Journal of Strategic Studies

ISSN: 0140-2390 (Print) 1743-937X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjss20

Japan's economic security and the origins of the

pacific war

Michael A. Barnhart

To cite this article: Michael A. Barnhart (1981) Japan's economic security and the origins of the
pacific war, Journal of Strategic Studies, 4:2, 105-124, DOI: 10.1080/01402398108437072

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402398108437072

Published online: 24 Jan 2008.

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 Japan's Economic Security and the
Origins of the Pacific War

Michael A. Barnhart

It has been nearly forty years since the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl
Harbor began the Pacific War. Over those years, interpretations of the origins
of that war have differed greatly. Some observers discerned a conspiracy to
commit aggression. Others attributed the conflict's causes to a set of entirely
reasonable decisions taken in Tokyo to promote the legitimate goal of imperial
autonomy. Now, with the opening and, often, publication of vast amounts of
material relating to the strategic and economic motives behind Japan's decision
for war, it may be time to reassess these earlier interpretations and devise new
ones.
Initial Western perceptions of pre-war events stressed the apparent
deliberateness of Japan's expansion onto the Asian continent and into the
South Seas. Tokyo's seizure of Manchuria in 1931, the outbreak of war with
China six years later, and the villainous strike against Pearl Harbor after
encroachments in Southeast Asia - all seemed part of a sinister, but well
thought out, master plan to establish hegemony over the eastern half of the
world.1
These first analyses fixed the authorship of that master plan firmly with the
Japanese military, particularly the Imperial Army. Only the generals could
have executed their program with such single-minded determination over the
decade before Pearl Harbor. Only the military had reason to benefit from
Japan's aggression. To be sure, the military, even the army, was no monolith.
There were disagreements over method along the way. But while the tactics of
expansion may have differed over the years, the goal of the Empire did not.
Japan would not rest until the world acknowledged all East Asia and the West
Pacific as her dominion.
Scholars working since the 1950s have modified these conclusions. In their
view, the Japan of the thirties was a nation driven by almost irrational radicals
to commit irrational acts against a hated West. Moderate leaders who opposed
conflict with Britain or America - whether civilians such as Finance Minister
Inoue Junnosuke or military officers like Lieutenant General Nagata Tetsuzan
- were simply assassinated. Other top officials elected to avoid this fate by
allowing Japan to be led down the warpath.2
These views centered study on those radicals, the ' y ° u n 8 officers' of the
Imperial Army, and their disaffection with the West. Profoundly disturbed by
changes wrought by industrialization and the concomitant spread of capitalism
and liberalism in their homeland, these officers planned for a 'Showa
Restoration'. Like the Meiji Restoration of sixty years before, the ShOwa
106 THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES

movement would oust the corrupting influences from the Empire and lead to
the creation of a better Japan.3
Inevitably, these readings of Japanese history before the war have been
challenged. One of the earliest studies to do so comprehensively was James
Crowley's Japan's Quest for Autonomy. Crowley refused to see Japanese
foreign and defense policies during the thirties as the result of conspiracy or
assassination. Pointing to the continuity of that policy from the Meiji
Restoration to the end of the Pacific War, he argued that Japan's leaders
sought the eminently reasonable goals of real imperial security and increased
imperial prosperity over that eighty-year period. When Western pressures on
Japan - such as the unfair naval arms limitation agreements reached at
London in 1930 - threatened these fundamental aims, the Empire found itself
compelled to pursue them outside any partnership with Britain and America.4
This interpretation led to several new avenues of inquiry. First, it directed
attention to the active role of Japanese civilian leaders in the formulation of the
Empire's defense policies. Older images of civilian moderation and
accommodation with the West began to break down. Party leaders and
bureaucrats alike appear to have shared the military's aspirations for a secure
and well-off empire. Likewise, debates within the military over the details of
national defense policy assumed new importance. There were disputes over
strategy, not just tactics, in the pursuit of imperial security. Not all Japanese
officers had favored a war against China in 1937, to use the most obvious
illustration. And the role of the extremist young officers, while not eliminated,
was sharply reduced as a critical factor in Japan's road to the Pacific War.
Recently, historians have begun to spin out these new threads of inter-
pretation. The internal dynamics of policy making in the Imperial Army has
received much attention, as has the role of political party leaders and civilian
bureaucrats in Japanese expansion. One theme which emerges from this new
work, subordinate in these studies thus far but common to all of them, has been
the precise nature of Japan's goals for imperial security and national
prosperity. In brief, it is possible toargue that these two goals were actually
one. To achieve them, Japan had to create an Empire which would be
economically self-sufficient. Japan's quest for autonomy, then, was a quest for
autarky.3
Viewed in this light, Japan's foreign policy before Pearl Harbor takes on new
patterns. First, this perspective sets those years into the larger picture of
Japanese expansionism after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The 1930s appear
less as an aberration in modern Japanese history than a culmination of the
Meiji oligarchs' desire to see Japan win and maintain great power status.
Second, a new set of debates within the Japanese military and .civilian
bureaucracies of the inter-war period, this time over the scope and nature of
economic reform at home, comes into focus. These debates had a crucial
impact on decisions regarding territorial expansion — whether into Siberia,
Manchuria, north China, or the South Seas. Historians may now trace the
sometimes heated arguments between officers and officials who favored
producing bullets and ships for present safety and those who preferred to
construct steel mills and assembly lines for future. Third, because these
ORIGINS OF THE PACIFIC WAR 107

arguments concerned more than matters of strict national security, matters

from which civilians were excluded by law, it becomes simpler to examine
which civilian groups aligned themselves with an expansionist and reformist
policy and why.
From the very beginning of Japan's history as a modern state, the twin
desires for military and economic security were apparent. Japan entered the
international system during an age when polities without sufficient strength and
resolve appeared to be swallowed by the adventurous and well-armed powers
of Europe. The Meiji Restoration itself was an effort to displace a Japanese
regime judged incapable of successfully resisting the Western challenge. The
slogan of the restoration, 'Rich country; strong army', aptly summarizes its
goals.6
For the first forty years of modern Japan's existence, her leaders devoted
themselves to both aims. Western engineers were paid handsome sums to teach
in Japan and help direct the creation of modern industries. The Meiji govern-
ment sent hundreds of promising students abroad to learn of Western sciences
and arts, civilian and military. More directly strategic considerations were
hardly ignored. In the time-worn tradition of nation-states, Japan strove to
eliminate possible threats closest to her homeland. War with China in 1894
secured control of Korea and Formosa. Conflict with Russia a decade later
ensured Japanese dominance in southern Manchuria. The coming of the First
World War and the Bolshevik Revolution led Japan's military leaders to
occupy eastern Siberia as her Foreign Minister attempted to bolster his
Empire's position in north China.7
The First World War also had profound effects on the economic aspects of
Japan's security policy. Germany's defeat in 1918 stunned the leaders of the
Imperial Army. The German Army, after all, had been adjudged the mightiest
in Europe. The Japanese generals had modelled their service's training,
organization, and doctrine after those of Berlin. Since the Germans had lost,
perhaps substantial re-evaluation of Japan's own military system was in order.
After intense study of the reasons for Berlin's defeat, often aided by post-
mortems written by German officers, the Imperial Army concluded that the
German loss had not been due to inferior military strategy or tactics. It had
resulted from Germany's economic vulnerability to the Allied blockade. This
conclusion raised alarming questions, for the Japan of 1920 was far less self-
sufficient in the sinews of modern warfare than the Germany of 1914 had been.
It appeared that the great powers of the mid-twentieth century would have to
have more than military prowess. They would have to be self-sufficient,
capable of waging 'total war' without reliance on materials or equipment from
outside their borders. If the Japanese Empire was to retain its international
status, won at such sacrifice since the Meiji Restoration, some means of
achieving autarky had to be found. Those means were two. First, the Empire
would have to grow to include territory which held the resources necessary for
war-making. Second, Japan would have to construct a modern industrial base
capable of being converted rapidly to wartime production in order to make
optimal use of the resources acquired by expansion.8
During the years after Versailles, Japan began to implement this twin
108 THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES

