(no subject)
Michael A. Barnhart, Japan Prepares for Total War: The Search for Economic Security, 1919-1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).
WWI was a watershed moment for a lot of reasons, and 1919 for even more (some connected to the war, some not). Barnhart theorizes that the lessons of Germany's defeat taught Japanese politicians and military gurus about the 'new' rules of war: that a country must be prepared for protracted war and had to have a fair amount of economic independence to provide themselves with raw materials to sustain protracted military action.
What's an island to do?
The economic connection to Korea & Manchuria have already been established in lots of other books - though the usefulness of Manchuria is somewhat debated, and certainly seems inflated by some quarters. The economic relationship between Japan and the United States - which rested on vital supplies of things like oil - is underscored as a primary reason for the move to 'total war.' As America tightened the economic noose in an effort to stop Japan's aggression, Japanese politicians and military people felt more and more backed into a corner, until the decision to go to war seemed like the only option.
Of course, this being history, nothing is that simple - various factors, like what Barnhart describes as a fundamental misunderstanding in the West of Japan's designs in SE Asia as an attack on the US/Britain, not as an attempt to secure precious raw materials for their 'economic security.' Too, events in Europe pushed the course of war along - with the German declaration of war on the USSR, Japan's link to Germany via the Trans-Siberian Railway was severed, making a looming economic crisis ever more pressing an issue to settle.
So, in the face of overwhelming economic pressure, the choice was take a gamble (that didn't look all that good) on declaring war, or cave to economic pressure & rely on the US for economic security. Barnhart takes the stance that talks were doomed from the start, with two countries whose plans for East Asia were inherently at odds with each other.
He's got a real zinger of a concluding paragraph (paragraphs, I guess):
The Pacific war had its lessons, too. But the Japanese, as ever with losers, perhaps, learned those lesson better. In the 1980s America persists in its opulence and its blindness to the reasons that forces for change exist in the world. Japan has assumed an intense commitment to expand its international commerce by peaceful competition in the market place. Commerce and competition formed the basis for dramatic postwar recovery.
Still much of the past lingers. Japanese agriculture persists in relying on arguments for self-sufficiency for much of its political punch. The Planning Board lives on in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, which has enjoyed immense peacetime success. Even the engines of war have played their part. One Japanese diplomat, reminiscing long after the war about an American fleet bombardment of the naval steel town of Muroran - the town that had the 10,000 ton hydraulic forging press over which Okada and Yagi had negotiated in early 1937, the press that had helped produce the might battleship Yamato - mused,
The Yamato and the Zeros - forerunners of the postwar Japanese technology - are still very much alive, so it is said among us Japanese, in mammoth tankers, excellent automotive engines, etc., which Japan turns out by the thousands and millions. Thus, they have served our nation in a manner never forseen in their heyday.
(272-273)
WWI was a watershed moment for a lot of reasons, and 1919 for even more (some connected to the war, some not). Barnhart theorizes that the lessons of Germany's defeat taught Japanese politicians and military gurus about the 'new' rules of war: that a country must be prepared for protracted war and had to have a fair amount of economic independence to provide themselves with raw materials to sustain protracted military action.
What's an island to do?
The economic connection to Korea & Manchuria have already been established in lots of other books - though the usefulness of Manchuria is somewhat debated, and certainly seems inflated by some quarters. The economic relationship between Japan and the United States - which rested on vital supplies of things like oil - is underscored as a primary reason for the move to 'total war.' As America tightened the economic noose in an effort to stop Japan's aggression, Japanese politicians and military people felt more and more backed into a corner, until the decision to go to war seemed like the only option.
Of course, this being history, nothing is that simple - various factors, like what Barnhart describes as a fundamental misunderstanding in the West of Japan's designs in SE Asia as an attack on the US/Britain, not as an attempt to secure precious raw materials for their 'economic security.' Too, events in Europe pushed the course of war along - with the German declaration of war on the USSR, Japan's link to Germany via the Trans-Siberian Railway was severed, making a looming economic crisis ever more pressing an issue to settle.
So, in the face of overwhelming economic pressure, the choice was take a gamble (that didn't look all that good) on declaring war, or cave to economic pressure & rely on the US for economic security. Barnhart takes the stance that talks were doomed from the start, with two countries whose plans for East Asia were inherently at odds with each other.
He's got a real zinger of a concluding paragraph (paragraphs, I guess):
The Pacific war had its lessons, too. But the Japanese, as ever with losers, perhaps, learned those lesson better. In the 1980s America persists in its opulence and its blindness to the reasons that forces for change exist in the world. Japan has assumed an intense commitment to expand its international commerce by peaceful competition in the market place. Commerce and competition formed the basis for dramatic postwar recovery.
Still much of the past lingers. Japanese agriculture persists in relying on arguments for self-sufficiency for much of its political punch. The Planning Board lives on in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, which has enjoyed immense peacetime success. Even the engines of war have played their part. One Japanese diplomat, reminiscing long after the war about an American fleet bombardment of the naval steel town of Muroran - the town that had the 10,000 ton hydraulic forging press over which Okada and Yagi had negotiated in early 1937, the press that had helped produce the might battleship Yamato - mused,
The Yamato and the Zeros - forerunners of the postwar Japanese technology - are still very much alive, so it is said among us Japanese, in mammoth tankers, excellent automotive engines, etc., which Japan turns out by the thousands and millions. Thus, they have served our nation in a manner never forseen in their heyday.
(272-273)