SCRIPT - The Grand Strategy of Japan, 1919-1941 (12/01/2019)

The Grand Strategy of Japan, 1919-1941

Why, in December 1941, did Japan go to war against the United States?

In examining Japan’s grand strategy from 1919 to 1941, this video will focus on two problems: why did Japan choose military solutions to solve its strategic problems? And why were these solutions eventually directed at the US?

 

1. The Problem: Total War

Japan came out of WWI with a very benign strategic environment in East Asia. By 1918, three regional powers – China, Russia and Germany – had collapsed, with the surviving European empires financially and politically exhausted. Into this vacuum stepped the Japanese, who had not only increased their economic presence throughout the region, but had also acquired strategic depth through the South Pacific Mandate and the anti-Communist intervention in Eastern Siberia.

But behind the façade was a concerning development. WWI had seemingly demonstrated that future wars would be total in nature, with the economic dimension especially important. Without a large and independent resource and industrial base, even a military titan like Germany could be blockaded and bled into submission. And Japan, which was nearly bankrupted after only 18 months of the Russo-Japanese War, lacked both.

Worse, Japan’s competitors – the Soviet Union and the United States – did not lack either. At sea, the 1916 US Naval Program planned to add 16 capital ships, which was the size of Japan’s existing fleet, by 1919. On land, with half the budget eaten up by a mere 70,000 troops in Siberia and no financial will for further increases, Japan had no choice but to withdraw in 1921 and hand the region back to the Soviets. Both did not bode well for Japan’s future security.

In considering the problem of total war, Japanese policymakers came up with three grand strategic responses. First was the ‘internationalist’ response. Internationalists, consisting of establishment civilian and naval moderates, accepted that future wars would be total and Japan had no way of winning them alone. Military expansion was therefore impossible.

Instead, internationalist grand strategy would have Japan accept the political status quo, tying its interests to a negotiated political order. Anybody that threatened Japanese interests would therefore also threaten the order as a whole, creating a defensive coalition that could overawe the enemy and, at worst, collectively sustain total war.

Second was the ‘traditionalist’ response. Consisting of establishment army and navy leaders, traditionalists did not accept that future wars would necessarily turn total. They argued that Japan could still wage ‘Limited Wars’ without triggering escalation, using the Russo-Japanese War as an example, where Japan opened by seizing and fortifying strategic objectives, beat back Russian counter-attacks, and eventually convinced the enemy that, while they would win a total war, the additional cost in blood, treasure and morale simply made victory not worth it.

So traditionalist grand strategy argued that Japan needed to be ready for opportunistic military expansion through Limited War. It therefore demanded a large, quality military capable of seizing strategic objectives and dealing decisive blows to the enemy.

The third blueprint, still new as of 1919, was the ‘totalist’ response. Totalists, consisting of anti-establishment army and civilian hawks, accepted not only that future wars would be total, but that Japan could also win such a war. Impressed by the results of Soviet and later, Nazi economic and societal planning, totalists argued that similar efforts could overcome Japan’s economic deficiencies.

Totalist grand strategy focused on two areas. Firstly, Japan’s economic limits could be extended through internal reform. Wasteful societal processes – like social inequality, public debate and individual freedom – would be replaced by a technocratic elite with control over everything. The state would then mobilize resources, capital and labor for economic buildup, not just through industrial expansion but also through research. Through totalitarian economic planning, Japan’s small but intensively-utilized economy would sustain total war, with resources it lacked being replaced by synthetic substitutes.

Secondly, while the process of internal reform was ongoing, Japan’s economic limits could also be extended by acquiring, peacefully or militarily, new territories and resources to build and fuel industrial capacity.

Many totalist thinkers such as Kita Ikki, believed that a future total war was inevitable. Influenced by Marxist and fascist geopolitics, they divided the world into landowning ‘haves’ – meaning established Empires – and the proletarian ‘have-nots’ – meaning latecomers like Germany or Japan, or for racialists, the non-whites. Under the Social-Darwinian struggle between peoples, the ‘have-nots’ must either resign themselves to exploitation, or grow strong enough to take land and become ‘haves’ in their own right. Note that this last goal was not necessarily limited to totalists – even moderates believed in Japan’s Manifest Destiny to lead Asia against colonialism.

