By shifting from the military to the legal and economic aspects of this history, it can enrich our understanding of Washington’s maritime policy in Cold War East Asia. Thus, this chapter sketches out the interaction between the United States and its local partners in maritime East Asia, including Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, from a non-military perspective. These local partners were sheltered under the military umbrella of its system of hub-and-spoke alliances formed by mutual defence treaties. However, between them, the historical twists and turns of sovereignty rendered the international politics of East Asia all but impenetrable. Because these countries are linked by the maritime space, a consideration of the demarcation of internationally accepted maritime boundaries and fishing zones, a matter bound up in issues of sovereignty and local interests that remained controversial over the course of two centuries, provides us with a historical lens through which to examine the political calculations of each American ally in maritime East Asia and how these influenced Washington’s deliberations as it designed its global maritime policies.

This chapter demonstrates how Washington came to appreciate the western Pacific as an indispensable geostrategic space and how American strategy prioritised regulation of the sea routes safeguarding this natural barrier. In addition, the author re-evaluates the current understanding of the 1950s crises in East Asia. The author argues that, following these crises, the United States reappraised the western Pacific rim and came to regard it as the most strategically valuable area of the Pacific. It reshuffled the organisational structure of the Pacific Command once again by strengthening its naval connection with its allies, particularly Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, as these were choke points on the front lines of the Cold War.

The interservice competition for leadership in the Pacific made it impossible for Washington to reach a consensus on strategic deployment in maritime East Asia. What really brought about the US Navy’s renouncement of its mainland-based strategy and its subsequent adoption of an offshore defensive perimeter was not the achievement of a consensus with the other services but the Chinese Communist Party’s occupation of the whole of mainland China in 1949. At this point, the United States had no choice but to withdraw all its naval forces from Qingdao, which had been the emblem of the Navy’s forward-deployed, offensive, and mainland-based strategic thinking in East Asia. China’s split across the Taiwan Strait left the structure of international politics in maritime East Asia indeterminate.

Chapter 2 argues that the perception of a threat from the Soviet Union spurred the US Navy to adopt a forward-deployed posture of defence. This naval strategy sought to deploy US naval forces in strategically valued harbours around the areas surrounding the Soviet Union so as to politically and militarily deter the Kremlin from extending its influence in the western Pacific. Moscow’s control over Port Arthur and Dalian in the northeastern part of China led the US Navy to establish the headquarters of the Seventh Fleet at the port of Qingdao, which it treated as a hub for defending America’s international security in maritime East Asia. The US Navy aimed to establish a balance of power in maritime East Asia by preventing its potential adversary, the Soviet Union, from becoming a regional hegemon. By August 1945, nascent Cold War rivalry was already discernible in the western Pacific rim, and the contours of the Cold War were palpable in maritime East Asia.

The author argues that the policy of non-interference changed when it was suspected that there were oil reserves in the East China Sea. The possible oil reserves under the seabed of the East China Sea indicated in the 1969 Emery report convinced the United States to cooperate with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, but they also led to competition between these countries for ownership of these natural resources. The volatile international situation and the changing nature of great-power politics created a dynamic in maritime East Asia that had far-reaching consequences for both America’s alliance network and Washington’s naval deployment in the western Pacific. The author argues that the United States viewed the sea as a dangerous geographical space that could trigger all-out conflict with China and had thus begun to regard the maritime space of East Asia as a buffer zone that would allow it to maintain a distance from China instead of regarding it as a geostrategic barrier for containment. These political and military contours of maritime East Asia were a product of the interaction between Washington’s domestic and foreign policies and the internal dynamics of the East Asian countries.

The western Pacific has had its share of the international spotlight. In August 2022, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. China launched the military exercises around Taiwan to express its dissatisfaction. A war across the Taiwan Strait was on the verge. To ease the tension, President Joe Biden had a meeting with Xi Jinping during the G20 Bali Summit in November. While both sides reached nothing, the United States took advantage of this occasion to demonstrate its determination of maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait again. It is because, in addition to chip production and democratic values, Taiwan occupies the position of geostrategic value.