program. Neither aspect was entirely original. One of the Meiji government's
first acts had been to extend protection to industries producing materials
needed by the military. And by 1918 Japan had a legacy of territorial
expansion onto the mainland. But after the end of the First World War, the
economic value of these continental holdings was as great as the strategic in the
minds of army officers. Studies conducted soon after the war asserted that a
Japanese combination with China could provide the necessary economic
security for the Empire. l\ was only necessary to retain concessions already
won in south Manchuria and north China and to ensure that the fragmented
political leadership in China remained unwilling or unable to resist Japan's
security program.9
At home, the Japanese military pressed for a plan to provide for the total
mobilization of the economy in the event of war. At base, this entailed
establishing supervisory and control organs for all important industries. These
organs in turn would fall under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Army. By the
spring of 1918 that service had drawn up a 'Munitions Mobilization Bill' which
went one step further. The military would exercise direct control over all
industries deemed necessary for production of items for military use. This
measure, the first of its kind, aroused opposition when presented to the Diet.
But it passed after the legislators were assured that the bill was indispensable
for a sound national defense. By 1926, the army had obtained Diet approval
for the creation of the Cabinet Resources Bureau - Japan's first agency
charged with overseeing a total mobilization effort. It immediately began to
draft Japan's first comprehensive mobilization plan. Well before 1931, then, the
tools for waging total war had been forged.10
The first half of the new decade witnessed three key developments in Japan's
economic security policy. First, these years marked the emergence of a group
of officers, centered around Nagata Tetsuzan, Ishiwara Kanji, and Suzuki
Teiichi, dedicated to carrying out the programs at home and abroad necessary
to realize self-sufficiency. Second, this group formed influential allies in civilian
agencies which had been created to combat the effects of the Great Depression
upon Japan. Third, these officers managed to fight off a challenge to those
programs led from within the army by Araki Sadao.
The organization of study groups within the Imperial Army provided the
vehicle for the rise of a clique of 'total war' officers. One of the most influential
was the Issekikai. The Issekikai had been founded in late 1928 by Suzuki
Teiichi to increase interest among his fellow officers in the Manchurian
problem and in promoting reforms within Japan. Nagata, senior officer in the
new Resources Bureau at the time, endorsed the officers' sentiments that
capitalism had worsened Japan's security and social problems alike.
Fundamental change was needed. Ishiwara used the group to publicize his
ideas about Manchuria. Once the corrupt and restrictive hand of China were
removed from that region, Ishiwara declared, Japan could develop its rich
resources as a first step toward the creation of an East Asian dominion that
would rival the United States itself in economic- and therefore military-power.
Proving that he was a man of more than words, Ishiwara became one of the
army's leaders in the seizure of Manchuria by force in 1931. One of the first
ORIGINS OF THE PACIFIC WAR 109

acts of its new puppet government was to extend substantial additional

concessions to Japan for the use of Manchuria's riches.11
These officers did not find themselves alone in their desire to reorganize the
economic and social structure of Japan. By 1934, when Okada Keisuke
founded his 'whole nation' cabinet, economic problems had grown to crisis
proportions. Many influential Japanese, especially young ones, were coming to
suspect that the traditional political leaders and the national bureaucrats were
incapable of running the country. To address this rising disaffection, Okada
authorized the formation of the Cabinet Investigative Bureau in 1935. The
bureau was to draw on the talents of all Japan's regular ministries, civilian and
military, to devise appropriate recovery plans.
Army officers committed to the attempt to make Japan self-reliant saw this
new body as a means to foster a wide base of support within the government
for desired reforms. Suzuki became the army's first representative to the
bureau. There, he pressed hard for the creation a Health Ministry and national-
ization of Japan's electric power industry. A Health Ministry was imperative to
the health of the Emperor's subjects, and his enlistees, Suzuki argued.
Nationalization would end the robbery of the poor, while making any
necessary diversions of energy to mobilization purposes far simpler in time of
war.
The bureau's civilian members agreed. Many of these men had been drawn
from the lower levels of their ministries, giving the Investigative Bureau a
youthful look. Not a few of the representatives held quite radical ideas. Wada
Hiro believed that the entire Japanese economy had to be centrally controlled
to ensure the peasant a fair deal. Masaki Chifuyu held that Japan's industrial
economy had been so ruined by the capitalists and party men that even an all-
army cabinet for reform would be acceptable. These men and their fellow-
thinkers in the bureau readily embraced Suzuki's proposals.12
The need for basic reform seemed even clearer after the abortive coup d'etat
of February 1936 led by radical young army officers. Hirota Koki, who
became premier in the coup's aftermath, gave the Investigative Bureau
instructions to devise a set of comprehensive reforms to cure Japan's ills. By
this time, civil-military ties in the bureau were intimate. Often, members of the
predominantly military Resources Bureau attended Investigative Bureau
meetings to plan for the new Japan. These men quickly agreed that a powerful
central planning agency to direct Japan's economy was necessary. It only
required a dynamic, charismatic leader in its van to be successful. When
Konoe Fumimaro became prime minister in May 1937, they were jubilant.
The drive for self-sufficiency led by Nagata and his associates had found
natural support among the younger civilians of the economic recovery
agencies. But their ideas did not have altogether smooth sailing within the
military services. Instead, these officers found themselves engaged in a constant
struggle with colleagues who favored a crash program to increase Japan's
immediate level of military preparedness even at the cost of the long-range goal
of autarky.
After the occupation of Manchuria, the leaders of the Imperial Army had
begun to consider their next move. Most officers, including Army Minister
110 THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES

