This essay shows how the US military strategically used both male and female fctions of homosocial US-Ryukyu friendship to stabilize the occupation. On an international level, the fiction of homosocial US-Ryukyu friendship helped the US to mask its actions as an occupier and distinguish them from European colonial powers. Locally, the trope of homosocial friendship realigned Okinawan loyalties in order to secure the US military occupation. The Okinawan elites were collaborating with the occupying forces in maintaining the fiction of egalitarian US-Ryukyu friendship, and the hierarchical division of the Okinawan women was key in this process. The image of the US as a benevolent friend to Okinawans was made possible by foregrounding the Okinawan
