Guardians of empire the U.S. Army and the Pacific ; 1902 - 1940

In a comprehensive study of four decades of military policy, Brian McAllister Linn offers the first detailed history of the U.S. Army in Hawaii and the Philippines between 1902 and 1940. Most accounts focus on the months preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. By examining the years prior to the outbreak of war, Linn provides a new perspective on the complex evolution of events in the Pacific. Exhaustively researched, Guardians of Empire traces the development of U.S. defense policy in the region, concentrating on strategy, tactics, internal security, relations with local communities, and military technology. Linn challenges earlier studies which argue that army officers either ignored or denigrated the Japanese threat and remained unprepared for war. He demonstrates instead that from 1907 onward military commanders in both Washington and the Pacific were vividly aware of the danger, that they developed a series of plans to avert it, and that they in fact identified--even if they could not solve--many of the problems that would become tragically apparent on 7 December 1941. In a comprehensive study of four decades of military policy, Brian McAllister Linn offers the first detailed history of the U.S. Army in Hawaii and the Philippines between 1902 and 1940. By making extensive use of official records, personal papers, and veterans' accounts - many of which are cited here for the first time - Linn sheds new light on several persistent controversies. He addresses issues such as American military conduct in Asian pacification campaigns, the failure of the U.S. Army to develop a counterinsurgency doctrine, the predictions of Billy Mitchell and others of a Japanese air attack on Hawaii, the army's misinterpretation of prewar maneuvers, plans to intern Japanese Americans in concentration camps, and the generalship of Douglas MacArthur.