2. 1919-1931: The Internationalist Washington Order

Generally speaking, Japan had two core interests. First was keeping its superior regional position. Second was maintaining Japan’s economic interests, largely concentrated in China and northeast China in particular. One particular interest was the South Manchuria Railway, a colonial asset seized from the Russians in 1905. In peace, the Rail monopolized Manchuria’s transport economy; in war, it let the Army out-mobilize the Soviets. To protect it, the Japanese set up the Kwantung Army as a guard force, and also supported the semi-independence of the local warlord, Zhang Zuolin.

Arrayed against these interests were three threats. Both the US and the Soviet Union could leverage their warmaking potential to overthrow Japan’s position or eject it from China. There was also Chinese nationalism, which if properly channeled could overwhelm Zhang Zuolin and deal mortal blows to Japan’s economy through non-cooperation, boycotts or nationalization.

Throughout the long post-WWI recession, civilian and naval moderates, such as Foreign Minister Shidehara and Naval Minister Tomosaburo, wanted to maintain Japan’s interests with as little spending as possible. They therefore adopted the internationalist grand strategy and sought to place Japanese interests within a negotiated political order. Key to this was engaging constructively with the Washington Conference of 1921-22.

The first pillar of the new order was the 1922 Naval Treaty, which set a 10:10:6 capital ship ratio between the UK, US and Japan. This was less than the 10:10:7 minimum Navy traditionalists wanted for Limited War, but in return the US had capped its fleet far below its potential. The treaty also banned new naval base development in the Pacific, which left only Japan with modernized bases between Singapore and Hawaii, guaranteeing superiority in the Western Pacific. So by conceding a theoretical disadvantage, the US threat was neutralized and Japan’s regional position secured.

The other pillar was the 9-Power Treaty on China, signed by most relevant powers including China, but excluding Germany and the USSR. In return for respecting Chinese territorial integrity – something that Japan had tried to reduce in 1915 – all signatories would enjoy equal economic access in the country. So again, in return for accepting the political status quo in China, Japan’s economic interests there would be protected by international law.

Now Japan had to uphold the Washington order. As long as the internationalists were in charge, it upheld the Naval Treaty – though like the others, began exploiting an oversight by building cruisers instead of battleships. It also upheld the Chinese status quo, avoiding railroad construction in the Soviet sphere of influence in northern Manchuria, and unlike Britain, tolerating Soviet support for the Chinese Revolutionaries in 1924. Even when it intervened, as when the Soviets launched a proxy war against Zhang Zuolin in 1924, or when Zhang attempted to invade north China in 1928, the Japanese kept to the original boundaries.

The internationalist grand strategy was demonstrably successful throughout the mid-20s. Japan kept its position while avoiding a naval arms race with the US, while the Soviets, who had hoped to spread revolution in China, soon backed off for fear of triggering a Japanese-European-American coalition: by 1925 they were exchanging ambassadors with Japan and dealing with Zhang Zuolin. When the Chinese Revolutionaries threatened to overturn the colonial ‘unequal’ treaties in 1927, the coalition again forced them to back down, with the revolutionaries collapsing into the Nationalist-Communist Civil War shortly thereafter. All this was achieved at a low cost in blood, treasure or reputation.

Still, it’s worth asking whether this grand strategy was long-term workable. There were already problems at the micro-level: Zhang Zuolin’s growing independence, in particular, was threatening Japanese interests. But at a macro-level, the Washington order was established when both China and the USSR were at a low ebb, and their recovering power would likely threaten it in time. A challenge during the depths of the Great Depression or the European war might have seen the UK and US cut their losses, leaving Japan, as the power most dependent on East Asia, to defend its interests alone in a ruinous total war.

