Anchor for peace: the United States Navy in the shaping of the Japanese peace settlement

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This essay sheds new light on the formation of the Japanese peace settlement of 1951 by tracing the history of the United States Navy’s occupation, development and retention of its major base at Yokosuka. It argues that peace making was a process that proceeded from the individual and local community to the national and international levels. By promoting mutually beneficial civil–naval relations in Yokosuka, base commander Captain ‘Benny’ Decker educated Japanese and American leaders in the desirability of the navy’s retaining a base there – even before the outbreak of war in Korea made its value obvious. Decker helped build consensus within the American government on base retention and demonstrated its practicality to Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru. Thus diplomats and political leaders came to peace making in 1951 having already voluntarily concluded, on the basis of local conditions no less than large geopolitical circumstances, that continued American naval and military presence, within the framework of a broader security agreement, was the preferred way to preserve Japan’s security. Their decisions a half-century ago laid the foundations for a new maritime security order in the Pacific that continues to this day.