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meh... IJA could have whipped China ( which really was a set of disconnected countries with their own agenda.) at any time ( eg Ichi Go)  but to what end  to deal with corrupt local offcials , bandits and guerillas ?  Industrializing Manchuria was more than enough for Japan. Who is smarted George Bush who skipped Iraq in the first gulf war or George W  ? By that comparision the IJA generals dont come of too bad.
 
I think Japans actions were heavily cultural eg once the oil embargo was made they couldnt lose face and give in and the negotiator didnt allow them to save face giving up conquests in CHina was never going to happen.

ORIGINAL: Rainer

Wrong discussion in the wrong place.
Stop that.
This forum is not the place to advertise right wing views or any other political view.
Read the forum rules if you don't understand.

Perhaps you should read the title of the original poster, talking about dumb mistakes, and do we really understand. Jim was pointing out, and rightly so, something that took place in Europe over the last 60 years, and giving a pov on this, as compared to something the IJA did, in the 30's and 40's. The odd thing here is that you would claim that his views are right wing. I am Marine, and Independent, and while i watch both sides of politics make mistakes, saying that his pov is right wing, without any basis or bias, is wrong, Your post would have been far more effective, by saying that the forum is not the place to advertise any political view, but alas, you couldnt help it. To jims post, I dont think he is giving a political view, he was commenting, by giving an example ( A good one) to the point. Nothing more, nothing less.

All this is really interesting discussion (although some parts border into ideology, terrain which I usually don't get into).

But I'm still at loss. War is a very messy, uncertain, costly and dangerous thing to get into, specially against much stronger enemies. It is one thing to see an uneducated soldier to believe the official propaganda, but it is another to the high-level veteran officers to believe in that. As they say, when the shooting starts, the bs stops.

So I can see the German military going after their old enemies for vengeance, and to undo the perceived losses of the previous war. Vengeance is a fairly common reason for war. But Japan didn't lose anything in WW1 on in a previous wars; was not under threat by anyone; and economically was much stronger than 30 years before.

So why go on a total war against half the world? I see that uneducated soldier believing in winning such war, but a high-level officer? Of course, one can always say that the Japanese leadership undertook incredibly dangerous and unfavorable decisions because they didn't know better (because of social/ideologic/political/etc... factors), but that's to say the most industrialized country in Asia (at the time), with a culture spanning 4000 years, just decided blindly to jump off the cliff.

I can certainly accept that in the end (it's kind of the common thinking), but it is a very, very depressing thing to accept, as if it happened once, it can happen again. I'm probably kind of naive; I expected to hear "it was all Tojo's fault".

He said

I doubt Europe would be as socialist as it is today

.

Calling the Europe of Merkel, Sarkozy, Berlusconi and other European leaders "socialistic" is probably an indicator of his view.

But again: wrong discussion, wrong place.
I will not participate anymore.

EDIT: THis is not a reply or contribution to fbs' original or other postings from him.

People seem to be operating under a mistaken impression that Japan wanted to conquer China militarily. This was never their plan nor was it ideal. Similarly, there was never an option for peace with China
In the 1930’s, Japan was pursuing a strategy of divide and conquer towards China. Japan was like England in that it was a highly industrialized country that depended on overseas markets for its manufactured goods. Japan had been quietly exploiting the Chinese market the same as the rest of Europe since the end of the 19th century. The devastation of the Great Depression had added urgency to the Japanese goal of turning China into their exclusive economic sphere. This ran counter to a rising tide of Anti-Japanese Chinese nationalism that had been growing ever since the end of World War 1 when Shandong had been transferred from Germany to Japan despite the fact that China was part of the Allies along with Japan.

Japan’s model for it’s mission in China was British India. Like Britain, they didn’t have the manpower or money to directly rule such a vast territory or large population so they were intent on setting up compliant local governments that would be subordinate to Japan’s political and economic interests. Unfortunately for Japan and China, the Rising Sun had begun setting up its empire 50 years too late. Like British India, China in the 20’s and 30’s had no shortage of local despots who were willing to suborn themselves to an outside power in return for money and influence. If the strongman proved hostile, the Japanese military would kill and replace him.
As part of this policy, Japan started splitting parts of China away from any Chinese central authority. In 1931, they created Manchukuo. Over the next six years, Japan had successfully fought in “incidents” all across north China and effectively placed most of Northern China in their sphere of influence. There was resistance, but it was local and sporadic, and not supported by the Chinese central government in Nanjing.

