Japan Options for WWII

Non-naval discussions about the Second World War. Military leaders, campaigns, weapons, etc.
Byron Angel
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

Post by Byron Angel »

RF wrote:Unsuccessful because it was inept.

Japan was a major world power from 1905, when they defeated the Russians. In WW1 Japan confirmed that position by declaring war on Germany, seizing the Mariana, Marshall and Palau island groups and beseiging Tsingtao. They also sent some destroyers to the Med. Beyond that the Japanese contributed nothing further militarily. The British, French and the Americans put far more into winning the war and took the casualties. What Japan gained territorially from WW1 was proportionate to their contribution to defeating Germany. I don't see that they were snubbed at all Versailles.

I repeat that the Washington Naval Treaties gave Japan the world's third largest fleet, larger than the French and Italians, together with effective control of the western Pacific. The British and US had worldwide naval commitments, the Japanese did not. What the Japanese got was in fact quite generous, a larger navy than a major European colonial power in east Asia. I don't see that it discriminates in any way against the Japanese. Militarists in Japan made out that it was discriminatory to further their own ambitions rather than benefit the Japanese people as a whole.

Post 1945 the Japanese Empire has survived and prospered with only a tiny coastal defence force and no ocean going navy, let alone to having one of the world's biggest fleets. And there is no evidence that the Japanese people believe that they are currently being discriminated against by having such small military forces. Indeed some Japanese are distinctly uncomfortable with the suggestion that their forces and commiments should be increased.

..... I do not wish to get involved in a lengthy parsing of language and endless deconstructions of an endless succession of posts, so I will confine my remarks to the following. You are certainly entitled to your view, but repetition thereof in and of itself is not proof. I still look forward to your reasoned analysis pointing out the inept particulars of Japanese post WW1 international policy. By your standards, one could quite easily argue that Japanese PRE-WW1 alignment with the western allies was itself inept, because Japan most certainly gained nothing beyond a lot of insubstantial window-dressing that effectively hid a great power agenda meant to commit Japan to a persistent inferior international status.

I cannot see how post-1905 Japan could be described as a major world power - Japan could certainly be described legitimately as a regional Asian power, but it was far from a "world power". The Japan of today, to put it bluntly, is functionally a client state more or less comfortable in its reliance upon a lenient USA both for its post-war economic prosperity and its national defense.

What this devolves down to is an issue which we have argued elsewhere, i.e. - Japan's right as a nation to possess and act upon ambitions of empire.

B
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RF
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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Karl Heidenreich wrote:
Japan was a major world power from 1905, when they defeated the Russians. In WW1 Japan confirmed that position by declaring war on Germany, seizing the Mariana, Marshall and Palau island groups and beseiging Tsingtao. They also sent some destroyers to the Med.
So, they were a major world power and so recognized by the western powers. So, in helping them it was fair for Japan to expand. But when the war with Germany was over then it was not. That's not Japan's ineptitude but western hipocrecy.
Japan was recognised as a victor and a world power by being at the Versailles conference. Japan got an approximate reward in line with their efforts.
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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Karl Heidenreich wrote: Now: "What the Japanese got was in fact quite generous..." it's a terrible statement and for the same previous reasons. Who determined what Japan or any other nation could do? The US? GB? What's their right besides the numerical superiority of their armed forces?
Actually I think it is a fairly benolent statement. Japan contributed very little to winning the war, they certainly didn't, like the US, send a million troops to fight on the western front.

Now lets look at another victor in WW1. Portugal. Now Portugal didn't even want to be in that war (unlike Japan). But some of its merchant ships were sunk by German U-boats, and in compensation the Portuguese seized some of the German merchant ships which had taken refuge in its nuetral harbours. The Kaiser responded by declaring war on Portugal.

The Portuguese, a much smaller and weaker country than Japan, sent two divisions to fight in the British sector of the western front, while its colonial forces took part in the East Africa campaign.

What was Portugal's gain or reward for this contribution to the Allied effort? Well, they kept the German merchant ships they had seized. And what else did they get? A share of Tanganiyka? NO. A share of German South West Africa? NO, as the South Africans did in fairness seize it before they had entered the war.
Basically the Portuguese, who put more effort into the war than the Japanese, got less than the Japanese. And Portugal is of course a European power.