Araki Sadao, were obsessed with the growing Soviet threat to their newly-
enlarged Empire. While they did not deny the economic advantages derived
from the possession of Manchuria, they remained more concerned with its
strategic value. To Araki, that value was all the greater since Moscow was
rapidly increasing the strength of its Far Eastern Army. By 1936, Araki
warned, the enemy would be ready to strike. To meet this menace, he ordered
Nagata's Resources Bureau to draft plans diverting all of Japan's available
economic strength to a crash increase of production of arms for the coming
'crisis of 1936'.13
Nagata, however, held that relations with China had to take priority. A
hostile Chiang Kai-shek could strike at Japan's rear in any confrontation with
the Soviets. More importantly, Nagata asked how the Empire could consider
war against the Russians, likely to be a long-term affair, without first obtaining
access to China's bountiful resources. It was far better to avoid friction with
Moscow for the present and build more steel mills, not tanks, so that a future
war could be fought on more equal terms.14
When Araki met Nagata's criticism by transferring him out of central head-
quarters in August 1933, the Army Minister overreached himself. Within the
service, supporters of the total war doctrine were alarmed. Nagata's dismissal
crippled their efforts to prepare the Empire for total economic mobilization.
Outside the military, Araki's demands for sharply increased army
appropriations - at a time of severe budgetary retrenchment due to the
depression - guaranteed his unpopularity. The minister resigned by the new
year.13
Under new Army Minister Hayashi Senjuro, Nagata returned to central
headquarters and economic planning proceeded apace. Rhetoric about the
'crisis of 1936' faded. The army instead signed a series of agreements with
north Chinese leaders which confirmed Japan's deep economic interest in the
resources of those provinces. But the most dramatic development in the drive
for self-sufficiency came with Nagata's appointment, in August 1935, of
Ishiwara Kanji to the powerful post of chief of the General Staffs Operations
Section.
The new chief was quickly subjected to a series of rude shocks. The Soviets
had increased their forces in the Far East more rapidly than anyone had
supposed possible. At the time of the Manchurian Incident, they had four rifle
divisions in eastern Siberia. By the end of 1935, fully fourteen were present.
The entire Imperial Army had only thirty.16
Ishiwara did not react as Araki would have. Instead, he established a new
body, the War Leadership Section, in the General Staff to cooperate with the
Army Ministry's economic experts. These men began drafting plans to expand
the Empire's economic capacity to wage a modern, prolonged war. These plans
promised peacetime benefits too. Once Japan's economic power was increased,
the Empire would be able to support a large permanent military establishment
without the political strains that Araki had encountered.17
By 1936 these experts had produced a colossal production expansion plan.
It would drastically increase Japan's war-making potential. Iron and steel
production was to increase more than two-fold over the plan's five-year
ORIGINS OF THE PACIFIC WAR 111

duration. Machine tool manufacture would nearly quadruple. Oil production,

much of it synthetic, was expected to rise fifteen-fold. Overall, the plan would
require the expenditure of over seven billion yen. In addition to these material
reforms, the plan called for the 'rationalization' of every major industry
throughout the Empire. Each industry would have its own supervisory board.
These would be led by a single, powerful National Affairs Board directly under
the Prime Minister. Even the old Cabinet system would be scrapped.18
To put this plan into operation, Ishiwara needed the consent of Japan's
political and economic elites. Konoe's rise to the premiership and Ishiwara's
judicious compromises with Ikeda Seihin, doyen of Japanese business and
financial circles, secured the Cabinet's agreement to call a special session of the
Diet for late July 1937 to consider the plan. During the struggle to win the
Cabinet's approval, Ishiwara's most formidable opponent turned out to be the
Imperial Navy."
For Japan's admirals, the burning issue of the mid-thirties was the naval
arms limitation treaties. The most recent of these, signed at London by Britain,
Japan, and the United States, had been ratified by Tokyo only after a
prolonged and bitter struggle. Convinced that these agreements deprived their
fleet of the ships required for Japan's barest security needs, the top officers of
the navy had resolved to win the support of the Cabinet for the treaties'
abrogation at the earliest possible moment. This moment would arrive at the
endofl936. 2 0
Before his ouster, Army Minister Araki had been willing to offer the army's
consent for abrogation. Since this concession would allow the navy to press for
sharp increases in its construction program, Araki had demanded that the sea
service approve his version of a crisis of 1936 and support an enlarged army
budget.21
Ishiwara and his fellow economic planners were as opposed to the navy's
squandering Japan's scarce funds and materials as they had been to Araki's. If
the navy began a building race with the West, the production expansion plan
would be undermined critically. This fear seemed confirmed in early 1936 when
the navy began its campaign for sharp budget increases. To justify additional
allocations of money and materials, the sea service devised a new 'Outline of
National Policy'. The 'Outline' proposed merely to maintain Japan's position
on the continent while diverting energies to the development of the rich
territories of the South Seas. Naturally, the navy would play the leading role in
this development. And, naturally, the army objected vehemently to the
'Outline'.22
The interservice bargaining that followed resulted in a compromise over
Japan's 'Fundamental Principles of National Policy', reached in'August 1936.
This vaguely-worded document promised all things to all people. Japan would
remove the northern threat while preparing for defense against Britain and
America. Both Manchuria and the South Seas were to be developed
economically and integrated with the national defense of the Empire. Since
friendship with Germany would help check Soviet ambitions and lead to a
better relationship with Holland, Tokyo would seek closer ties with Berlin.23
The compromise, however, was a great disappointment to Ishiwara and the
112 THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES

economic planners. They had hoped for cordial, or at least not hostile, relations
with the Soviet Union and the United States during the five-year long execution
of their production expansion plan. All of Japan's meager resources had to be
directed into the expansion effort over the long haul. The compromise instead
gave both the army and navy authorization to increase their forces-in-being. As
bad, it ensured friction with both nascent superpowers.24
If the compromise of August 1936 was a disappointment, war with China in
July 1937 was a disaster for Japan's attempt to achieve self-sufficiency. Even
as Ishiwara had worked to secure the adoption of the production expansion
plan, he labored to limit the Japanese army's activities in north China. He
constantly stressed that completion of that plan, so essential for the Empire's
long-term economic and strategic security, required peaceful relations with all
the major powers. It also needed the cooperation, preferably willing, of China.
The outbreak of any conflict on the Asian mainland would frustrate both
conditions.
There is little doubt that Ishiwara was sincere in his desire for peace with
China. At the same time, his own production expansion plan stipulated access
to the resources of north China. Efforts to acquire increased access served to
defeat attempts for improved Sino-Japanese relations. A series of formal
Cabinet decisions in the winter of 1936 and spring of 1937 banned overt
political activity in north China even as they approved requests to local leaders
there for additional economic concessions. In this contradiction lay the origins
of Ishiwara's downfall.23
Elements of that contradiction appeared by May 1937, as reports reached
Tokyo concerning China's increasing resistance to further Japanese
penetration of north China in any form. There were rumors that the Chinese
Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, would not stop until even Manchuria was
placed under his control. Within the Imperial Army, sentiment grew for a show
of force to cow the mainlanders. Increasing numbers of officers recommended
that Ishiwara's 'penetration by economic means only' policy be discarded.26
When news arrived that Chinese and Japanese forces had exchanged fire
near the Marco Polo Bridge on 7 July, Ishiwara and those other officers who
shared his devotion to achieving autarky called for a local, negotiated
settlement. At once they came under intense pressure from hardliners who
favored a punitive expedition to solidify Japan's position in north China.
Ishiwara loudly dissented. 'It will be what Spain was for Napoleon,' he warned,
'an endless bog.' His opponents were unimpressed. Should Japan relinquish all
her rights in north China, they asked, rights laboriously built up for nearly
forty years? It was impossible to sanction such ignominy. The expedition went
ahead. Japanese troops soon landed at Tientsin. The China Incident had
begun.27
During the frenzied debates of mid-1937, most army officers maintained that
operations in China would amount to no more than a short-term affair
requiring relatively small forces. Ishiwara and the total war planners - sensitive
to the economic demands of modern conflict - predicted that hostilities would
be prolonged and the drain on the Empire's slim resources enormous. They
were right. But, ironically, these men's very commitment to self-sufficiency had
ORIGINS OF THE PACIFIC WAR 113