Zhang Xueliang, had been deposed from Manchuria by the Japanese along with his army after they killed his father. He kidnapped Chiang Kai Shek in December of 1936 and forced him to stop his war with the communists focus on fighting the Japanese. Eight months later, another “incident” happened in Beijing. A local dispute between Japanese and Chinese forces gradually escalated. Neither the Japanese nor the Chinese central government wanted a full scale war and the Japanese weren’t deployed for one.

For the nationalist government in the south, it was a nightmare. Officially, the Chinese forces in theater outnumbered the Japanese ten to one, but they were all of questionable quality and loyalty. The Japanese were more than capable of winning the local battles and detaching yet another small part of China. This was their plan (or the plan of the generals in Manchuria) in 1937. Total war was not desired nor were the Japanese prepared for it.

The Japanese had been nibbling away China’s sovereignty successfully for six years. Except now, Chiang was bound by domestic political pressure resist. He decided to launch a massive and fatal gamble to try to make the Japanese choke by forcing them to go to war with the whole country. Chinese forces moved into Shanghai threatening the Japanese concession. The Chinese forces around Shanghai were loyal, well armed and German trained. Unlike the North, this was a battle that the Chiang thought he could win.

For two weeks, the Chinese did just that, pushing the Japanese almost into the river. But massive Japanese reinforcements and flanking maneuvers doomed the Chinese position and the best troops that the Chinese army had were destroyed in the first three months of the war. Had the Chinese won in Shanghai, the whole war would have been different. It’s a turning point comparable to the initial German push through Ardennes. Without Shanghai, and forced to rely on local forces, the Chinese defence collapsed and the Northern half of the country and most of the coastal cities were seized by the end of 1938. Without them, the Japanese were confident that Chiang and the KMT would be forced into a peace favorable to Japan.

Then Chiang didn't surrender. He couldn't surrender. Politics meant that the KMT had to keep resisting, at least on paper.

The Japanese campaign in China shouldn't be described as "conquest." It should be described as "punitive occupation." All of their campaigns were intended to force the Chinese government to the negotiating table. At no time was total occupation and lebensraum style border expansion strategic goals.

An occupied China with no native Chinese government and 2 million Japanese troops on the ground was worse than losing, so Japan chose not to pursue the total conquest of China and instead launched punitive campaigns and economic blockades. It was within Japan's capabilities to occupy most of China in 1941 (or at least a lot more than they did） if they had wanted to, but they knew that the occupation would be so costly, so incomplete, so rife with partisans that their only hope of victory was a settlement with the Chinese government. When a settlement wasn't achieved, they created a new puppet government, but official Japanese administration of the occupied areas was never contemplated.

The only way for Japan to have peace in China was to withdraw to the 1937 borders. Total conquest would not bring peace. Think of the problems the US had in Iraq after achieving "victory." Now add in the fact that the Japanese are orders of magnitude more brutal, much less well equipped, not really mobile, and vastly more outnumbered.

The Japanese were the kid with the hand caught in the cookie jar. They weren't willing to let go of the cookies, but they didn't want to break the cookie jar either.

Their only hope was to outlast the Chinese and wait for the Chinese government to negotiate. The US could do enormous damage to Japan economically without firing a shot. The war in China was already way too expensive for Japan and their economy was getting worse. Attacking the British and the Dutch was their only option.
If they had decided not to hit the Americans at the same time, they would have given up the strategic initiative and given the Americans time to build a bigger fleet. Even without a declaration of war, America could still go on war footing and the opportunity for a Pearl Harbor blow to the American Navy might not come again. Furthermore, the cost of the war would be even higher because the eventual war with the US would now have be fought subsequent to the war with the Europeans which would drive the price tag up.

ORIGINAL: Rainer
is probably an indicator of his view.

