The US Fights Overseas

2020 ◽  
pp. 51-58
Author(s):  
Courtney A. Short

U.S. military forces spread across the globe in various states of preparation. While some military government personnel attended Civil Affairs training schools, many only received training onboard the transport ships heading across the Pacific. Soldiers received training that instructed them to approach the Okinawans with caution and to view them as potential enemies, yet they also were granted the authority to assess their own interactions with the civilians on their own merits. Marines training finalized Okinawan identity and left no room for debate or reconsideration.

2020 ◽  
pp. 124-139
Author(s):  
Courtney A. Short

With the end of the Pacific War, responsibility for military government on Okinawa transferred to the U.S. Navy. American combat troops on Okinawa adjusted their priority from enemy engagement to demobilization, and military government changed its mission from amassing the population to full occupation of a prefecture from a defeated country. Overwhelmed by a large, displaced population who still had urgent needs for basic sustenance and medical treatment, the Navy issued ad hoc directives and did not build strategically toward a defined, long-term goal. Early Navy military government failed to adapt to the new peacetime environment; it did not attempt to rebuild and its assumptions of Okinawan identity remained stagnated in a wartime state. Navy military government struggled so profoundly in completing day to day requirements that any developments toward improvement in the program failed to reach fruition in 1945.


China Report ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-258
Author(s):  
Saber Salem

China’s political, economic and cultural influence is steadily rising in Fiji and the Pacific region as a whole. The Sino–Fiji cooperation deepened at multiple levels after the Fijian military assumed power through a coup d’état and removed the civilian government from power in late 2006. This ‘undemocratic behaviour’ infuriated the two regional powers—Australia and New Zealand who then applied sanctions on Fiji, particularly the military brass, and encouraged their counterparts as well as multilateral aid organisations to ‘punish’ Fiji’s military ‘regime’. The military government in order to derail the impact of sanctions from its traditional donors adopted the ‘Look North Policy’, which was opening cooperation with China and attracting Chinese investment in Fiji. China welcomed the friendship gesture and furnished Fiji with financial assistance. This Chinese friendship was also due to Taiwanese involvement in the region, which was providing aid for diplomatic recognition and support at the UN. The ‘microstates’ hold about 7 per cent of UN votes. Both China and Taiwan need their votes at multilateral organisations and given that these microstates are mostly aid-dependent economies, initiated an era of Chequebook diplomacy, which is basically money for diplomatic recognition in the case of Taiwan or acceptance of One China Policy in the case of China. The microstates have time and again switched between China and Taiwan and played one against the other to get more aid money out of their diplomatic rivalry. The Sino–Taiwan aid competition in the Pacific forced US to make a strong comeback and ensure that China under the pretext of denying Taiwan space in the region actually spies on the US activities in the region. As a result, the US and its regional allies have significantly increased their foreign aid to the island nations in order to coax them to diminish their level of financial dependence on China. So far, they have not been successful enough and China’s aid package has gone far beyond the level US is giving. Today, China is the second largest donor to the region and largest financier to Fiji. Fiji has become the ace in this game as it is the regional hub of the Pacific Island states. Bearing the current high level of aid competition between traditional and emerging donors in mind, it is too early to judge whether Chinese aid will cause more harm to Fiji than benefit or vice versa. It also entirely depends on the Fijian government as to how much it relies on Chinese aid and how clean Chinese are with their soft loans. China has been blamed for not being clear and specific about the terms and conditions of its concessional loans. This vagueness and secrecy that is associated with Chinese aid been a cause for concern, especially among traditional donors.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 1345-1359 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. G. Pfister ◽  
L. K. Emmons ◽  
D. P. Edwards ◽  
A. Arellano ◽  
T. Campos ◽  
...  

