I decided to title this post by slightly changing the famous von Clauswitz quote. I was inspired by listening to the Dan Carlin Hardcore History podcast. If you haven’t listened to him before, I highly recommend it. A word of warning though, when he tackles a subject it will take about five podcasts, each between four to six hours, spanning over a period of year and a half or so. If this is in anyway attractive to you, you will be well rewarded. I particularly recommend the Japan focused series (just concluded) and the earlier World War I series. Having listened to the former series, I’m now reading John Toland’s history of Japan, The Rising Sun.
This immersion leads me to wonder how wars even start. When I did my deep dive into World War I a number of years ago, a similar question came to mind. Logically, you’d think that the assassination of the crown prince of Austria-Hungary by a Serbian nationalist would result in serious sanctions, an apology, possibly an indemnity, or at worse some kind of local conflict. How did that action lead to a war involving some thirty nations with some twenty million casualties that led to the collapse of four empires (Russian, German, Austrian-Hungarian, Ottoman) and served to essentially usher in the twentieth century? Even after all of the reading that I’ve done, it still seems bizarre.
Similar thoughts come to mind when I read about Japan. It’s a country one tenth the size of the United States. It has very little in the way of natural resources. It hadn’t even been 100 years since Admiral Perry ‘opened’ Japan to Western ideas. How did Japan think that a sneak attack killing thousands of Americans would lead to their success in creating their own Eastern Asia hegemon?
Well, much like Gavrilo Princip’s assassination of Franz-Ferdinand was only the spark that set off WWI, many things were happening that preceded the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
First of all, the fact is that Japan had experienced success fighting nations much larger than themselves. They kicked Russia’s ass in the Russo-Japanese war in 1904-05. In 1932, Japan invaded China and took over a significant chunk of Manchuria, creating a puppet state called Manchukuo. Japan invaded China again in 1937, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War. The war was still going strong when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Somewhere between 10 to 25 million Chinese died in this war. The Japanese had experience fighting countries that appeared much stronger and much larger than themselves.
After the start of the war with China, the US led an embargo effort. Most critically, oil was embargoed. Japan’s navy, like virtually other navy at the time, ran on oil and had huge requirements. Being resource poor, all of Japan’s oil was imported. The Japanese military considered the cutting off of oil to be nearly an existential threat. They figured that they might have only a couple of months of reserve left. Japan feared that the US could quite literally starve the fleet dry, leaving them helpless.
Japan felt surrounded by the so-called ABCD countries. These countries were America, Britain, China, and the Dutch (big in the East Indies). By encircling Japan with their territories, they were preventing Japan from taking her place as a first-rate nation.
OK, so those are some theoretical reasons. Let’s talk about some nuts and bolts reasons.
Let’s start with the emperor. A quiet man, he was taught to reign but not rule. His role was that of figurehead. The government represented the will of the people. He felt that he should rubber stamp whatever they passed. Once, in the 1920s, he did speak up harshly at someone that he felt was taking Japan in a bad direction. His mentor sharply reprimanded him, teaching him that he should not try to exert his will. Even though it appears that he did not want war, the fact is that he could have stopped it by just speaking up firmly. His passivity led to Japan’s tragic end.
Even though the head of the government, the Prime Minister, is a civilian position, the way that the government was actually structured was that the military held the true power. The army was enthusiastic about starting a war. The navy, knowing that it would bear a significant amount of responsibility for fighting the US, was much less so. However, to save face, the Navy admirals in the cabinet would never speak up. They would privately talk to the Prime Minister and urge him to stop the march to war, but wouldn’t say so publicly. This left the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister in a poor position to fight for peace.
There was all kinds of miscommunication between the US and Japan. There was bad translations on both sides. One side would offer a reasonable statement but the translation would make it seem bellicose. There were simple misunderstandings. One condition that US held firm on was to get Japan out of China. The US just meant China proper. However, the Japanese interpreted that condition as a requirement for them to also get out of Manchukuo. This was an absolute deal breaker for Japan. A simple clarification of that condition itself might have led to a peaceful settlement.
Let’s not forget about simple racism. The US didn’t treat Japan as a first class nation. They didn’t treat the Japan military seriously. Several US diplomats treated the Japanese diplomats somewhat contemptuously. On the other side, the Japanese didn’t really understand Americans either. They underestimated Americans will to fight. This was a clash of two cultures that truly did not understand each other.
Finally, in 1941, it looked like the Axis powers were the winning team. France was knocked out of the war. The UK was barely hanging on. The Soviet Union was getting crushed. If Japan didn’t act now, maybe they were going to miss out on the opportunity to share the spoils of victory with Germany. There were dreams of Germany taking over India and linking up with the growing South-East Asia empire of Japan. The two of them would truly lead the world.
So, after all of that, I guess that Japan decided it was now or never. They felt that they had a date with destiny and that their destiny was to become a major world power. If they waited even six more months, they would lose that opportunity, possibly forever. As one general said, at some point you just have to close your eyes and jump off the cliff.
At the bottom of that cliff was a complete destruction of their society and some three million Japanese dead.
dorkenstein 