Postwar Pacific bases rested on a Mahanian naval doctrine of dominance.
Evidence
The maintenance of such an extensive collection of military bases was also rooted in a widely held strategic belief that the security of the nation and the prevention of future wars depended on dominating the Pacific through a Mahanian combination of naval forces and island strongholds. “This imperial solution to American anxieties about strategic security in the postwar Pacific exhibited itself,” writes the base expert Hal Friedman, “in a bureaucratic consensus about turning the Pacific Basin into an ‘American lake.’” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 86
Categorization
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 86
- XREF: connects to: Cold War defense compacts let the US keep testing missiles at Pacific targets — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 230; Alfred Thayer Mahan’s doctrine made bases central to U.S. naval power.; Mahanian naval strategy drove the plan to make the Pacific an American lake. (+6 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Cold War defense compacts let the US keep testing missiles at Pacific targets — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 230; Alfred Thayer Mahan’s doctrine made bases central to U.S. naval power.; Mahanian naval strategy drove the plan to make the Pacific an American lake. (+6 more)
Broader Connections
- Alfred Thayer Mahan’s doctrine made bases central to U.S. naval power.
#corroborates(0.95) - Postwar decolonization forced the military to maintain colonies under new guises via bases
#complicates(0.78) - U.S. base occupation in Okinawa and Puerto Rico follows a shared colonial pattern
#complicates(0.75) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 835 - East Asian states backed each other against American pressure on trans-Pacific issues.
#complicates(0.72) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 612