So I'm far from convinced that Japan was hard done by at Versailles.
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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Byron Angel wrote: ..... I do not wish to get involved in a lengthy parsing of language and endless deconstructions of an endless succession of posts, so I will confine my remarks to the following. You are certainly entitled to your view, but repetition thereof in and of itself is not proof. I still look forward to your reasoned analysis pointing out the inept particulars of Japanese post WW1 international policy. By your standards, one could quite easily argue that Japanese PRE-WW1 alignment with the western allies was itself inept, because Japan most certainly gained nothing beyond a lot of insubstantial window-dressing that effectively hid a great power agenda meant to commit Japan to a persistent inferior international status.

B
These are the parameters you are attempting to set for this debate.

I have set out some simple statements of fact. I have repeated them because they were disregarded by you and others who are following a set of value judgements which seek to justify or explain as legitimate Japanese aggression during the 1930's. My case is that Japan's absolute defeat in 1945 is all the proof that is needed that their leader's policies were inept. The Japanese Army (or rather factions within it) started the process of aggression that most of the civilian politicians and diplomats in Japan recognised as being dangerous and likely to bring major repercussions on their country. Japan attacked China. Japan attacked the USA. The end resultant was forseeable to those Japanese with a balanced perspective of the world.

Yes, Japan had an empire. That doesn't give it the right to overide other empires as it did, or to seek to rule the whole of east Asia.
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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RF wrote:These are the parameters you are attempting to set for this debate.

I have set out some simple statements of fact. I have repeated them because they were disregarded by you and others who are following a set of value judgements which seek to justify or explain as legitimate Japanese aggression during the 1930's. My case is that Japan's absolute defeat in 1945 is all the proof that is needed that their leader's policies were inept. The Japanese Army (or rather factions within it) started the process of aggression that most of the civilian politicians and diplomats in Japan recognised as being dangerous and likely to bring major repercussions on their country. Japan attacked China. Japan attacked the USA. The end resultant was forseeable to those Japanese with a balanced perspective of the world.

Yes, Japan had an empire. That doesn't give it the right to overide other empires as it did, or to seek to rule the whole of east Asia.

...... I disagree with your unusual particularity with respect to what is germaine and extraneous to the issue at hand. I strongly disagree with your assertion that Japan was a "world power" in any remotely realistic sense of the term. And I ultimately disagree with your argument that failure to carry a policy to fruition must define the policy as inept in and of itself.

You are, as always, welcome to your opinion. I think enough has been said on the topic

B
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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Byron Angel wrote: ... ..... With all due respect, your reply evades the fundamental issue at hand - which is whether a nation should feel itself debarred from ambitious pursuits simply because another nation has preceded it along the same road of conquest.
Debarred? In some senses no in others yes. The problem is the major players have a set of rules they play by. Now these rules are somewhat flexable and indeed not even written down but they are understood. If you flagrantly violate them then you can pretty well count on incurring the wrath of several of the major powers. Now any one major power can potentially defeat any other and possibly hold it's own against two or even three depending on the situation and the powers. Japan however chose a path that was guaranteed to bring it into conflict with several of the major powers including ones that were signficantly stronger than herself in several key ways. A reasonable policy would have recognized the folly of this path and chosen another.
What exactly does it mean to "dominate without conquest"? What nation in history has ever accomplished such a thing , given the classical meaning of the verb "to dominate" - i.e. to achieve dominion?
The US pretty clearly dominated Central America and the Carribean for quite a few years prior to and even after WWII. Of course we aren't talking about the classic meaning of the verb as that's a rather rare usage these days.
What does the statement "conquest was no longer considered in a positive light" mean? What is it meant to imply? Who gets to make that decision and on what grounds?
I think I explained this above but again the major powers generally have a set of rules/guidlines they play by. One of the things about the post 1900 world was that most of the areas were pretty well claimed or decided on as neutral ground. Given cause one could take some usually minor territory from a rival but wholesale conquest was viewed as distrubing the balance and for that matter trade. Most of the major powers were becoming resource and in particularly cash bound to at least some extent. Neither the governments nor the populations wanted to see such disturbances. Furthermore at least in much of Europe and the US it was becoming pollitically questionable to make use of overly harsh techniques to maintian or take control of colonies.
Would the Romans have been entitled to declare the age of conquest over after they had achieved domination of the known world?
That's pretty much what they did.
Were the Goths and Vandals supposed to abide by Rome's declaration and simply remain behind the Rhine? What about the Huns? What of the Mongols? Were they supposed to exclude themselves from China and central Asia and Euope and Asia Minor because things were pretty much already under control by other political entities?
The Romans would certainly have been happy if they did. However they lost the power to enforce such rules by the time said powers came into play.
I'm earnestly trying to avoid sounding rhetorical here, but there are a lot of important questions that you response has simply glossed over.
It wasn't so much that I glossed over them as I did a poor job of explaining what I meant. Hopefully I did a bit better this time.
Strictly my opinion, ofcourse.

