The Japanese Strategic Defeat (slightly rev. Apr 25)

[MKSheppard]

mekozak - Regular
Posts: 38
(12/1/00 10:47:36 am )

Japanese Strategic Defeat

This essay is written to address the question: Did Japanese defeat become inevitable with the attack at Pearl harbor?

I disagree with the conclusion that the Japanese defeat became inevitable at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. Note that I agree that the Japanese were of course doomed with the Pearl Harbor attack. With that there can be no disagreement. But the question asked was, "At what point did Japanese defeat become an inevitable outcome?". For me, the question of Japanese strategic defeat must be analyzed from the perspective of their overall objectives and motivations. The Japanese in my opinion stumbled into a position from which they could not retreat far earlier than Pearl Harbor. I will try to point out below where and when the failure of their strategy became inevitable.

The restoration of their emperor and the adoption of Western ways (especially military) in the late 19th century allowed for an increasing power base first to prevent colonization by the Westerners and second to project Japanese perceived superiority in the region. The Japanese had rationalized that their increasing power (especially in the South East Asian region) should lead to an expanding empire - to the ever expanding glory of their emperor and their race - which the Japanese judged clearly superior to the other regional countries due to Japanese technology and culture (and superior to the West as judged by culture - if not by technology). Japan had thus secured Formosa (Taiwan) from the Sino-Japanese War before the turn of the century as well as all Korea from the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. They also secured the German Pacific islands with the conclusion of WW1. In 1931 the Japanese created a railway incident that precipitated the invasion and occupation of Manchuria (renamed Manchukuo). This was the first expansion of the Japanese empire since the end of WW1 and though it may have been accelerated by the snubbing of the West (see next paragraph) after WW1, there was a clear pattern of gradually expanding empire demonstrated over the prior half century.

With the Washington Naval treaty, it was clear from the Japanese viewpoint that the leading Western Nations (primarily the US and UK) were treating the Japanese as less than equals as victors of the WW1 conflict. The notion of 5/5/3 in naval tonnage was humiliating to the nation that thought it lifted itself up to Western standards. The result of the perceived humiliation (regardless of their inability to build at potential US or even UK rates) was the need to further expand their empire to increase their resource base. They wanted an empire that could yield the resources necessary to challenge the UK and US and thus eliminate their own second class status mentality.

The need for increased empire was primarily prestige in the eyes of the rest of the world, but the resources attendant to conquered lands was also as noted an important consideration. The Japanese had not bought into the idea that productivity was the key to improving the economic prosperity of a nation. They still bought into the idea of Zero-Sum-Game economics (as did Hitler) and therefore perceived a need for an increasing empire to support domestic national economic goals. The West at this time and primarily the US had advanced past the concept of Zero-Sum-Game to improved business productivity as the primary means of increasing national wealth. As such the West was beginning to come to terms with the idea that empire and all that went with it was an obsolete notion. Note that it would take still take time for the West to realize that divestiture of empire would be necessary (for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this essay) but it was clear that the West (and especially the US which had developed a liking for local self-determination) frowned on new acquisitions. But from the perspective of the early 1930s, where the US and much of the rest of the world was suffering from depression, it was hard to demonstrate effectively that the Zero-Sum-Game economic model being used by the Japanese was outmoded economic thought.

The first of the new acquisitions post WW1 was as noted above - Manchuria. The Japanese did manage to swallow Manchuria with out too much condemnation from the rest of the world and did manage to start building infrastructure that led to profits for the home empire. The question for the Japanese was what to do beyond Manchuria. The Russians were to the north, the Chinese were to the south, most of the islands in the SE Asian region were part of one western based empire or another. There just was no direction the Japanese could realistically expand without the potential for significant conflict.

By the time of the Manchuria acquisition, the expansion mentality (as well as the warrior ethic) had deeply ingrained itself in the Japanese Army. It was also considered weak for senior officers to object to continued conquest. Senior officers were routinely assassinated by lower ranking officers in the name of advancing the Bushido ideals of the Emperor (never mind what the Emperor really thought). This lack of control, especially on the Asian mainland, out of reach from the senior high command in Tokyo, often led to significant troubles whereby actions were taken by the lower army command levels which would not correspond to the political wishes of the home islands power base. In part, this is what happened in 1939 when the Japanese clashed with the Soviets. The Japanese political leadership in Tokyo was able to disavow itself from the actions taken versus the Soviets because it is true that they did not authorize the action. Of course had the Japanese won, they might have taken a different path, but it did show the Japanese willingness to allow lower level Army leadership to take strategic decisions (in part due to fear) without adequate punishment.