The author argues that the outbreak of the Korean War drove the United States to rethink the geostrategic value of the Navy in the maritime space. The US Navy demonstrated its capability of sea–air warfare to delay Kim II-sung’s pace of occupying the whole Korean Peninsula when the US/UN ground troops underwent tragic setback during the first three months of the war. The Navy’s contributions were not only to save time for the Army to launch Operation Chromite but also to provide logistics support which laid the groundwork to push North Korea back to the 38th parallel. The US Navy successfully lent credence to its indispensable significance in defence of America’s security in maritime East Asia and persuaded Washington to adopt a more sea-oriented approach in its strategic thinking.

The author argues that relations within East Asia also shaped US foreign policy in maritime East Asia by taking fishing resources into account. The author details that the United States made expedient use of fishing resources in the western Pacific to consolidate Japan’s internal order immediately after the war lest it became yet another divided country, which would undermine America’s international security order in East Asia. Accordingly, the United States unilaterally took command of some of the bountiful fishery resources to help Japan along towards its post-war economic revival. The end of the occupation of Japan marked a watershed in America’s natural resource policy for the western Pacific. After 1952, the United States gradually took a backseat in natural resource management. When Japan turned to China to negotiate over fishing rights, it was a sign that the Cold War on the seas was not absolutely black and white. This also provides a way of understanding America’s multiplicity and flexibility in its East Asian policy.

This chapter argues that US maritime policy was not limited to the construction of geostrategic space but also extended to the international political arena. The author analyses how the United Nations Conferences on the International Law of the Sea in 1958 and 1960, intended for legal discussion, became embroiled in the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. The chapter explores how the United States sought a legal basis for its maritime dominance at these conferences and how its hub-and-spoke allies in East Asia responded to these efforts. Despite the support of its allies, the United States faced challenges in obtaining their backing in confronting Soviet challenges to the international law of the seas, due to issues of local sovereignty and interest. The author also examines the reasons behind Washington’s decision to change its stance on the breadth of territorial waters and how its East Asian allies responded to this shift. Overall, the chapter provides insight into the complex dynamics of US maritime policy in East Asia and its impact on international relations.

Dean John Wade, who replaced the great torts scholar William Prosser on the Restatement (Second) of Torts, put the finishing touches on the defamation sections in 1977.1 Apple Computer had been founded a year before, and Microsoft two, but relatively few people owned computers yet. The twenty-four-hour news cycle was not yet a thing, and most Americans still trusted the press.2

The centuries between the fall of Huari and the rise of the Inca were marked in Peru by the florescence of several large states along the coast north (Sicán, Chimor) ad smaller ones along the central and south coasts (Chancay, Pachacamac. Ychsma, Ica etc).. Some of these are mentioned in early Spanish accounts taken from native oral histories, others, those of the northern Andes are completely prehistoric.

In this chapter, we describe the context of the 2020 presidential election campaign, including the COVID-19 pandemic, racial justice protests, a highly contentious debate, and challenges to the integrity of the election. We review the state of the literature, showing that messages from the candidates, political parties, and the news media inform voters about the candidates’ policy positions, policy priorities, and personal characteristics. And campaign messages, via the candidates or the news media, can alter the criteria voters consider when evaluating the competing candidates. Finally, aspects of the campaign can encourage or discourage participation in the election. We turn next to presenting the citizen-centered theory of campaigns. We argue that people’s predispositions (i.e., political and psychological) drive the procurement and assimilation of information, which influence how individuals evaluate campaign events and campaign issues, and ultimately these evaluations influence their views of the competing candidates and their voting decisions. Finally, we discuss our three-way panel study where we gather information from the same individuals at different points during the 2020 campaign, allowing us to model how campaign events change people’s attitudes about the presidential candidates.