Well as mentioned politics are not appropriate in the forums and I do admit I got drawn into a discussion that got more and more political. That said I need to clear the slander about me you posted. I am not right wing, left wing or any wing and my views are strictly libertarian and neutral.

I dislike all extreme political parties no matter which side of the scale they fall on and think people should be left alone to live their lives however they see fit. But being a libertarian does place me firmly against strong governments (no matter who runs them), so if you’re a fan of socialism I guess my views would anger you and perhaps that prompted you to try and slander me as an ideolog while trying to hide behind the noble cover of forum police.

Jim

Does anyone have a good book recommendation on the decision making process and politics in Japan in the 30s and up to WWII? I have read on the Feb 1936 incident and the Imperial Way Faction, but I'm still hazy on the subject. It's very complicated, because there was a way it worked on paper, and a completely different way decisions were made in Japan in reality.

Kaigun does a good job describing the internal politics of the Imperial Japanese Navy; peace/war factions, air/BB factions, about they only thing they could agree on was that they were more important than the Army.

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Does anyone have a good book recommendation on the decision making process and politics in Japan in the 30s and up to WWII? I have read on the Feb 1936 incident and the Imperial Way Faction, but I'm still hazy on the subject. It's very complicated, because there was a way it worked on paper, and a completely different way decisions were made in Japan in reality.

Kaigun does a good job describing the internal politics of the Imperial Japanese Navy; peace/war factions, air/BB factions, about they only thing they could agree on was that they were more important than the Army.

Q-Ball, John Toland's "The Rising Sun" does an excellent job of presenting the decisions that were made from the Japanese point of view. The reader gets a lot of good insight into the factors in Japanese culture and politics that led, finally, to the decision to go to war.

I have also recently read a fascinating book called "The Pacific War, 1931-1945" by Saburo Ienaga. It was originally published in Japan in the 1960s and recently reprinted in English. Ienaga's scholarship is questionable (he draws many sweeping conclusions on the basis of little evidence) and he has obvious Communist sympathies but I still recommend it. The reason: the author is very, very angry at the governement and military that dragged Japan into disaster. There are few, if any, other books from a Japanese point of view that cover the 1930s with such scathing honesty and venom.

It is almost worth reading just for his descriptions of the indoctrination he was subjected to as a young boy in school during the pre-war years. Chilling.

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Does anyone have a good book recommendation on the decision making process and politics in Japan in the 30s and up to WWII? I have read on the Feb 1936 incident and the Imperial Way Faction, but I'm still hazy on the subject. It's very complicated, because there was a way it worked on paper, and a completely different way decisions were made in Japan in reality.

Kaigun does a good job describing the internal politics of the Imperial Japanese Navy; peace/war factions, air/BB factions, about they only thing they could agree on was that they were more important than the Army.

Arguably, the Navy probably was more important to Japan for the survival of the country. Geographically, Japan is a natural naval power, just like England. Both are dependent on overseas trade to bring in resources and goods necessary to keep the country running. Up to 1945, that required a strong navy to ensure the sea lanes stayed open. Some army is necessary, but a large army is a luxury naval powers usually can't afford. Britain's army has historically done best when close to shorelines where the navy can support them.

Japan built a large army, but they would have been better off if they had left China alone. They probably could have taken more territory and reinforced it better if they didn't have to garrison so much territory in China. China gave them little in the way of resources and a lot of headaches. The SRA had just about everything they needed to build a strong economy and for that, they needed a strong navy.

The IJA got bogged down fighting a war in China that could not promise to return anything close to the cost. It was a black hole that became their Burmese monkey trap. They grabbed on and refused to let go.

Bill

The japanese soldier, "The greatest fighting insect in the world" W.Slim, G-G of Australia.

Above them, fighting insects that got promoted.

The IJA, IMHO, had few quality generals who would approach the comparable leaders in Germany, Russia USA & UK . You could name Yamashita (who was sent to Coventry, well Manchuria for his beliefs.) and very few others, same for the IJN & JAAF. Whatever reputation they gotr was achieved against underprepared & underequipped soldiers more attuned to a peacetime role than war.