It is an earlier action initiated by lower level army officers that in my mind caused the inevitable downfall of the Japanese empire. In 1937, an incident at the Marco Polo bridge (conducted by Colonel Ichiki - if memory serves me right, the same officer who fared rather badly against the Americans at the Battle of the Teneru at Guadalcanal) set off a general war with China. Unlike the situation with the Soviets two years later, the Chinese were already embroiled in their own civil war and did not have the equipment or doctrine that the Soviets had in conducting land battles so the Japanese at first found it rather easy to conquer more and more Chinese land.

Had the Japanese high command believed that China would have been the quagmire that it turned out to be, they might have (as later with the Soviets) disavowed the actions of the lower Army officers and put a halt to the operation, made the required apologies, and pulled out. But because the senior Tokyo based military leadership was impressed with the initial success, there was no call the end the hostilities. This time, however, there were international calls for Japan to stop their offensive, but these were brushed aside as the Japanese thought that the conflict could not last very long before Chinese capitulation. However, it wasn't until the Army's Chief of Staff was called in to explain the conflict to the Emperor that ultimate defeat became inevitable. General Suriyama had then promised the Emperor that the conflict would be over within a specified period of time. And since the Army had promised the end of the conflict (with victory) to their God, and their God had played along, there was no way the Japanese military leadership would ever pull back from the conflict no matter where that conflict might lead - even if that meant war with the United States. My vote then for when the Japanese defeat became inevitable was when the Army made a promise to the Emperor back in 1937 to win the war with China.

============================

Stuart Slade - Prince of Darkness
Posts: 462
(12/5/00 12:09:25 pm )

I let this one stew in my mind for a few days before getting back to you, primarily because it is such a well-argued and well-constructed thesis. It makes a very good case indeed for suggesting that the Japanese had lost the Second World War long before Pearl Harbor.

It does raise another possibility, an even less happy one for the Japanese. Given your basic premise, that the Japanese were fundamentally expansionist, that their economy was built upon quantity expansion rather than quality expansion and that their actual expansion ws hemmed in on all sides by other powers, does this not suggest that their fate was sealed substantially earlier even than the mid 1930s? That Japan as an imperialist power was doomed before it even got started? That it wasn't even a question of when they were defeated but who by?

After all, Japan had four real options. Strike east into China (bringing them into conflict with the United States), strike North into the Soviet Union (and eventually get the Zhukov treatment - buried in bodies) strike South into SE Asia (bringing Japan into conflict with the British Empire, the Netherlands and the US) and strike West into the Pacific (cutting out the middle man and slamming head on into the US direct).

This means of the four options three are likely to result in a head-on clash with the US and its allies. Only the fourth offers a chance of avoiding a war with America. Thats an attack on the USSR and an attempt to seize the resources of Siberia (not known to be as rich then as they are now but think of all those pine trees waiting to be turned into disposable chopsticks - no joke; the Japanese demand for such things has deforested several islands in Indonesia and the Philippines) The Japanese tried their attack and failed.

There was a very good Japanese film a decade or so back called Kagemusha. It was about a Japanese warlord and his clan who were fighting in the civil wars of the pre-Tokugawa era. Its a true and very accurately told story about a clan that had the bad luck to be the first Japanese army to face a musket-equipped enemy. Their first wave in the battle got blasted apart by massed musket fire. Then a sort of suicidal frenzy descended upon the clan and they kept pouring into the massed musket fire until the entire army had been slaughtered.

It seems to me with have a parallel between this film and the history of the 1920s and 1930s; we have teh same hopeless situation, the same initial defeat and the same suicidal rush to disaster. Its almost as if national suicide was an aim within itself rather than an unfortunate by-product. That suggests that WW2 (Pacific) was a Japanese response to a situation they already perceived was lost. It could suggest that the Japanese defeat was inevitable from the moment they decided they wanted to be anything more than a second-tier regional power - say 1905.

By the way there is good cause to believe that the Japanese would have lost the Russo-Japanese war evenvtually if the US hadn't gotten them a peace settlement.

============================

Tempest
Old Friend
Posts: 105
(12/13/00 10:17:09 pm )

Re: Japanese Strategic Defeat

I wonder what would have happened if the Japanese had attacked Russia with germany, and held off a pearl harbor attack till after that was done...

"Friendly fire isn't"

============================