Okinawa was administered by the United States military between the end of the Battle of Okinawa in June 1945 and its reversion to Japan in May 1972. Matthew R. Augustine's article covers the period stretching from the start of American military planning prior to the Battle of Okinawa to the return of the Amami Islands, the northernmost portion of the occupied Ryukyu Islands, in 1953. The article outlines the consequences of the American decision to administratively separate the Ryukyu Islands from Japan proper, and allow the military to run it as a military colony, along with the social and political currents that were set in motion as a result. As Augustine explains, this involved not only isolating Okinawa from Japan, but also the different islands of the Ryukyus from one another, in the process disrupting the economic, social, and political networks that had earlier sustained Okinawa's economy and society. However, as he details in the section that follows, Okinawans did not accept these conditions passively, and in their struggle for survival revived earlier links with Japan to the north and neighboring countries to the south through illicit smuggling networks. From there, Augustine discusses how the Cold War confrontation of the late 1940s led to a partial re-establishment of economic links with the mainland while rigorously continuing (or perhaps more accurately systematically monitoring) political separation.
