United States and the Southwest Pacific

During the thirty-odd years since the author first visited the Southwest Pacific, he has seen the relation of the United States to the area undergo a remarkable transformation, from some thing close to indifference-though on the American side, at least, friendly indifference to intimate foreign-political, defensive, and increasingly-economic relations. World War II transformed the situation; it is a watershed in the history of the United States and the area. As is true of the general transformation, occasioned by World War II, of American relations with the outside world, the transformation of rela tions with the Southwest Pacific was wholly unplanned and almost utterly unanticipated. Only a very few Americans foresaw the impact on Australian-American relations which the long-anticipated war with Japan would have. The Amer icans did not expect the war to go outside the North Pacific, the long-term focus of their interest in Pacific Basin affairs.

This book is so constructed as to take that overarching fact into full account, as a glance at the Table of Contents will show. But if World War II is really the hinge upon which the book swings, the author has chosen to try to provide a suitable pref ace to the climactic episode. He has, therefore, attempted first a sketch of the area and its place in world affairs, since this is not widely understood in America, and second to indicate the history of the relations of the United States with the area up to circa 1941, since this is an almost unknown passage in Pacifie Basin affairs, interesting in itself and vividly illustrative of the circuitous way in which the Americans have arrived at their present definition of relations with the world.