made them highly unpopular and hence less powerful in the army. Few
generals were willing to approve Ishiwara's plans for 'steel mills now' if the
price was to be 'guns later'. One result was the catastrophic plunge into the
Sino-Japanese War. A second was Ishiwara's removal from the General Staff
by the end of 1937.
There was yet another irony in Japan's decision to commence hostilities on
the Asian continent. The army's economic planners had striven vigorously for
the adoption of the production expansion plan and related measures to enable
Japan to wage a modern war successfully. Ishiwara had won Prime Minister
Konoe's consent to a special session of the Diet in late July 1937 to consider
the necessary legislation. Diet passage had been uncertain, at least for the
plan's original form. But the outbreak of war with China ensured success for a
wide range of mobilization bills. The Seventy-first Diet enacted thirty-four
major new laws. A Synthetic Oil Industry Law created a 'national policy
company' to help render Japan self-reliant in this vital resource. The Gold
Industry Law was meant to increase production of specie to earn more foreign
exchange to import vital goods. The Iron and Steel Industry Law - earlier a
highly controversial measure — was passed to provide for increased govern-
mental regulation and, in time of need, control over that key industry. A step
toward direct supervision of foreign trade was taken in the Trade and Related-
Industries Regulation Law. The Commerce Union Law was enacted to allow
public supervision of cartels in each industry. These cartels would determine
the allocations of material purchases and markets for each member in each
industry. Soon after the Diet dissolved, the Investigative Bureau and Resources
Bureau merged to form one super-agency in charge of the mobilization effort:
the Planning Board.28
In different circumstances, Ishiwara would have rejoiced. As it was, the
economic planners of the Imperial Army had much to be concerned about. The
outbreak of hostilities with China had caught Japan economically unprepared.
Stocks of war supplies, even of the most basic types of munitions, were low. As
a result, a second special Diet gave the government far-reaching controls over
all aspects of Japan's import and export trade. Purchases of non-military goods
were drastically curtailed. The export of essential military articles - from coal
to rabbit fur - was prohibited. Export industries, Japan's principal source of
foreign exchange, were explicitly forbidden from expanding capital holdings.
Their requests for raw materials needed to produce exports were given low
priority. The Empire was mortgaging its economic future for the means to deal
a decisive blow to China in the present.29
This gamble was a crucial step toward Japan's involvement in the Second
World War. It was taken in the expectation that Chiang Kai-shek would
surrender by the end of 1937. His capital of Nanking fell in December, but the
Nationalist Chinese leader retreated inland to Hankow. After Japanese forces
captured that city in October 1938, Chiang shifted further westward to
Chungking. As 1939 dawned, the war's conclusion was not in sight.
Japan's gamble had failed. One immediate consequence was a growing - not
lessened - economic dependence on imports, particularly from the United
States. By the end of 1937 the army already had found it necessary to send a
1 14 THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES

'special purchase mission' to America for high-quality machine tools. The

navy's greatly increased orders of aviation gasoline were placed principally in
the United States. Japan's needs for other vital products grew as well, making a
mockery of her attempt to become self-sufficient. By January 1938, after
barely six months of war with China, financial experts in the Planning Board
had concluded that the Empire was unable to fight any power of consequence,
even the Chinese, without imports from Britain and America. Equally alarming
was the prospect that Japan would be unable to pay for these imports even if
they were available. The Planning Board estimated that the Empire required
foreign goods for 1938 which would cost a total of 4.1 billion yen. Only 2.6
billion of foreign exchange would be on hand. The only solution was patriotic
conservation. By the middle of 1938, factories were ordered to reduce their fuel
consumption by 37 per cent, ships by 15 per cent and automobiles by 65 per
cent. Japan's fishing fleet, despite its central role as food supplier, was hardest
hit. Henceforth it would rely solely on windpower. Economies in other
resources were as severe. The quest for autarky had taken a step backward.30
Japan's plight was not eased by growing sentiment in the United States for
cutting off supplies to her. In June 1938, spurred by Japanese bombings of
Canton which had killed or wounded over 1,000 Chinese civilians, the United
States announced a "moral embargo' on the export of aircraft and aeronautical
armaments and equipment to Japan. This small step did little to satisfy an
outraged American public, which demanded an end to the export of oil and
scrap iron to Japan as well. Hoping to head off adoption of extreme measures,
in July 1939 the State Department announced America's intention to abrogate
the American-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation. The way to
formal sanctions and full embargoes against Tokyo was now open.31
These developments in the United States were all the more ominous for
Japan after war broke out in Europe in September. Economic planners in
Tokyo quickly concluded that the Western scramble to rearm would lead to
shortages, or at least sharply higher prices, on the world market in precisely
those materials needed most for Japan's own war effort. The Empire's reserves
of foreign exchange were sure to be strained further. Complete pre-emption by
the West of available supplies would be disastrous. In scrap iron alone, a cutoff
of American shipments could cost the Empire over 1.3 million tons of its steel
production - over ten per cent of its total - with devastating effects. The
Planning Board estimated that even with China and its resources under firm
control, a goal still distant in late 1939, Japan could not become completely
self-sufficient. However, if the South Seas were included under the imperial
aegis, the picture would brighten considerably. Indochinese rice, rubber and
tin, Malayan iron ore, and Indonesian oil could do much. This solution had a
problem, however. Both Britain and America had a deep interest in this
region."
There were two other courses of action which also promised relief from these
difficulties. A final effort to force China's surrender would free the Empire to
resume its attempt to achieve self-sufficiency. And an alliance with Germany
might compel Britain and America to acquiesce in Japanese control of the
resource-rich South Seas.
ORIGINS OF THE PACIFIC WAR 115

