power at this time was seen to have extended to other parts of the globe, including the Middle East, which has been a region of interest to outside powers. This short paper tries to look at U.S. ambitions in the region and how far the U.S. has gone in achieving these ambitions. The paper argues that U.S. policies in the Middle East were in the long run, a failure, despite whatever successes achieved, following certain developments in the region, beginning with the 1979 revolution in Iran.

War News: Under New Management

Worldview ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 7-8
Author(s):  
Bernard Diederich
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Dominican Republic ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The Other ◽  
World War ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Lyndon Johnson ◽  
War News ◽  
Foreign Correspondent ◽  
The U.S

When, during the invasion of Grenada, Secretary of State George Schultz announced that newsmen were no longer “on our side,” he was correct. It's a far, far different world with wars far different from World War II, when our civilization was threatened and it would have been treason for a newsman to report from the “other side.” As a youth in the Pacific theatre of that war I saw my first foreign correspondent: He was uniformed and could have been a general.It all began to change during Korea; not all newsmen were accredited in that United Nations war. When, in April, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson ordered the U.S. Marines and 82nd Airborne ashore in the Dominican Republic, some of us went ashore with the first wave of Marines. Daily we crossed the Marines’ lines to cover the rebel side of the war.

Introduction

Gateway State ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Sarah Miller-Davenport
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This introductory chapter explains that global decolonization and Hawaiʻi statehood complemented U.S. efforts to promote the nation-state as the primary building block of the postwar global order. As the leading power of the noncommunist world, the United States “startlingly naturalized the free nation,” drawing on the tradition of Open Door diplomacy to advance its own political and economic interests as European colonialism collapsed. Against this background, Hawaiʻi, as an overseas colony legally distinct from the rest of the United States, appeared to many as an aberration needing resolution. Thus, the ideas on multiculturalism developed in Hawaiʻi were not mere rhetoric: poststatehood Hawaiʻi became a physical center for facilitating the new cultural encounters of the Cold War, with varying degrees of success. For those Americans seeking to sway the loyalties of people in Asia and the Pacific, Hawaiʻi was not only seen as a symbolic representation of America's commitment to democracy and diversity; it was also a place where people from both Asia and the U.S. mainland were physically transported in order to prove the veracity of that message. But those cultural encounters did not always go as planned.

National Interests

2019 ◽  
pp. 10-39
Author(s):  
Thomas K. Robb ◽  
David James Gill
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
World War ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Strategic Cooperation ◽  
Economic Preferences ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter presents a broad survey of events from the end of World War II through to the early years of the Cold War. During the course of World War II, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand established unprecedented levels of strategic cooperation. Such cooperation, however, should not obscure the existence of significant and persistent differences during and after the conflict. All four states held different views about the future of security and economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. The chapter then contrasts U.S., British, Australian, and New Zealand national interests as well as regional objectives in the Asia-Pacific to show that postwar relations between all four states were not always conducive to future cooperation. Indeed, differences in national interests, military capabilities, economic preferences, domestic-political contexts, and security concerns repeatedly undermined cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. These competing national interests would come to weaken and confuse their response to the rising Communist challenge in the Asia-Pacific.

8. The Two-Ocean Navy

2018 ◽  
pp. 80-96
Author(s):  
Craig L. Symonds
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
American History ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Central Pacific ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The U.S

Europe went back to war in 1939 and on July 19 1940, the U.S. Congress passed the Two-Ocean Navy Act, the largest naval appropriation in American history, which expanded the U.S. Navy by more than seventy per cent in preparation for the United States entry into the war. ‘The two-ocean navy: the U.S. Navy in World War II (1939–1945)’ outlines the key battles fought by the U.S. Navy: in the Pacific from 1941–43, in the Mediterranean from 1943–44, the Central Pacific drive from 1943–44, the D-Day landings in 1944, and the ferocious battles with the Japanese at Iwo Jima and Okinawa that ended the war.

The Australian Pursuit of Japanese War Criminals, 1943-1957

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean Aszkielowicz
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Japanese Society ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Allied Occupation ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World ◽  
The U.S

After the Second World War, the Australian military prosecuted almost a thousand alleged Japanese war criminals. These prosecutions were not only an attempt to punish Japan for its wartime militarism, but also a move to exert influence over the future course of Japanese society, politics, and foreign policy, as well as to cement Australia’s position in the Pacific as a regional power. During the Allied occupation of Japan (1945-52), Australia energetically pursued Japanese war criminals, and took a tough stance on Japan in general. The U.S. authorities, who dominated the Occupation, initially took the same line. As the Cold War in Asia intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s, however, the U.S. government ceased to consider Japan a threat to Pacific security, and instead began to cultivate Japan as a potential democratic ally against communism. By the end of the Occupation, U.S. officials were firmly committed to pursuing good relations with the Japanese government. Gradually, in the 1950s, the Australian government came to share the U.S. view of Japan. As Japan shifted in official thinking from being a former foe, to a potential economic and political partner, concerns about the guilt of individual Japanese soldiers made way for pragmatism and political gain. The war criminals became entangled with Australian moves to establish good relations with Japan, and to draw the U.S. into a close alliance. Variations to their sentences - through repatriation to Japan, and later through parole or other forms of early release - became diplomatic bargaining chips. By the end of 1957, all of the surviving war criminals prosecuted by Australia had been released.

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