Abstract. We analyze the transport of pollution across the Pacific during the NASA INTEX-B (Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment Part B) campaign in spring 2006 and examine how this year compares to the time period for 2000 through 2006. In addition to aircraft measurements of carbon monoxide (CO) collected during INTEX-B, we include in this study multi-year satellite retrievals of CO from the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument and simulations from the chemistry transport model MOZART-4. Model tracers are used to examine the contributions of different source regions and source types to pollution levels over the Pacific. Additional modeling studies are performed to separate the impacts of inter-annual variability in meteorology and dynamics from changes in source strength. Interannual variability in the tropospheric CO burden over the Pacific and the US as estimated from the MOPITT data range up to 7% and a somewhat smaller estimate (5%) is derived from the model. When keeping the emissions in the model constant between years, the year-to-year changes are reduced (2%), but show that in addition to changes in emissions, variable meteorological conditions also impact transpacific pollution transport. We estimate that about 1/3 of the variability in the tropospheric CO loading over the contiguous US is explained by changes in emissions and about 2/3 by changes in meteorology and transport. Biomass burning sources are found to be a larger driver for inter-annual variability in the CO loading compared to fossil and biofuel sources or photochemical CO production even though their absolute contributions are smaller. Source contribution analysis shows that the aircraft sampling during INTEX-B was fairly representative of the larger scale region, but with a slight bias towards higher influence from Asian contributions.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (6) ◽  
pp. 1775-1784
Author(s):  
Helene Svarva ◽  
Pieter Grootes ◽  
Martin Seiler ◽  
Terje Thun ◽  
Einar Værnes ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTTo resolve an inconsistency around AD 1895 between radiocarbon (14C) measurements on oak from the British Isles and Douglas fir and Sitka spruce from the Pacific Northwest, USA, we measured the 14C content in single-year tree rings from a Scots pine tree (Pinus sylvestris L.), which grew in a remote location in Saltdal, northern Norway. The dataset covers the period AD 1864–1937 and its results are in agreement with measurements from the US Pacific coast around 1895. The most likely explanation for older ages in British oak in this period seems to be 14C depletion associated with the combustion of fossil fuels.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-55
Author(s):  
Mohamad Zreik

AbstractThe Chinese Ministry of Commerce issued a statement Friday morning, July 6, 2018, confirming the outbreak of a trade war between the United States and China. The statement came after the United States imposed tariffs on many Chinese goods, in violation of international and bilateral agreements, and the destruction of the concept of free trade which the United States calls for following it. It is a war of opposite directions, especially the contradiction between the new Trump policy and the Chinese approach. The proof is what US Defense Secretary James Matisse announced in Singapore in early June 2018 of “the full strategy of the new United States, in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific,” where China was the “sole enemy of the United States” in China’s geostrategic region. Intentions have become publicized, and trade war between the two economic giants is turning into a reality. This paper will give an overview of the US-China scenario of trade war, then a focused analysis on the Trump’s administration economic decision regarding China, and the consequences of this decision.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Nir Gazit ◽  

The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in the United States in May 2020 and the subsequent turmoil, as well as the violence against migrants on the US-Mexican border, have drawn major public and media attention to the phenomenon of police brutality (see, e.g., Levin 2020; Misra 2018; Taub 2020), which is often labeled as ‘militarization of police’. At the same time, in recent years military forces have been increasingly involved in policing missions in civilian environments, both domestically (see, e.g., Kanno-Youngs 2020; Schrader 2020; Shinkman 2020) and abroad. The convergence of military conduct and policing raises intriguing questions regarding the impact of these tendencies on the military and the police, as well as on their legitimacy.


Author(s):  
Putut Widjanarko

The Japanese occupation of East Asia during World War II was accompanied by its propaganda targeted to the local population. In Indonesia, the military government, among other things, published Djawa Baroe, a fortnightly magazine published from January 1, 1943 to August 1, 1945.Compared to other magazines, this bilingual magazine (in Japanese and Bahasa Indonesia) Djawa Baroe was unique: it featured ample photographs and illustrations. Qualitative content analysis method enables this study to find the meaning of a theme in its holistic political, social, and cultural contexts beyond the number of its occurrences in the text offered by quantitative content analysis. All the issues of Djawa Baroe are examined in detail and reiteratively. Six themes can be found in Djawa Baroe, i.e., the friendship between Japanese and Indonesians, the description of Japanese military prowess, the exaltation of nationalism and the preparation for the war, the evil nature of Western power, the role of women in society, and entertainment. The study concludes that along with the development of the Pacific War that turned against the Japanese, Djawa Baroe moved its emphasis on long-range goals at the high psychological level to influence and win the hearts and minds of Indonesian people, to a more immediate result and practical guide in facing the imminent war. On the other hand, against the original intention of the Japanese propaganda, Djawa Baroe may have helped its educated readers to imagine their future nation-state, Indonesia. Keywords: Djawa Baroe; Wartime propaganda; Japanese occupation; nation-building


2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 589
Author(s):  
Sarah Wilson

Fiji's Interim Military Government has now been in power for nearly five years. Since that time elections have been promised for 2014, but whether those elections will take place, or how they will be carried out in practice, remains to be seen. This paper is a focus on the checks and balances on the Military Forces in Fiji, and how those could be adapted to restrict military power in the island state. 


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