West Wind Clear: Cryptology and the Winds Message Controversy--A Documentary History

1.1. United States-Japan Relations, 1919 – 1940

At the end of World War I, the strategic situation in the Pacific and East Asian regions was dominated by the two powers at either far shore – the United States and Japan. Because of the costs of the First World War, the preponderant European colonial powers in East Asia – France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands – were far weaker militarily in the area than before 1914. France and Great Britain, though victorious over Germany, had absorbed extraordinary manpower and economic losses. London and Paris could not afford to maintain extensive military, naval, and security forces on station in their Asian colonies. The Netherlands, while not a combatant in the war, could barely afford much more than ...