Buckley, Roger

Elleman, Bruce A.

English

U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons

Naval War College ReviewVolume 56Number 2 Spring Article 152003The United States in the Asia-Pacific since 1945Bruce A. EllemanRoger BuckleyFollow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-reviewThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contactrepository.inquiries@usnwc.edu.Recommended CitationElleman, Bruce A. and Buckley, Roger (2003) "The United States in the Asia-Pacific since 1945," Naval War College Review: Vol. 56 :No. 2 , Article 15.Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol56/iss2/15(casualty avoidance via air “delivery” ofmilitary power) taken to “punish”violators of human rights and interna-tional law, Peters declares, merely em-boldened lawless rogues to perpetratemore aggressive acts of human carnageand suffering.Beyond Terror is a must-read for thosewho desire to get at the heart of the is-sues at hand without being hamstrungby political biases or organizational loy-alties. The opinions of Peters will serveas a superb starting point for more de-tailed discussions on U.S. national secu-rity strategy and the direction that thewar on terror should take in the future.JOHN A. KUNERTCaptain, U.S. NavyDirector, War Gaming DepartmentNaval War CollegeBuckley, Roger. The United States in the Asia-Pacific since 1945. New York: Cambridge Univ.Press, 2002. 258pp. $23Even as the world remains focused onthe war on terror, Roger Buckley’sexamination of U.S. policy in theAsia-Pacific since 1945 reminds us ofthe danger of ignoring Asia. Althoughthis area has been crisscrossed in thepost–Cold War period by such formaland informal regional organizations asthe Association of Southeast AsianNations (ASEAN) and the Asia-PacificEconomic Cooperation (APEC),Buckley cautions that “any future Asiawithout America is widely seen to be arecipe for possible chaos,” since “Wash-ington alone possesses the political andmilitary strengths to deter aggression andthereby provide the essential foundationsfor nation-building, economic advance-ment and regional building.”This book recounts the wars and Amer-ica’s postwar difficulties after WorldWar II, Korea, Vietnam, and the ColdWar. Washington’s challenges are farfrom over, and Buckley’s list of con-temporary difficulties includes “twoKoreas, two Chinas, nuclear and con-ventional weaponry on a massive scaleand the absence of a Russo-Japanesepeace treaty.” He argues the UnitedStates must prepare to resolve suchproblems through cooperative partner-ships that will rely less on bilateral andvertical relations and more on a varietyof Asian nations accepting a greatershare of the responsibility; simulta-neously, the United States must retain acombination of “regional muscle,” the“political will to readily deploy” forces,and the “necessary weapon systems andPacific Rim basing facilities” to act ef-fectively as “insurance against aggres-sion” and “reassurance to its allies.”According to Buckley, by far the mostdangerous Asian problem is the poten-tial threat posed by the People’s Repub-lic of China. Whether intentionally ornot, this book’s focus on wars and theiraftermaths suggests that a conflict be-tween China and America is in theoffing. In particular, Beijing sees Wash-ington as wielding arbitrary and exces-sive force in a way that undermines amore equitable distribution of power.Although some have predicted the evo-lution of a cooperative Sino-U.S.-Japanese triad, China’s chagrin at theextent of U.S. power, and its anti-hegemonic stance, will make it evenmore likely that the region will see a“distancing of Beijing from an alreadylong-established U.S.-Japan partner-ship.” Assuming this happens, “theB O O K R E V I E W S 1 5 31Elleman and Buckley: The United States in the Asia-Pacific since 1945Published by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2003entire region will be increasingly in-volved in dealing with a more ambi-tious and yet dissatisfied Communiststate, since China still recalls the humil-iations of the nineteenth century whenit was ‘sliced’ like a melon among rivalimperialists and still shares disputedland and sea borders with many coun-tries.” America’s potential problemswith China have been exacerbated inrecent years by the disappearance of theEuropean powers from Southeast Asia,Hong Kong, and Macao, and the pre-cipitous decline of Russia in NortheastAsia, making China the only “possiblecontender for the American laurels.”Buckley, a Hong Kong–born, British-educated, and Japan-based scholar, isgenerally friendly to the United Statesand supportive of its East Asian poli-cies. However, he has his fair share ofcriticism for U.S. policy makers, in par-ticular Franklin Roosevelt’s “casual-ness” in his dickering with Stalin atYalta, Harry Truman’s huge military re-ductions immediately prior to the Ko-rean War, and Lyndon Johnson’s andRichard Nixon’s “humiliating” defeat inVietnam. In the near term, Buckleywarns, in addition to remaining thebulwark of Asia Washington must initi-ate wider regional interdependenceamong East Asian countries. Asian na-tions, instead of focusing on the UnitedStates as the Holy Grail for everythingfrom democracy to human rights tocapitalism, might do better to look at“British, European and Anglo-Pacificapproaches to such issues” in order tospread their cultural horizons. To theextent that “globalization is frequentlyequated with Americanization,” Buck-ley warns, the Asia-Pacific region mayone day resent such influence as an un-welcome American intrusion.This book went to press immediatelybefore “9/11” and the war on terror. Asa result, Buckley underestimates Japan’spotential naval contribution to anymultinational military effort, suggestinginstead that “Japan appears most un-likely to deploy its so-called self-defenseforces for anything much beyond therescue of its own citizens in emergencysituations abroad.” Buckley’s emphasison the close interaction and interde-pendence of U.S. security and economicpolicies throughout the Asia-Pacific re-gion are, however, as relevant now asever. Buckley concludes by warningthat Americans must energetically faceup to the myriad of risks—chief amongthem the growing threat from China—associated with being the dominantAsia-Pacific power.BRUCE A. ELLEMANNaval War CollegeKnox, MacGregor and Williamson Murray, eds.The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300–2050.New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001. 203pp.$28The editors of this slim volume of es-says have wide ambitions. In 194 pagesof text, they seek to define the natureof military revolutions; describe thetripartite sources of the concept in thestill-controversial work of historianMichael Roberts on seventeenth-century European land warfare, Sovietmilitary theory, and studies by AndrewW. Marshall’s Office of Net Assessment;and critique contemporary develop-ments in American ground and air war-fare. Furthermore, to support theirarguments, Knox and Murray presentcase studies from seven centuries of1 5 4 N A V A L W A R C O L L E G E R E V I E W2Naval War College Review, Vol. 56 [2003], No. 2, Art. 15https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol56/iss2/15

The United States in the Asia-Pacific since 1945

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The United States in the Asia-Pacific since 1945

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