So add this to the political infighting, poor doctrine, logistics and material support and you come out with a ill led, ill supplied, ill equipped force which managed to scare the world into believing in its invincibility!

Q-Ball,

Here are a few I've recently read and learned a lot on Japan during and before the war,. Many good points on just how complex prewar and wartime decision making was in Japan, and how personalities and the threat of assasination could often dictate events.

Hoyt, Edwin P. Japan’s War: the Great Pacific Conflict.
Toland, John. The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945.
Wetzler, Peter. Hirohito and War: Imperial Tradition and Military Decision Making in Prewar Japan.

Oops, this post was a mistake. But since I'm here...this thread was a discussion, and a good one at that, on the prewar and wartime decision making of Japan's military. To those deciding to turn it into a discussion about the merits, or lack there of, of certain political ideologies and institutions of a number of modern countries, please refrain. I was offended by some of the comments posted and this being a forum enjoyed by an international community, there is no place for it. [:-] Thank you.

Back to Japan [:)]

ORIGINAL: JeffK
So add this to the political infighting, poor doctrine, logistics and material support and you come out with a ill led, ill supplied, ill equipped force which managed to scare the world into believing in its invincibility!

Well for a few months at least. The leadership of the USN knew better. They knew what was under construction and in development and knew Japan could not hold against that force. After a few fateful minutes on one morning in early June 1942, a lot more people believed that Japan was vulnerable.

Bill

ORIGINAL: wdolson


Japan built a large army, but they would have been better off if they had left China alone. They probably could have taken more territory and reinforced it better if they didn't have to garrison so much territory in China. China gave them little in the way of resources and a lot of headaches. The SRA had just about everything they needed to build a strong economy and for that, they needed a strong navy.

The IJA got bogged down fighting a war in China that could not promise to return anything close to the cost. It was a black hole that became their Burmese monkey trap. They grabbed on and refused to let go.

Bill

No doubt, you could argue that had they not invaded China proper, they might have survived WWII without a conflict with the Allies. Certainly if they had withdrawn troops from Manchukuo, an accomodation could have been reached with the Allies. But the invasion of China was unacceptable to the US, and it was inevitable that would result in conflict.

Hardliners won out; if it was up to the Navy (or at least the peace faction of the Navy, of which Yamamoto was definitely the head), they probably would have ditched China altogether in order to preserve the peace

So add this to the political infighting, poor doctrine, logistics and material support and you come out with a ill led, ill supplied, ill equipped force which managed to scare the world into believing in its invincibility!

Not invincible because the other side had will to fight. And many of that issues plagued Allies starting with Political infighting.

At tactical, operational and strategic level, as well as in its organization and traning IJA consistently demonstrated as much or more competence as its opponents. It is just that being on the losing side of the war and fighting against overwhelmingly superior enemy highlighted most of Japanese FUBARs, while hiding all but the most blatant Allied ones. Japanese logistics were mostly hampered by objective problems. Military production could have been planned better, but most problems there stemmed from IJA/IJN enmity (and overall lack of industrial power, of course).

Now on grand stratefic and political level, several huge miscalculations were made by IJA top brass. The situation of China was well covered above, I can only add, that Japanese had to go forward and try to turn the entire China in their puppet state - just like any potential stable Chinese government had to attempt returning Manchuria. And Japanese invested too much money and effort in Manchukou to even contemplate giving it up.

One very crucial Japanese mistake that is often forgotten, is overestimating Germany's power. They believed that Germany will be able to at least hold off Western Allies and also overrun USSR. On political level this influenced their overal willingness to risk open confrontation with USA and Britain, and on strategical level they kept a large part of their best forces in Kwantung Army, waiting to grab Sovier Far East after the collapse of USSR, that never happened.

Finally, they were too charmed by the outcome of Russo-Japanese war, forgetting how narrow, and to what extent caused by factors beyond Japanese control, their victory actually was. Sure thing, Japanese military failed to enter the same river twice and produce an unbroken 1.5-year string of apparent victories again.