Japan elected to try all these remedies. At first glance, her attempt might be
seen as an embrace of the dreams and desires of those men who had labored
for autarky since 1918. The facts were otherwise. Japan's economic situation
in late 1939 was not desperate, but it was by no means encouraging. The
policies she adopted after the outbreak of war in Europe risked war with the
West as a means to achieve autarky. Ishiwara had sternly warned against
attempting any such conflict until that achievement had been realized.33
Japan's handicaps increased by the end of the year. The Imperial Army had
hoped to deal Chiang a fatal blow by invading south China and thus ending his
flow of supplies from the West. The operation was kicked off in mid-
November. At first the offensive went well. But just before Christmas the
impossible happened. The Nationalists launched a vigorous counter-attack on
all fronts throughout the country. The Japanese held their ground after bitter
fighting, but could report no progress by the start of 1940.34
The question now became whether to limit the increasingly hurtful drain of
men and material to the China front or to attempt once more to knock Chiang
out and end that drain entirely. By the spring many army leaders, such as
Operations Division chief Tominaga Kyqji, favored a gradual reduction of
troops committed to China. Alarmed by the decrease in the number of soldiers
in Manchuria caused by the latest China operation, they won a promise from
the field commanders that the China Army's strength would be lowered. First,
however, those commanders were granted the opportunity for one final attempt
to impose a military solution. After a hard-fought campaign, the Chinese city
of Ichang was captured in June. With control of this base, Japanese aircraft
raided the Nationalist capital of Chungking with renewed intensity. For
Chiang, the occupation of Ichang was one of the worst moments of the entire
eight-year struggle with Japan.35
These weeks of late spring were just as dark for the Western allies in Europe.
Barely a fortnight before Ichang's fall, the last British forces had fled the
continent from Dunkirk. Germany's bold stroke against France and the Low
Countries deprived their Asian colonies of hope for support against Tokyo.
Britain's own position in East Asia from Hong Kong to Malaya, never very
strong, became worse than ever. Wasting no time, Japanese Foreign Minister
Arita Hachiro declared that Japan had a close economic interest in the South
Seas, singling out the Netherlands East Indies in particular. Unknown to the
Western powers, the Imperial Navy went further, asking for the emperor's
permission to organize the fleet for possible southward operations.36
The twelve months after June 1940 were decisive in the origins of the Pacific
War. Historians have long recognized that the key actors during these months
were the Imperial Army and Navy. But there was a dimension to Japanese
policy that is too often ignored. For either service, or for both, to undertake
any operations in addition to those in China would require substantial
increases in the material allocations for each branch. Bargaining over these
allocations proved to be as important as discussion concerning the precise
nature of Japan's 'Southward Advance'.
The navy's initial eagerness to commence that advance soon vanished. By
the end of May that branch's leaders had assessed the results of map
116 THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES

maneuvers which simulated a rapid seizure of the Dutch East Indies. The
conclusions were clear and discouraging. In order to meet the possibility of
Anglo-American intervention, the fleet would have to assume its wartime
organization. This step would drastically increase its fuel and other material
requirements, requirements the Empire could not meet until the Indies had been
secured. The implication was obvious. The study read, 'As a temporary
expedient, we must [first] replenish our military supplies and preparations.'
This prerequisite in turn demanded no provocation of the Western maritime
powers, since these were the source of those supplies.37
Army officers had been equally quick to see the possibilities created by
Hitler's triumphs. At first their interest centered on the more modest goal of
occupying French Indochina. This step could interdict Chiang's supply lines
without repeating the costly battles of late December. Other implications of a
move into that colony, however, were not lost on the army chiefs. By the end of
June, operational staffers under Lieutenant Colonel Nishiura Susumu had
produced the army's first concrete plan for a Southward Advance.
Nishiura's plan reflected the assumptions prevailing in army headquarters
concerning any southern operations. Germany's victories represented a unique
opportunity to extend the Japanese Empire into the South Seas. But this
extension, regardless of its eventual economic value, had to be accomplished
with a minimal use of landpower. The reason was simple. There were no troops
to spare from the China front. And to divert units from Manchuria would
weaken the already depleted force facing the Soviets to danger point.
In consequence, the army made the occupation of the Netherlands East
Indies its sole objective for any southern operations. An attack against
Singapore was probably unavoidable, given the need for flank security. But at
all costs the United States was not to become involved. Any invasion of the
Philippines would tie down too many soldiers. The army's resources permitted
only a single, direct thrust into Sumatra, Java, southern Borneo, and
Singapore.38
The army's proposed advance drew fire from the navy at once. Naval
officers assailed the premise that Britain and America could be divided. It was
quite likely, they maintained, that both Western powers would join in the
defense of the East Indies. In addition, navy orthodoxy had long held that any
Southward Advance ipso facto meant war with the United States. It was folly
to speak of such an undertaking until Japan completed substantial and long-
term preparations, including an early end.to the prodigal war with China.39
These interservice differences had to be resolved. In this Prime Minister
Konoe played a pivotal role. He gave heed to the navy's wishes by favoring
renewed negotiations with Chiang to end the China Incident. Toward this goal,
Konoe firmly supported new discussions with Germany and Italy for an
alliance. These ties, Konoe hoped, would put additional pressure on the
Nationalists to surrender and on the West to cease aiding the Chinese. Finally,
Konoe promised both services that he would sponsor a series of radical new
political and economic reforms to prepare the Empire for the newly-planned
operations.40
The resulting compromise was embodied in the famous 'Principles for
ORIGINS OF THE PACIFIC WAR 117