More fatally, the internationalists did not convince either limited-war traditionalists or total-war totalists. Army traditionalists complained that the order stopped Japan from striking a weak China and, for totalists, monopolizing the country as a resource bloc. Naval traditionalists protested that fleet inferiority – especially the cruiser limits of the 1930 Naval Treaty – meant that Japan could only protect interests that the US was OK with. All sides doubted that the West would actually defend Japan in Asia, instead of finding someone to balance it out.

These non-internationalists also felt that they were under time pressure. The Nationalists had nominally unified southern and central China by 1928, raising the prospect of a stronger central government able to act against Japanese economic interests. The same year, Stalin launched the first Five-Year Plan, whose forced industrialization threatened to boost Soviet power beyond Japan’s military abilities.

Fearing that the internationalist grand strategy would soon make it too difficult to maintain Japan’s interests, the Kwantung Army decided on unauthorized action. On June 1928, they assassinated Zhang Zuolin, expecting to replace him with a more reliable puppet. It backfired: Zhang’s son unexpectedly succeeded him and united with the Nationalist Chinese, who began acting against Japanese and Soviet influence in Manchuria. This setback only increased the urgency to act, and by 1931 the Army was ready to try again.

3. 1931-1937: The Totalist ‘National Defense State’

On September 1931, again without authorization, Kwantung Army totalists under Ishiwara Kanji staged a false flag attack on the South Manchurian Railway and used it as a pretext to attack the Chinese. Within 6 months Japan had pushed out Chinese and Soviet influence in Manchuria, reorganizing it into the state of Manchukuo.

This totalist move ended the internationalist grand strategy. Civilian leaders, seeing public support for the Army, refused to return to the 9-Power status quo, meaning that Japan now became the threat to the order. The US threatened to terminate the Naval Treaties, the Soviets rushed 4 divisions to the Far East, and China skillfully used ‘weak-nation diplomacy’ to reinforce Japanese isolation. A total-war coalition against Japan was seemingly forming.

It was in this environment that Ishiwara Kanji, promoted in 1935 to Army Chief of Operations, unveiled his totalist grand strategy of the ‘National Defense State’. To meet the impending threat, Japan had to prepare for total war by extending its economic limits: it had to become economically larger and more independent.

The National Defense State demanded both external expansion and internal reform. With Manchukuo added to existing Japanese economic assets in China, Ishiwara judged that Japan now had taken enough external resources and territory. Manchuria pre-conquest produced 70% of China’s iron and 33% of its trade; totalists now wanted to remake it into a complementary economy to Japan.

This involved the standard colonial relationship of Manchukuo exporting raw materials to and importing finished goods from Japan, but at the same time, Manchukuo would also be the site of heavy industry development that Japan’s limited space and resources couldn’t allow. To fund this, totalists proposed temporarily downsizing the military to free up budget, while maintaining stable relationships with Japan’s key suppliers: China for raw materials, the US for machine tools.

Regarding internal reform, guidelines issued in the 1936 ‘Five Year Plan’ called for revolutionary change: eliminating the party and cabinet system in favor of a ‘National Affairs Board’ with totalitarian control over Japanese national life. More practically, totalist bureaucrats wanted to set up capital, labor and export controls, bureaucratic infrastructure like planning boards, and a harsher line against Big Business and the pursuit of ‘unpatriotic’ profit.

Intense time pressure was reflected in the National Defense State’s tight schedule. General rearmament by the mid-1930s meant that total war was expected to break out by the early 40s: the 1936 Plan set 1941 as the year for war with the USSR. And in those five years, the National Defense State had to deliver, among other things, a doubling of iron and steel production, a 15-fold increase in normal and synthetic oil production, and a 70% increase in the Army to 50 divisions.

Things were not helped by Japan’s fragmented political structure. Under the Meiji Constitution, the Army and Navy were each responsible solely to the Emperor, not civilians, which meant that there was no real institution that could set strategy or coordinate between Army, Navy, and Government. Opposing factions could therefore easily disrupt strategic implementation.