Actually it was all about the oil. The Americans threatened to cut off Japan if they continued their war with China and withdraw. Japan had committed too much already to the war in China. Japan knew that they could not win the war but the theory was to make it so expensive for the Americans and the British that they would sue for peace. Japan desperately needed that oil coming from the US and if not from there had to get it from somewhere else. And yes, with the Allies busy with Germany this was the best time to attack. Of course they had hoped to catch the American Carriers at Pearl on Dec 7/41.

ORIGINAL: FatR

At tactical, operational and strategic level, as well as in its organization and traning IJA consistently demonstrated as much or more competence as its opponents. It is just that being on the losing side of the war and fighting against overwhelmingly superior enemy highlighted most of Japanese FUBARs, while hiding all but the most blatant Allied ones. Japanenese logistics were mostly hampered by objective problems. Military production could have been planned better, but most problems there stemmed from IJA/IJN enmity (and overall lack of industrial power, of course).

Now on grand stratefic and political level, several huge miscalculations were made by IJA top brass. The situation of China was well covered above, I can only add, that Japanese had to go forward and try to turn the entire China in their puppet state - just like any potential stable Chinese government had to attempt returning Manchuria. And Japanese invested too much money and effort in Manchukou to even contemplate giving it up.

One very crucial Japanese mistake that is often forgotten, is overestimating Germany's power. They believed that Germany will be able to at least hold off Western Allies and also overrun USSR. On political level this influenced their overal willingness to risk open confrontation with USA and Britain, and on strategical level they kept a large part of their best forces in Kwantung Army, waiting to grab Sovier Far East after the collapse of USSR, that never happened.

Finally, they were too charmed by the outcome of Russo-Japanese war, forgetting how narrow, and to what extent caused by factors beyond Japanese control, their victory actually was. Sure thing, Japanese military failed to enter the same river twice and produce an unbroken 1.5-year string of apparent victories again.

The Japanese also vastly underestimated the US's ability to fight a two front war. It wasn't unreasonable. I can't think of any other nation that simultaneously won large scale wars on two or more fronts at the same time.

When Japan made it's decision to go to war, Germany had only lost one battle and won many. They were in the process of pushing into the suburbs of Moscow. In their optimism, they assumed that the Russian Bear was dying and Germany would finish them off so Japan didn't have to worry about them.

I believe the Japanese and Germans had some pie in the sky idea about meeting up in central Asia somewhere. Germany did end up capturing a staggering territory, but when the tide turned, it turned hard. Stalin traded land for time.

If the Japanese had pulled out of China, there probably wouldn't have been a war in the Pacific unless the military faction running Japan decided they should take resources instead of paying for them. The Japanese did see themselves as the rising power of Asia and wanted to be respected as a peer equal to a European power.

The Meiji Restoration was an amazing feat of development. They had reason to be proud of that. If the Japanese had pulled out of China, they might have attacked someone else because of their mythos of being the world's next great power or at least the dominant power in Asia.

Bill

Don’t overly denigrate the IJN/IJA leadership ability. In 1936 Japan was only 80 years out of the “Middle Ages.” Many American leaders’ fathers fought along-side Lee or Grant. The British could look back to Nelson or Wellington, and the Germans had Bismarck and Frederick the Great as icons. The Japan that Adm. Perry found was little-changed from the time when Christian Knights charged recklessly into combat against Islamic Saracens.

The Japanese High Command did suffered greatly from inter and intra-service rivalries, but these difficulties were hardly unique to Japan. The US Army Air Corps in the ‘30s maintained that they alone were necessary to defend the US from hostile fleets, and had the Japanese Fleet not settled the argument, it is likely that the US carriers would have been relegated to a scouting/ferry role (at least initially) behind the battleships. All cultures, not just the military, are resistant to change and suffer from “That’s not the way my Daddy does it!” Japan had no “Grand” naval tradition, the IJA was the preeminent service, and what we see with 20/20 hindsight wasn’t so clear in the 1930’s.

To the posters looking for a good book on the Imperial Japanese decision to go to war, I enjoyed Ian Kershaw's Fateful Choices - Ten Decisions that Changed the World. I don't agree with all of Kershaw's conclusions (although many seem sound), but the chapter on Japan's decision to go to war I thought was one of the better parts of the book and laid out the unusual decision making process and the options as Japan saw them.