America's Pacific Policy

INERPRETATION of foreign policy demands that a distinction be made between the role and record. A complete picture of the American part in the affairs of East Asia requires an analysis of the aims and techniques of American policy, looked at with the United States as the point of reference, and the impact of this upon the development of the Far Eastern countries, with these countries themselves as the point of reference. The attempt is made here to examine the role of the United States in the Pacific from this approach and to raise, if not to answer, some basic questions. One of the most important of these questions is that of distinguishing ends from means in American policy; for the changing internal scene in the United States is necessarily connected with changing policies abroad. The Golden Age between two wars, when international affairs were often considered to be something which happened between foreigners, something slightly immoral, has passed; American opinion is now directed very realistically to the problems of world affairs, not in terms of ideals of collective security or pacifism but of the interests of America itself. The events of the last few years have brought to a head one of the most important questions of all-the nature of American society and the ends with which it is concerned. Public discussion of Far Eastern problems has dealt very fully with both ends and techniques in terms of unagreed or even of unstated ends. There are few now who would present the United States as innocent bystander in power-politics, a counterpart of Ferdinand the Bull; the thesis that the United States has imperial interests is not generally challenged. Some oppose this imperialism as a unilateral aberration, some are frankly in favor of it, others wish to change it into another type of expansion. There are those who look upon imperialism as the nastiest part of a nasty society

Geography · Pacific Area · Political science · Regional science · Global Political and Economic Relations · Global trade and economics · History · International Relations and Foreign Policy