The National Defense State had a pretty clever solution for this. Manchukuo was not meant to be just a complementary economy for Japan, but also a policy test lab where totalists could gain experience, experiment with planning, and form a policymaking network ready to export successful schemes back to Japan. Two members of that network, Tojo Hideki and Kishi Nobosuke, would oversee Japan’s war economy as Prime Minister and Minister for Commerce during 1941 to 1944.

But this was in the medium-run. In the short-run, implementation of the National Defense State ran into furious opposition from politicians and business on one hand, and on the other, traditionalists who did not believe that Japan could prepare for total war in so short a time. In 1933, even before the totalist strategy got going, traditionalists changed it to an immediate army buildup for a 1936 Limited War against the USSR, and it was only after they were purged in the wake of the failed coup of February 1936 that the totalists reclaimed their strategy.

The Navy also set its own obstacles. The Army and Navy had lacked a common strategy since 1907: the Army wanted to focus on Russia, the Navy on the USA. As an Army man, Ishiwara Kanji tailored the National Defense State against the USSR – the so-called ‘Northern Advance’. The Navy, fearing that this would divert budget to the Army, replied with its own ‘Southern Advance’, claiming that the economic independence of the National Defense State also required taking the metal, rubber and oil resources of Southeast Asia. The two sides tried negotiating a common strategy in 1937, but could only agree that Japan should fight only one power at a time. In practice, the National Defense State ignored the Navy’s demands.

Even setting aside these things, the National Defense State was conceptually flawed. Ironically, the strategy actually reduced Japanese economic independence. From 1929-32, Japan imported an average of 500,000 tons of scrap metal for steel production; by 1937 it was importing 2.5 million, most of this coming from the US. Japan also became more dependent on US machine tools, rare materials and oil. The totalist belief in synthetic substitutes was completely misplaced: Manchukuo was meant to produce half a million kiloliters of synthetic oil annually– still just 2 months of estimated Navy use – but in 1938 made 2% of that.

Still, by early 1937 the totalists had reason to be optimistic. They had won the bureaucratic battle with their strategy and personnel relatively intact. New Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro was a supporter of economic development and even limited internal reform. Western powers were busy with events in Europe. All the totalists needed was a few years of peace.

To guarantee this, Japan attempted to reconstitute the old internationalist order by proposing an Anti-Comintern Pact in late 1936 against the Soviet Union, with its Asian components being Japan, Nationalist China, and Britain. However, due to Japan’s need to ally with Nazi Germany to preempt a German-Chinese alliance, Britain was not interested and the effort failed.

China proved to be the fatal contradiction for the National Defense State. Japanese development required complete access to northern China’s resources, which the Chinese clearly would not give. So the resources could only come through constant low-level aggression and attempts to set up autonomous regimes in the region throughout 1933-36. Unsurprisingly, this only inflamed regional tensions and in 1936, the Chinese Nationalists and Communists ended their civil war to unite against Japanese expansionism. The period of peace the totalists hoped for was unlikely to last long.

4. 1937-1941: Desperation and Synthesis

From 1937 to 1941, Japan was mired in deep grand strategic uncertainty. Even as total war drew nearer, crisis after crisis exposed flaws in Japan’s strategic assumptions. But gradually, under the threat of impending economic and military catastrophe, Japanese leaders synthesized the traditionalist and totalist strategies into a hybrid strategy that, while vague, would serve as the general strategic framework for the Pacific War.

We should note three decision-making dynamics when considering the Japanese reaction to crisis. The first is perceived time pressure, not just in terms of WWII, but also other powers’ rearmament programs and estimates of the time Japan had before victory became unlikely. As time went on, smaller and smaller factors contributed to pressure: from naval programs and economic embargoes in 1937 to the stationing of bombers in the Philippines in 1941.