B[/quote]
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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Byron Angel wrote: ..... Japan's defeat in WW2 does not inevitably define its international policy or strategy as inept, it only defines it as unsuccessful.
If you look on it at that level perhaps. But when you only hope of victory lies in hopeing your opponets will give up after a few months when it's obvious that in a little over a year they will have a huge numerical edge. Yes that's inept. Especially when there is little prospect of making up for resources lost because they were formerly supplied by said enemy.
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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lwd wrote:
Byron Angel wrote: ..... Japan's defeat in WW2 does not inevitably define its international policy or strategy as inept, it only defines it as unsuccessful.
If you look on it at that level perhaps. But when you only hope of victory lies in hopeing your opponets will give up after a few months when it's obvious that in a little over a year they will have a huge numerical edge. Yes that's inept. Especially when there is little prospect of making up for resources lost because they were formerly supplied by said enemy.
..... It is necessary to keep in mind that Japanese ambitions to expand beyond their island realm to the Asian mainland and elsewhere can be dated, if not from their first 1592 invasion of Korea, at least from their late 19th century ambition to participate in the dismembering of China and Manchuria - the first Sino-Japanese War, Japan's large-scale involvement in the Boxer Rebellion, the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War. It was not a scheme the simply leaped from the heads of Tojo and his fellow militarists in the late 30s; the Greater East ASia Co-Prosperity Sphere was simply an evolution of a well established and mature Japanese international strategy.

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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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RF:
Actually I think it is a fairly benolent statement. Japan contributed very little to winning the war,
I think France is in Europe. Japan is in Asia.
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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RF:
Now lets look at another victor in WW1. Portugal. Now Portugal didn't even want to be in that war (unlike Japan). But some of its merchant ships were sunk by German U-boats, and in compensation the Portuguese seized some of the German merchant ships which had taken refuge in its nuetral harbours. The Kaiser responded by declaring war on Portugal.
That the allies cheated Portugal as they did with Italy and Japan do not mean that was fair, it only mean that they got WWII coming. John Mosier's or Andrieksen's books on WWI refer at lenght on that.
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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lwd:
The US pretty clearly dominated Central America and the Carribean for quite a few years prior to and even after WWII.
Mistaken, obviously. The US sent troops and were engaged in combat in NIcaragua. In several times this dominion was actually militaristic as when US warships were continously getting at ports in Central America. Hate to the US around here is no free, by the way, in these lands.
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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Byron Angel wrote:
lwd wrote:
Byron Angel wrote: ..... Japan's defeat in WW2 does not inevitably define its international policy or strategy as inept, it only defines it as unsuccessful.
If you look on it at that level perhaps. But when you only hope of victory lies in hopeing your opponets will give up after a few months when it's obvious that in a little over a year they will have a huge numerical edge. Yes that's inept. Especially when there is little prospect of making up for resources lost because they were formerly supplied by said enemy.
..... It is necessary to keep in mind that Japanese ambitions to expand beyond their island realm to the Asian mainland and elsewhere can be dated, if not from their first 1592 invasion of Korea, at least from their late 19th century ambition to participate in the dismembering of China and Manchuria - the first Sino-Japanese War, Japan's large-scale involvement in the Boxer Rebellion, the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War. It was not a scheme the simply leaped from the heads of Tojo and his fellow militarists in the late 30s; the Greater East ASia Co-Prosperity Sphere was simply an evolution of a well established and mature Japanese international strategy.
Indead but that even makes a stronger case for the fact that they should have been able to figure out what was going on. Of course the same can be said for Germany and Italy and they had even less excuse except perhaps that they were lead by dictators so it only took one key man unable to read the writing on the wall to initiate a path to disaster. On the otherhand signficant parts of the Japanese population and government probably had little or no real understanding of the international politics of the time. As a counter example look how well Stalin understood what was going on. He very carefully avoided confrontation with the other major powers (although he almost over played his had with Poland) and grabed small powers when he could without provoking a major confrontation with the other major powers.
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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Karl Heidenreich wrote:lwd:
The US pretty clearly dominated Central America and the Carribean for quite a few years prior to and even after WWII.
Mistaken, obviously. The US sent troops and were engaged in combat in NIcaragua. In several times this dominion was actually militaristic as when US warships were continously getting at ports in Central America. Hate to the US around here is no free, by the way, in these lands.
Oh, I'm not saying the US didn't use military power. "Send in the Marines" was not an uncommon phrase during that period. I bellieve they were sent into quite a few countries in the Carribaean and Central America during this period but the point wasn't to conquer the country and make them part of the US. Indeed when Walker(?) took over Nicaragua (late 1800s ?) even though he was an American the US was not happy. From what I've read the actions of United Fruit Company may also account for as much or more of the emnity than US military actions. Other US companies were hardly blameless in this either. The US also seemed quite willing to support dictators in many cases as long as they cooperated. My point wasn't that such domination was completely benign it was simply that you didn't have to establish a colony to domiante an area. Indeed one of the driving forces here was it was more economical to do it that way. That was one of the things the Kaiser and the Japanese either didn't understand or simply considered less important than the prestige of haveing colonies. Had Japan persued such a course especially after they acquired Manchuria they probably could have dominated most or all of China with out provoking the US and Britain and likely pushed the French out of Indochina as well.
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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Byron Angel wrote:Switzerland and Scandinavia indeed .....

