Arm Chair Quarterbacking It

During the run up to the Second World War (or it was the start if you believe some historians which I tend to believe is true) the Empire of Japan was engaged it a horrendous campaign of conquest and subsequent brutality on those that were unfortunate enough to find themselves new subjects of said Empire.  This has a multitude of causes from “rule from below” to outright treason and assassination to resource porcurment to Empire building and much much more. It’s a fascinating subject should you be interested the wheels of fate and where it took Japan as well as the world.

One thing about the topic that keeps being branded into my mind is that as hostilities escalated between America and the Empire, why wasn’t even more diplomacy used? Certainly carrot and stick would do something right? Well besides the fact that those in power in Japan had little it would turn out there was great attempt to find a peaceful way out. Many in the high echelons of power knew from even before their tenure that war with America amounted to suicide. The Empire simply could not match the material might of America let alone the rest of the Allies with America thrown in the mix. So what diplomacy was used? Did the leaders ever meet in person? Why wouldn’t you do anything and everything to avoid war? Again it’s incredibly complicated but to whittle it down to the meat of topic America slowly and slowly turned the screw on Japan through the material she (America) traded to them. Almost all of Japan’s fuel, scrap metal and precious metals (to make fuses among other things) were imported from America. So this doubly looks like suicide as war with your biggest trading partner would obviously starve you of the resources you need not only for your war machine and it’s ability to fight but also domestically because they will increasingly be leaned on to make up the deficit. Why then carry this policy of war out against your biggest trading partner? To put it bluntly because the Empire was at war with China (nationalist China and communist China). 

Why would America care? That question is something I’ve asked forever and all I can come up with is that America not only traded with China as well but oddly had a soft spot for them. Many Americans were fighting in China against Japan of their own accord, kind of like mercenaries of a sort. Especially in the quasi airforce that China had built. Roosevelt also didn’t like the brutality that was being put on there against the Chinese because well... who likes brutality against anyone? So America set about a course of hard nose diplomacy and outright warnings for Japan to cease and desist.  From this angle of history I don’t think America ever would have outright attacked Japan if things hadn’t progressed the way they did but again who knows. Why then did Japan attack?

Well as the war in China ate through resources and supplies America would become increasingly more important for the imports that the Empire needed. China was an unbelievable undertaking as was maintaining the Imperial Navy which consumed years of oil reserves, especially when in conjunction with each branch of the Air Force (both army and navy had their own like most militaries of the day). To try and force Japan to halt the war in China America set about a policy of slowly stopping the massive amount of trade between the two countries. Again to make a long story short it came to an end with the freezing of all Japanese assets in America, banning the Yen (the Japanese currency) from being traded in the stock exchange and bringing to a complete halt any and all oil and other fuels and associated chemicals that could be used for the purpose of war. 

This was a disaster and literally made the Yen nearly worthless overnight. Not only that but it was estimated that with at the rate that the Navy was burning fuel the Empire would have maybe four months(!) of reserves. Before this crescendo tho the Japanese high command was embroiled in debate of whether to go north and attack the Soviet Union or south and grab the now nearly defenceless colonies of Europe. Remember at the time it looked as tho Europe was to fall to Germany completely so the colonies in the pacific would be for all intents and purposes empty. Both choices were resource rich it was just a matter of who they wanted to fight (again I’m blitzing through the details to get to the point, pun intended). So when the decision was made to go south the “plan” was already somewhat made. As the embargoes tightened and tightened the plan of attack got far more serious. After the oil embargo this would culminate in the Pearl Harbour attacks and the rest they say is history. 

Why tell you this? It’s actually simple. Were Japan’s actions belligerent and criminal? Yes. The war in China was a disaster that because of governmental incompetency and an insane national doctrine of supremacy over all pacific people’s neigh the world, just kept growing worse and worse. Sure Japan was “winning” but it just was such a drain for almost no benefit in any way. However, it is been rumoured that Roosevelt knew that Japan couldn’t untangle themselves for China as that would be the ultimate national humiliation on the world stage (having one country dictate military and foreign policy) and wanted to essentially put so much pressure on Japan that they would have no choice but to attack and in the process drag isolationist America kicking and screaming into the war. Whether this is true is up for debate; what is not up for debate is that the diplomatic efforts would most likely have worked if the imperial military wasn’t such a mess and the government wasn’t so inept. America at the time didn’t know the disfunction in the Empire it just looked as tho Japan would say one thing for time and then do the opposite. Now America was reading the diplomatic codes from Japan and for the most part knew exactly everything the Japanese were talking about almost to a tee. Therefore it is my belief they (America) knew that there was no way Japan could get out of China peacefully or in a timely fashion. That undertaking would take almost decades that no party involved could have swallowed. So the fundamental question is did America know that cutting off all trade to Japan would cause war? We may never know the truth but it is a valid point that it is very likely anyone with any experience with the Japanese would know this would be the case. In fact no country could stomach those demands. So what Japan was doing was awful and deservedly punishable, but American painted them into a corner to which there was only one way out. A suicidal war where there was a near zero chance they had of winning. Many many minds then and since have called it national military suicide; I myself see it as such. Lesson being that when a party has only one option and no hope of success in any direction they will resort to the most desperate of escapes. And to push that party over and over and have no room for redemption or compromise, forgiveness or mercy, will only lead to disaster for everyone involved. Untold amounts of civilian and soldiers blood was spilt for what most likely couldn’t have been avoided but given what ultimately happened and the price that was paid I’m sure that everyone involved would have pushed much harder on diplomacy. We will never know if it would have worked, international diplomacy is the slowest of machines but the benefits sometimes outweigh the other more violent possibilities. Like I said, I’m almost one hundred percent certain war would have come sooner or later but to ratchet up the measures of isolating Japan merely forced their hand earlier. What else could America have done? Most likely nothing but in my opinion trying would not have hurt. 

So to close I must say that this is not only an important lesson for nations but for people as well. When someone is almost addicted to a behaviour it probably is not the healthiest of things to strap them into a corner with one horrible way out. With no hope and no way out what else would they do? Bring forward the idea that whether you would want to die relatively quickly or rot over thirty years of isolated agony, I am pretty sure most people would take the former. And to give that terrible choice to anyone is just asking them to escape it by any means necessary. Cut off too much, bring too much pressure to bear and the outcome is almost always going to end badly. Flies with honey like my grandmother used to say. But what do I know, those in the present when looking at the past have the benifit of knowing the ending.