The second is circular reasoning. Traditionalist leaders argued for military buildup to preempt threatening enemy action, triggering responses that would be used to justify further buildups. And as Japan neared buildup limits, aggression was left as the only way to even the odds.

Last was ‘crisis reform mentality’. Totalists recognized that crises helped push radical internal reforms. That doesn’t mean that totalists went around creating them, at least not after Manchuria, but it does mean that they were more comfortable with crisis escalation, strategic gambling, and playing up Japan’s odds in future conflict.

July 1937: The 2^nd Sino-Japanese War

Actual implementation of the totalist National Defense State barely lasted a year before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident broke out with China on July 1937. Ishiwara Kanji saw that war would suck resources away from development, and so was initially reluctant to escalate. Still, Japan had the resources to pursue both buildup and a short Limited War, so 3 divisions were sent on a 3-month operation to settle north China once and for all. The survival of the totalist National Defense State depended on Japan successfully executing the traditionalist strategy of winning a Limited War before it escalated into total war.

Instead, the 2^nd Sino-Japanese War proved that the traditionalists could not stop escalation. As per Limited War, the Army opened by occupying north China and waiting for counter-attack. Instead, the Chinese escalated by opening a southern front at Shanghai, successfully drawing in large Japanese forces and leading them into China’s interior. Wary of overextension, the Japanese themselves switched to total war by 1938, seeking to encircle and destroy enemy forces in decisive battle. But since Japanese industry was too weak to support Army logistics or mechanization, the Chinese had time to retreat before they were surrounded. So, far from winning a Limited War, Japan was now supplying 800,000 soldiers, deep in enemy territory, in a total war.

And the Japanese military was not prepared for total war. Its logistics broke down halfway into the 1938 campaign against Wuhan, and it struggled to find transports for simultaneous operations against Guangzhou. The economy was no better: war imports doubled Japan’s 1937 spending, and to conserve resources, civilian industries by 1938 were cutting steel and oil consumption by 30%. The foreign exchange that was earmarked for production expansion was instead spent on armaments.

By mid-1938, the National Defense State was dead, with 1939 production expansion targets cut by half to fund the war. Still, totalists had established labor and resource controls, along with the Cabinet Planning Board as an economic superagency. The declaration of ‘A New Order in East Asia’ in November 1937 also recognized totalist logic, arguing that a Japan-Manchukuo-China axis would be self-sufficient in all resources except copper, rubber and oil.

But these victories meant little when war left Japan’s economy lagging behind competitors. In 1934, the US Navy was already adding 102 extra ships to get up to Naval Treaty Limits; now in 1938, it would exceed these limits by 20%, pushing past the Japanese Navy’s 10:7 ratio. The Soviets had tripled their Far Eastern forces to 24 divisions and 2000 planes, 3 and 10 times that of Japan’s Manchukuo forces. To keep up, the Army demanded 20 new divisions and the Navy 64 warships, which strained Japanese resources to the limit.

July-September 1939: Nomonhan and War in Europe

The next crisis period began in July 1939. In response to Japanese attempts to end the China War through terror-bombing, the US terminated its Commercial Treaty with Japan, opening the way for embargoes starting 1940. Still, the key limitation for Japan at this point was lack of foreign currency, meaning that Japan could only import as much as it could export. And exports – and production in general – was now severely affected by rationing, with 1940 targets now being a 14% decline. Totalists responded by setting price controls and profit caps.

More serious was the border clash with Soviet-backed Mongolia at Nomonhan in August 1939, which saw an entire Kwantung Army division destroyed by Soviet units backed up by tanks and trucks. At a time when Japan produced about 30 tanks and 1000 automobiles a month, Nomonhan fully demonstrated that the Army would not even win a Limited War without an industrial base that could support mechanization. Even traditionalists had to accept that some economic development was needed.

That meant stopping the China War, and plans were drawn for a retreat back to north China and Shanghai. But apart from the loss of face, Japanese drawdowns also increased Chinese attacks, whether in the form of Nationalist conventional warfare or Communist guerrilla warfare.