I find absolutely fascinating the implied assumption here that Japan had no business harboring any ambition toward becoming a dominant Asian power, much less a major player on the global stage - as if this privilege was somehow reserved to the existing great Western powers. I woiuld be most interested to see a cogent argument defending that position.
B
I do find this post rather bizarre.

The ambit here seems to be ''Japan has right or privelege to be a dominant Asian power and even a major power on the world stage.''

My thoughts on this start with the remit that Japan was the last of the aggressive colonial empire powers arising out of the nineteenth century. They had left it a bit late but the venture started to preserve Japan as an independent nation state. Herein lies the problem. Japan sought to become a supra-national state by military domination. That comes at the expense of its neighbours, principally of course China, Korea and Taiwan. Why can't they be nation states and Asian powers?

The western colonial powers were rather more benevolent in their rule than the Japanese, being based on a greater degree of consent of their subject people's; particulary so on the Indian sub-continent. That consent was eroded over time and most colonies eventually gained independence by agreement with their colonial masters. Only Portugal tried to resist that trend - ultimately sinking the government of that country when the struggle became unsustainable.
Now of course this is said with hindsight, reflecting on the political values of today where colonialism by force of arms isn't acceptable.
So lets come back to Japan. In 1925 Japan wants to confirm itself as a major power. OK - it has a colonial empire. So it is agreed that Japan has a navy suficient to dominate its colonial backyard. That is adequate for Japan's policing and defence needs. Why have more than what is required? Unless it is to threaten and attack those territories just beyond its boundaries - in other words the other colonial powers. That is what leads to arms races and wars - which was precisely what the Washington Naval Conference was trying to prevent. It involves negotiation - give and take. It means making agreed compromises. You don't get everthing you want - but neither does anyone else.
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Re: Japan Options for WWII

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Byron Angel wrote: ...... I disagree with your unusual particularity with respect to what is germaine and extraneous to the issue at hand. I strongly disagree with your assertion that Japan was a "world power" in any remotely realistic sense of the term. And I ultimately disagree with your argument that failure to carry a policy to fruition must define the policy as inept in and of itself.
I find it difficult to make any sense of this. Leaving aside the first sentence quoted above as it appears capable of a number of interpretations, I would say with respect to the second sentence that the battle of Tsushima and the defeat of Russia - a major European power - in 1905 was unprecedented by an Asian country, particulary as the victory was principally at sea. If that doesn't mark Japan as a major power and a force to be reckoned with, then what does?

The third sentence begs the question - if a policy can be seen to be dangerous, high risk and likely to end in total disaster - as quite a few Japanese civilian diplomats recognised in 1941 with the growing liklihood of war with the USA, then why do it?
I can rember a Conservative MP, Neil Marten, who in 1975, when the British people voted in the wrong result in the EEC refeerendum, said that politics and policy always has to take in the second best solutions. If you can't achieve that goal then you carry on in the direction you are travelling but try to steer it towards the direction you want to go. Politics and public policy has to be the art of the possible. That means recognising the impossible and not trying to force an impossibility.

Japan's options - the sane options - were to follow attainable policies. It is a tragedy on the Japanese and indeed the rest of the world that they were constrained by ''Army hotheads'' - a phrase used by Army and Navy officers such as Yoshida and Yammamoto in Japan in 1941- into trying to achieve impossible objectives playing with the lives of millions of people.
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