Dealing with the Changing World Situation', approved in late July 1940.
Negotiations would commence with the authorities of the Dutch East Indies at
once for resource concessions. Success in these would make the military
component of the Southward Advance superfluous and the Imperial Navy
happy. Even if they failed, force would not be employed until the China
Incident was resolved. The Empire, if made to fight, would attempt to limit
hostilities to Britain and Holland. But it had to prepare for war with the United
States as well. The army, in turn, was satisfied with a pledge to seek stronger
ties with the Axis powers and a promise of the military occupation of the
northern half of French Indochina at once. The key passage of the 'Principles'
agreed that, if the China Incident were not ended quickly, the Empire would
advance to the south anyway at 'best opportunity'. This was not the sort of
resolution the navy had had in mind. As a result, even after the 'Principles' of
July, each service continued to plan for its own version of the Southward
Advance. The army readied itself for an attack against the Dutch and British in
Asia. The navy prepared for a decisive encounter with the main American
fleet.41
These differences did not have to be resolved until Japan actually decided to
go to war. The question of the nature of an alliance with Germany, however,
demanded immediate attention. Berlin sent a plenipotentiary, Heinrich
Stahmer, to Japan in late August. Stahmer immediately declared his
government's desire for a formal military alliance to keep America out of any
conflict in Europe or Asia. Army Minister Tojo Hideki assented at once. To
maintain American neutrality was high on the list of the army's priorities.42
The navy's position was more complex. That service's premise that a
Southward Advance meant war with America could lead to two conclusions.
Moderates such as Navy Minister Yoshida Zengo and Commander of the
Combined Fleet Yamamoto Isoroku maintained that such a war was
unthinkable, beyond Japan's capabilities utterly. The imperial fleet existed to
deter foreign attack on Japan's shores and most vital interests. Other officers,
including Fukudome Shigeru, argued that the Southward Advance would give
the Imperial Navy the capability to defeat the Americans in protection of
Japan's vital interests. Yoshida opposed an alliance with Germany lest growing
friction between Berlin and Washington lead to disaster for Japan. Fukudome's
fellow-thinkers supported the link so that America would be afraid to resist the
Empire's strike southward.
By the time Stahmer arrived, Yoshida's position had weakened appreciably.
Germany's successes in the spring had convinced many younger naval officers
that the Western powers could be defeated. In late July, in the wake of the
army's occupation of northern Indochina, the Americans had stopped shipping
aviation gasoline and high-quality scrap iron to the Empire. At once the Naval
General Staff argued that unless Japan acted quickly to render herself self-
sufficient, the Americans would force a surrender without having to fire a shot.
Under unrelenting pressure, Yoshida finally broke down physically and retired.
His successor, Oikawa Kojiro, agreed to the alliance, on condition that 'the
Cabinet and particularly the army authorities would give special attention to
naval preparedness'. By the end of September, Japan had formed the
118 THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES

Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy.43

Oikawa had not imposed his condition idly. The navy had made sharp
increases in its material allocations its price for consent to the German alliance.
The army, which pressed for more modest bonuses of its own, was willing to
pay. Responsible members of the Planning Board protested that Japan lacked
the wherewithal to meet these new demands. They were rewarded with arrest in
the little-known Planning Board Incident of April 1941. Their replacements
drew up new allocation plans more in line with the services' needs. But the new
men could not supply the extra iron and oil themselves. These products would
have to come from drastic conservation efforts in Japan and the soon-to-be-
occupied islands of the South Seas.44
There remained the issue of the precise nature of the Southward Advance. In
the spring of 1941, the army and navy still were committed to their varying
versions of that advance. But there were some new twists. The navy
increasingly favored commencing the advance that it had opposed during the
summer of 1940. The fall of moderates such as Yoshida and Chief of Staff
Prince Fushimi, the fear of increased American economic pressure, the
prospect of rapidly rising American naval strength in the future as the United
States rearmed, and the winning of larger material allocations combined to
incline naval sentiment toward bold moves. On 11 June, 1941, the new Chief of
Staff, Nagano Osami, announced his service's support for a vigorous
Southward Advance even if the result was war against the United States.45
The army, on the other hand, lost the enthusiasm for the advance which had
been evident in the past summer. There were several factors at work, but the
strongest was a resurgent fear of the Soviet Union. With Britain and Germany
locked in a desperate struggle, the generals reasoned, the Russians might take
advantage of Japan's Southward Advance to storm Manchuria. Then the awful
specter of a Sino-Soviet alliance against Tokyo, in fact if not in name, would
become real. In addition, the field commanders on the continent had won
permission for new operations in Shansi province to wear down Chinese
resistance. They needed reinforcements from either units earmarked for the
southern operations or those stationed opposite the Soviets.
There was one more reason for the army's reluctance in early 1941 to
commence a Southward Advance. Because the navy insisted that the advance
was tantamount to war with America, troops to fight the United States would
be required sooner or later if that advance was executed, more troops than the
army could afford. Equally bad, the army's economic planners argued that
inclusion of America in the list of the Empire's enemies meant that Japan
would be completely unable to build up her material reserves for any clash with
the Soviet Union, desired or not. If the Southward Advance were delayed,
however, it might be possible to persuade Britain and the United States to
provide the resources to nurture the Empire's economic power. Besides,
delaying the advance could see the United States become deeply embroiled in
the European War. Perhaps then America would end its aid to Chiang. In this
case, both the Soviets and Chinese could be handled successfully.46
By mid-April 1941, the army's leaders were prepared to accept the navy's
premise of Anglo-American indivisibility. But they did so to forestall the
ORIGINS OF THE PACIFIC WAR 119

commencement of the Southward Advance, not sanction it. They especially

regretted their past willingness to see the navy's allocations of resources
enlarged to prepare for that advance. Regret turned to resentment in June,
when the sea service demanded still greater increases in the form of a new
'force replenishment plan'. The plan recommended construction of three super-
battleships mounting twenty-inch cannon and many other expensive warships.
The navy argued that the new construction was necessary to keep pace with
America's huge building programs. The army was dubious. One officer
scathingly observed, 'It [the Southward Advance] is nothing more than a
means to secure naval force replenishment and acquire funds and materials.'47
Only days after receiving the navy's latest request, the Imperial Army
learned of another reason for delaying the Southward Advance. Hitler's
stunning attack on the Red Army had removed the threat of a Soviet assault on
Japan's rear during any southern operations. It also had provided Tokyo with
a chance to commence a 'Northward Advance' to remove the Russian menace
to the Empire permanently. Whether this chance was to be taken in the end or
not, it seemed foolhardy to embark upon southern operations. Options had to
be kept open. By the end of June, the army was engaged in the Kan-toku-en, or
Kwantung Army Special Maneuvers, to be ready to strike by early
September.48
At the beginning of July, then, Japan's military policy stood in disarray.
Each military service was deeply suspicious of the other. The navy believed
that the generals meant to scuttle the Southward Advance in favor of an attack
on the Soviets. The most immediate casualty of such a course was sure to be
the coveted force replenishment plan. Without that plan, the Imperial Navy
soon would be hopelessly outclassed by a mammoth American fleet. Any
Southward Advance would become impossible. The army maintained that the
Admirals never intended to fight the United States even if they could leech even
greater appropriations of scarce funds and materials. These could come only
from the land service, rendering an attack of opportunity against the Soviets
impossible.
At the month's end this impasse was broken. The Empire firmly committed
itself to the Southward Advance and war against Britain and the United States.
How did this swift transformation occur?
There were two catalysts for change, both supplied from abroad. The army
had expected the Soviets to weaken their Far Eastern Army significantly in the
face of the German onslaught. Weeks wore on, but Stalin maintained his
strength in eastern Siberia. Of greater importance, the Americans reacted to
Japan's occupation of southern Indochina by ending shipments of goods to
Japan totally. The Empire's economic survival was at stake.49
Despite the army's reluctance to embark upon the Southward Advance,
its leaders had long approved of the occupation of the southern half of the
French colony. This step was necessary if the alternative of that advance
were to remain available. After all, any strike into Malaya, Singapore, or
the East Indies would require land-based air support. The needed facilities
could not be built overnight. When America reacted to the move by imposing
a freeze on Japanese assets and a shutoff of all trade with the Empire,
120 THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES

these men were taken by surprise.50

The freeze was a severe blow to Japan's hopes for increasing her economic
capability for war. That capability had been badly damaged by the inter-
minable China Incident and the outbreak of war in Europe. By the end of 1940,
Japan's production of many critical war materials, such as steel, had actually
fallen. Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, a military boon, was an
economic setback. Tokyo could no longer rely on shipments of German
materials across the trans-Siberian railroad. In no cases were the amounts
great, but the importance of the goods - from special steel alloys and
sophisticated machinery to such humble necessities as potash and mercury -
was undeniable. As the chief of the Planning Board, Suzuki Teiichi, judged, the
American move could not have come at a worse time.51
These two catalysts confirmed Japan on a course that would lead to the
Pacific War. Suzuki warned both services that the Empire was not self-
sufficient. It had only enough stockpiles of vital materials to last for a few
months, a year at best. Unless new sources could be found, and found quickly,
capitulation was the only alternative. When the army's own economic staffers
confirmed Suzuki's assessments, that service endorsed the immediate
commencement of the Southward Advance.52
Now it was the navy which counseled delay. Even after the army agreed to
formal plans envisioning a simultaneous attack on Malaya and the Philippines,
the sea service harbored doubts about success against the Americans. Hoping
that negotiations with Washington could provide a solution to the Empire's
security problems without war, the navy wished to defer any decision on the
commencement of hostilities until the last possible moment. This arrangement
enraged army officers, who were certain that their earlier suspicions about the
navy had been right. If negotiations failed, a warship might be able to raise
steam, and engage the enemy on a few hours' notice. Not so a division of
troops. Weeks of advance preparation were required. And this preparation, in
turn demanded a formal imperial decision to go to war. The two branches had
reached an impasse once again.53
This time there were no outside stimuli to force a resolution. A series of
heated interservice discussions led to the decision in early September to allow
negotiations to proceed for one month. If there were no prospects of success at
the bargaining table, the Empire would turn to the battlefield. The army was
allowed to begin preparations as if hostilities would commence. The navy still
hoped for a diplomatic breakthrough.54
This compromise only delayed the inevitable. By mid-October no end to the
talks with America was in sight. The army insisted upon a decision. The navy
wished to give the discussions more time, but could not admit that it lacked
confidence in a war against the United States. Navy Minister Oikawa sought to
escape this uncomfortable position by throwing responsibility for a war
decision onto the Cabinet — meaning Konoe. The Prime Minister was openly
dubious about the outcome of a trans-Pacific struggle. But when an
exasperated Tojo asked Konoe why he had then endorsed the Southward
Advance with such energy a year before, the Prime Minister had no reply. He
resigned soon after. T5j6 succeeded him.55
ORIGINS OF THE PACIFIC WAR 121

TojO's rise to the premiership did not represent an automatic decision for
war. The navy's consent was still indispensable. But as a prime minister, T6jO
could turn the navy's buck-passing against itself. If the admirals refused to
decide upon war at once, he warned, the army would stop its mobilization and
assume no responsibility if diplomatic efforts ended in failure.
The navy's dilemma was now in the open. If its leaders found war with
America unacceptable, they had to confess that their fleet was worthless. To
extricate themselves, the admirals resorted to a time-honored device. The
Imperial Navy could wage war against the United States without fear for one
or two years. But a prolonged conflict would require the diversion of additional
resources to the sea service. If these were forthcoming, the Southward Advance
could be begun.56
Tojo acted with dispatch. After hearing Suzuki's judgement that, 'In 1943,
the material situation will be much better if we go to war,' he resolved to meet
the navy's demand for increased allocations even if the army's own quota had
to be reduced. Japan's diplomats offered two final proposals to Washington, too.
When Secretary of State Cordell Hull brusquely rejected both, the clasp of war
wasclosed.57
What then would a new interpretation of Japan's entry into the Pacific War
look like? It would probably adopt and modify elements of each interpretation
that has gone before. Japan's drive to achieve autarky did entail a program of
territorial expansion. It also called for significant reforms at home in the
Empire's political and economic structure. But this drive was certainly not the
product of a conspiracy, military or otherwise. There was a group of officers
dedicated to the drive, but their method for attaining self-sufficiency received a
decisive setback when Japan attacked China in mid-1937. After that time,
Japan strove for self-reliance by means of risking war with the West. She did
not forego such a war, as Ishiwara and his associates had desired, in order to
first achieve that self-reliance.
Japan's radical 'young officers' may well have been irrational. But they did
not dominate the Empire's military or economic policies during the 1930s.
Those policies, it is true, had a markedly anti-capitalist and anti-liberal
character. But this character was due primarily to the inability of a capitalist,
liberal society to mobilize quickly and effectively for war. To the economic
planners of the military, this type of society was a luxury that Japan, a country
of relative poverty among the great powers, could ill afford.
Finally, Japan's security goals through the end of the Pacific War did have
their roots in the aspirations of the Meiji oligarchs. But the critical
transformation from emphasis on territorial to economic security came not in
1930, the result of the Great Depression or the naval treaty fights, but rather a
decade before, from the lessons of World War One. Scholars have argued that
the seeds of the Second World War in Europe were planted during that earlier
conflict. It may be true that those of the Pacific War too came from the first
holocaust of the bloody century.
122 THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES

NOTES

1. See the Records of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, especially
Judgements, on deposit at the International Legal Studies Library, Harvard Law School,
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
2. The classic account is Hugh Byas, Government by Assassination (New York: Alfred Knopf,
1942). But see also Yale Maxon, Control of Japanese Foreign Policy (Berkeley: University
of California Press. 1957) and Richard Storry, The Double Patriots (London: Chatto and
Windus, 1957).
3. Two examples with different emphases are Ben-Ami Shillony, Revolt in Japan: the Young
Officers and the February 26, 1936 Incident (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973)
and Richard J. Smethurst. A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1974).
4. James B. Crowley, Japan's Quest for Autonomy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1966).
5. Some of these studies are Mark R. Peattie, Ishiwara Kanji and Japan's Confrontation with
the West (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975); Gordon M. Berger, Parties out of
Power in Japan, 1931-1941 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); J. W. Dower,
Empire and Aftermath (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979). The theme of autarky
is explored at length in the author's 'Autarky and International Law: Japan's Attempt to
Achieve Self-Sufficiency and the Origins of the Pacific War' (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard
University, 1980).
6. Crowley, xvi. For a vastly fuller treatment, see W. G. Beasley, The Meiji Restoration
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972).
7. These developments can be traced in James W. Morley, The Japanese Thrust into Siberia,
1918 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957) and Madeleine Chi, China Diplomacy,
1914-1918 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970).
8. Yomiuri shinbunsha (comp.), Shōwashi no tennō (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shinbunsha, 1972) vol.
16, 141: Bōeichō, bōei kenshūjo, senshishitsu, Rikugun gunju dōin (1), Keikaku-hen
(Tokyo: Asagumo shinbunsha, 1967), 34-45 (hereafter cited as RGD1).
9. Kobayashi Ushisaburo, Military Industries of Japan (New York: Oxford University Press,
1922). 167.
10. RGDI. 53-62, 228-39.
11. Nihon Kokusai Seiji Gakkai Taiheiyō Sensō Gen'in Kenkyübu, ed., Taiheiyō sensō e no
michi, 8 vols. (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 1962-63) vol. 1,360-62, 367; ibid., vol. 8, 74-82;
Japan, Gaimushō(comp.), Nihon gaiko nenpyō narabini shuyō bunsho, 2 vols., (Tokyo:
Gaimushō. 1955) vol. 2, 221-23 (hereafter cited as NGN2); Gendaishi shiryo (7), Manshu
jihen (1) (Tokyo: Misuzu shobo. 1964). 503-05.
12. Yomiuri shinbunsha (comp.), Shōdwashi no tennō (Tokyo: Yomiuri shinbunsha, 1972) vol.
17, 251.
13. Bōeichō, bōei kenshūji, senshishitsu, Daihon'ei rikugunbu, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Asagumo
shinbunsha, 1967-68) vol. 1, 345-47 (hereafter cited as DR1).
14. DRI, 347.
15. Crowley, 206-08; Malcolm D. Kennedy, The Estrangement of Great Britain and Japan,
1917-1935 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 289-90, 297-302; Berger, 89.
16. DRI, 371.
17. Crowley, 241-42; NGN2, 243, 322-23.
18. Nakamura Takafusa, Senzen-ki Nihon keizai seichō no bunseki (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,
1971), 240; Peattie, 208; RGDI, 588-90.
19. Nakamura, 239-40; Nakamura Takafusa and Hara -Ahira. Introduction to Gendaishi
shiryō (43), Kokka sōdōin (1) (Tokyo: Misuzu Shobō. 1970), xix.
20. See Crowley, ch. 1, for details.
ORIGINS OF THE PACIFIC WAR 123

21. Crowley, 193-95.

22. DRI, 392; Gendaishi shiryō (8), Nitchū sensō (1) (Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 1964), 351-53,
354-55 (hereafter cited as GDS8); Crowley, 285-86, 289-91, 296-98.
23. GDS8, 361-62, 363-65.
24. GDS8, 357-58.
25. GDS8, 368-71, 400-01.
26. DR1, 425-26; GDS8, 368-71; Shimada Toshihiko, Introduction to GDS8, xlviii.
27. DR1, 452, 457-58; Peattie, 303-04.
28. Berger, 140-41; RGD1, 615; Jerome B. Cohen, Japan's Economy in War and Recon-
struction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1949), 14.
29. RGD1, 619-22; Cohen, 14.
30. Bōeichō, bōei kenshūjo, senshishitsu, Rikugun gunju dōin (2), Jisshi-hen (Tokyo: Asagumo
shinbunsha, 1970) 80-81, 166 (hereafter cited as RGD2); Bōeichō, bōei kenshūjo,
senshishitsu, Kaigun gunsembi (Tokyo: Asagumo shinbunsha, 1969), 699.
31. The Journal of J. Pierrepont Moffat, entry of July 26, 1939, vol. 43, Moffat Papers,
Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
32. Mantetsu, Tokyo shisa, chōsashitsu, Shina jihen short narabini Ōshū sensō boppatsu ni
tomonau senji keizai taisaku (Tokyo: Mantetsu, 1939) n.p.; Bōeichō, bōei kenshūjo,
senshishitsu, Daihon'ei rikugunbu, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Asagumo shinbunsha, 1967-68) vol. 2,
44 (hereafter cited as DR2).
33. For the decisions to end the China Incident in 1940 by strangling Chiang and to attempt to
achieve economic pre-eminence over the Netherlands East Indies, see the Foreign-Army-
Navy Ministries agreements of late December 1939 in DR2, 8-10 and NGN2, 422ff.
34. Frank Dora, The Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1941 (New York: Macmillan, 1974), 286, 310,
316; DR2, 28.
35. Dorn, 327-31; DR2, 38-39. For evidence of despair in Chungking following the fall of
Ichang, see, for example, the letter of Dr Chu Chia-hua to German Field Marshal Wilhelm
Keitel on 7 July, 1940 in Wang Yi-chün and Sun Pin, eds., Chu Chia-hua hsien-sheng yen-
lun chi (Taipei: Institute of Modern History of the Academia Sinica, Collection of Historical
Materials Number Three, 1973), 657-59. I am indebted to Professor William Kirby for this
reference and translation.
36. DR2, 40-41.
37. DR2, 42-43.
38. DR2, 48-49.
39. DR2, 51-52.
40. Berger, 252-54.
41. DR2. 58-59; NGN2, 437-38.
42. Hosoya Chihiro, 'The Tripartite Pact, 1939-40', in James W. Morley, ed., Deterrent
Diplomacy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 226-27, 234, 236-39.
43. Ibid., 229; Asada Sadao, 'The Japanese Navy and the United States', in Dorothy Borg and
Shumpei Okamoto, eds., Pearl Harbor as History (New York: Columbia University Press,
1973), 251; DR2, 109; Stephen E. Pelz, Race to Pearl Harbor (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1974), 218.
44. Nihon Kokusai Seiji Gakkai Taiheiyō Sensō Gen'in Kenkyūbu, ed., Taiheiyō sensō) e no
michi, 8 vols. (Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 1962-63) vol. 7,50-51 (hereafter cited as TSM7).
The navy's increases averaged over seventy per cent. Inaba Hidezō, Gekidō sanjūnen no
Nihon keizai (Tokyo: Jitsugyō no Nihonsha, 1965), 73-75.
45. TSM7, 202-03; Asada, 252.
46. DR2, 207-08, 211, 214-16, 282-83.
47. DR2, 306; Pelz, 217.
48. DR2, 322-23.
124 THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES

49. DR2, 323-25,351-53,377.

50. Ike Nobutaka, ed. and trans., Japan's Decision for War: Records of the 1941 Policy
Conferences (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967), 108-10; DR2, 361-62.
51. Ishigawa Junkichi, comp., Kokka s6ddin-shi, 6 vols. (Tokyo: Kiyomizu insatsujo, 1975) vol.
1, 616-17; Gendaishi shiryo (43), Kokka sodoin (1) (Tokyo: Misuzu shobS, 1970),
592-615.
52. RGD2,468-69; DR2, 378-80.
53. DR2, 391,414,420-21.
54. Ike, 134-57; DR2,465.
55. DR2, 506, 516-18.
56. Ike, 190-93.
57. Ike, 201-02; RGD2,487-90, 517-18; DR2, 562.