In this environment, the outbreak of European War in September 1939 presented both a threat and an opportunity. With Southeast Asian colonies now rerouting resources to their homelands, Japan’s chances of total war preparation looked even more remote. But with European forces also leaving Asia, there was the chance that Japan could get the resources it needed from these vulnerable colonies. Military leaders now began to reconsider the ‘Southern Advance’, and the possibility of fighting multiple powers at once.

June-October 1940: Fall of Western Europe and the New National Defense State

Whatever doubts there were about the European War being a golden opportunity vanished with the unanticipated collapse of Western Europe to Nazi Germany by June 1940. There now seemed to be nothing between Japan and the resources of Southeast Asia, offering an alternative pathway to fuel economic development. Even the surviving British yielded to Japanese pressure to close the Burma Road to China in June 1940.

And not a moment too soon. The US’ 2-Ocean Navy Program of July 1940 would add another 200 ships, creating an unmatchable force 4 times that of the Japanese Navy, in the same month it ended aircraft, chemicals and machine tools exports. Meanwhile, Japan was rationing everything from oil to rice and production was still falling.

The solution was an updated version of the totalist National Defense State, unveiled in September 1940. The notorious ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ was actually the external expansion prong of this strategy: stretching from Siberia to the South Pacific, the Sphere’s regions, collectively possessing all the resources needed for total war, would be developed according to their economic advantages, all complementing Japan’s position as the leadership and technological ‘inner core’.

Internal reform would come in the form of a ‘New Economic Structure’ that would, once again, impose state direction over all economic activity. And like the last time, strident opposition caused this plan to die a quick death. Again, totalists won something when all Japanese parties merged into the Imperial Rule Assistance Association in October 1940, mimicking the Communist and fascist mass parties to drive reform.

So how could Japan turn the Sphere into reality? The best option, for all concerned, was to diplomatically pressure Southeast Asia into supplying Japan. But if it came to war, both Army and Navy had their own strategy. For the Army, British Singapore was the key obstacle, so it proposed another Limited War where the opening strike would take it out, opening the way for the Dutch East Indies. Attacking the US in the Philippines would escalate this into total war and so was to be avoided. Instead, the US would be deterred through the Axis alliance, which hopefully after Britain’s downfall would dominate Eurasia.

The Navy predictably opposed this plan, which would have relegated it to escort duty. Still, it raised good points: the Army had failed to prevent escalation in China, and leaving the Philippines alone would violate the purpose of the new National Defense State, as US bombers and the Asiatic Fleet could still intercept Southeast Asian convoys at will. Instead, the Navy insisted that a Southward Advance would mean going to war against the US, so it must have time to prepare – and also, the Navy should get a larger budget.

With no overarching coordination, the two sides compromised. The Navy agreed to begin war mobilization, while the Army limited its immediate moves to northern French Indochina, representing the latest effort at cutting Chinese aid flows and forcing surrender. But compromise meant that Japan got the worst of both worlds: interpreting this as Japan intending to establish the Sphere by force, the British reopened the Burma Road, the Dutch issued export restrictions, and the US imposed bans on strategic materiel to Japan, key among them iron, steel and scrap metal.

June-July 1941: USSR or Southeast Asia?

The scrap ban sank the Japanese economy even further. The question was now less whether Japan could prepare for total war, and more whether it could fight at all. By August 1940, the Navy estimated that it had enough oil for 1 year of war. The Army, in March 41, gave Japan 2 years before it ran out of resources and ammunition. Another key deadline was mid-1942, when US naval construction would allow it to fight on 2 oceans, sharply curtailing Japan’s freedom of action.

This meant that the time to do something about Southeast Asia’s resources was shrinking even as the stakes were rising. With them, the Navy extended Japan’s warfighting capability by 2 years, and for the Army, indefinitely – precious time needed to build the National Defense State. There was also hope that capturing Southeast Asia would trigger a domino effect that would destroy Britain’s Empire, let Nazi Germany dominate Europe, cause an isolated China to collapse and ultimately keep the US out of Eurasia.

