Japanese Military Strategy in the Pacific War: Was Defeat Inevitable?

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Good Place to Start a Conversation, 2008-04-15
This intellectual tidbit offers no ground-breaking scholarship, with its bibliography full of secondary sources, all of them English-language. This is no crippling flaw though, given the author's purpose simply to challenge the conventional view of Japan's inevitable defeat by the Allied industrial powerhouses. br /The text highlights some Japanese mistakes familiar anyone who has read about the Pacific War: failure on the offensive and defensive sides of the submarine duel, piecemeal commitments to dubious campaigns, etc. Perhaps Wood's most novel point concerns suicide attacks, which he regards as effective and commonsensical and worthy of refinement. br /His critique of Japan's war effort fails to distinguish between strategic mistakes and defeat in battle. When the Japanese lose while pressing their initiative, they are guilty of systematic over-extension; when they lose on the defensive, they are guilty of conceding the fight to the enemy's terms. They are criticized simultaneously for failing to stick to their game plan and for failing to adapt to new situations. Apparently the Japanese can neither have their cake nor eat it. br /Likewise, readers must go without a precise definition of the defeat in war that Japan is trying to avoid. Is any negotiated settlement that prevents occupation of the home islands better than a "defeat"? Wood seems content to see Japan lose all its conquests and all its continental holdings, avoid invasion, and call it a draw. br /At its essence, Wood's alternative scenario is a fundamental switch from Japan's short-war strategy. He examines the salient features of a long-war strategy, and while the book gives only a superficial look at the global ramifications of this switch, it does usefully summarize the immediate consequences. There is little examination of Allied counter-moves. br /The text provides a few geek-ticklers, and the always popular super-battleship "Yamamoto" makes an appearance. Other matters are more disturbing. The author has swallowed whole the regurgitated American-centric nuggets concerning Adm Kurita's actions at Samar, and then poured further indignity on the admiral by mis-naming him. (Ozawa!) Some passages stopped my reading dead in its tracks. Page 9 gives an overview of the years running up to the outbreak of hostilities: "American hostility to Japan's position in Asia was manifest and in retrospect, the conclusion that the United States was bent on war was in no way a misreading of American intensions." (None of Asada's works appear in Wood's bibliography.) But even this gaff lies tangential to the main thrust of the book. br /The serious flaw in the author's argument is his treatment of two issues that largely trump the long-war advantages. The atom bomb and the Soviet threat appear in the main text only long enough to be sidestepped, then reappear in the conclusion for a more formal but equally shallow dismissal. The Soviets apparently could be bribed into staying out of the war by ceding Manchuria to them, an idea that might have made Molotov smile; it presumes that the Japanese pre-empt Allied deals with Stalin and that the Russians accept as payoff something that was already theirs for the taking. As for the A-bomb, Wood's long-war scenario implies a delayed capture of the Marianas so that an atomic bombing would not take place in the context of routine mass-bombings, thus diminishing the emotional impact of a 1-Bomb/1-City event. To me, this seems counter-intuitive and even silly. It also ignores that B-29's first struck Japan from bases in China, not in the Pacific. In general, Wood turns a blind eye to warfare on the continent, justifying this because the Pacific was historically the decisive sector--ignoring that his central thesis is a change in the way the war was fought. br /Wood's book suffices as a conversation-starter more than as a comprehensive argument. However, many readers will find it a useful introduction into the significance of major mistakes made by the Japanese in World War II.