An unexpected alternative presented itself with Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The Army now argued that a 16-25 division advance into Eastern Siberia would now also solve Japan’s resource problems, while at the same time allowing it to make common cause with Western anti-Communists.

This was highly unwelcome news for the Navy, as an Army engaged in China and Siberia was bound to take budget from itself. Fatefully, the Navy now argued that the time was right for a more forceful approach in Southeast Asia, reasoning that without the region’s resources, Japan really had no staying power or strategic options, Siberia or otherwise. Again, both sides compromised and the Army occupied Southern Indochina in July 1941, triggering the famous US asset freeze and oil embargo.

A Hybrid Strategy for the Pacific War

Instead of opening up Japan’s strategic horizons, the oil embargo brought on by the Southern Indochina Occupation sealed the decision for a militaristic Southward Advance. Without US oil, Japan’s forces were estimated to be inoperable by mid-1942, and the country would have to submit to US terms.

Imminent disaster meant that Army, Navy and civilians were finally united under a common grand strategy. With no more time to prepare, the military would have to work with what it had and thus launch a traditionalist Limited War against the US and the European powers lasting 6-12 months, with phases to seize Southeast Asia, establish a defensive perimeter and dig in. The best-case scenario was an Allied domino collapse, or America, like Russia 40 years before, would refuse to sacrifice for Asia. But even in the likely total-war scenario, a slow attritional grind against Japanese defenses would buy time to establish the totalist National Defense State, allowing the war to stalemate indefinitely. Indeed, for totalists this latest crisis was a bit of a relief, since total war with the US would certainly bring about the reforms they wanted.

There would be further debate over timing but, with UK naval and US air assets coming to East Asia, December 1941 was agreed as the launch date. As the success of the first phase was all-important, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku proposed to strike the Pacific Fleet to prevent any chance of it intervening and drawing off Japanese naval assets during this critical stage, perhaps explaining why the battleships, rather than the carriers or the docking facilities, were so prioritized.

None of this means that Japanese leaders disregarded the risks involved. British Singapore, US airpower and Chinese disrupting attacks were seen as particular hazards, and estimates showed that Japan might not have enough shipping to exploit Southeast Asia if intensive operations dragged beyond 6 months. Prime Minister Tojo compared the effort to jumping off the veranda of Kiyomizu Temple. But time was running out, the window of opportunity was shrinking, and the rewards for succeeding were great.

Conclusion

Japan’s decision to begin the Pacific War was neither nihilism nor suicidal overconfidence, but instead the culmination of a strategic process, albeit distorted by events and time pressure, to prepare for future war. As the international situation deteriorated and the time to turn Japan into a self-sustaining industrial and resource bloc ran out, hope fell on military solutions to provide the decisive blow for victory. The US became the target because it suited the totalist impulses of the Army and the bureaucratic needs of the Navy, both of which were only reinforced by US embargoes and rearmament.

Despite the major institutional weaknesses in Japanese strategymaking, Japan did have a strategy for the Pacific War and chose a good enough time to execute the Limited War phase of it. Catching the deploying Americans and British unprepared, by mid-June Japan had a resource zone from Burma to Timor to the Central Pacific. The shock of war also finally caused Big Business to acknowledge totalist economic direction.

But the same problems that afflicted the old National Defense State now came to haunt this one. The scale and speed of US mobilization was higher than expected, and Yamamoto’s attempt to repeat Pearl Harbor ended in disaster at Midway. The Japanese military was not geared for total war and thus did not invest in the relevant assets, most notably civil engineering. Interservice rivalry and compromise continued to result in substandard strategy. But most fatally, totalists overestimated the results that could be achieved by planning alone, eventually leaving Japan helpless before an economic behemoth.

Thanks for watching the video, and please like and subscribe! If you have any comments or questions, I’ll be happy to respond to them in the comments section.