Japanese strategic planning for the Pacific (1905-1940)

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Japan's victories and defeats in World War II can be traced back to pre-war planning and lessons learned from previous conflicts. The context of Japan's Pacific strategy was the long-running tension between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army, expressed as the conflict between respective South Strike and North Strike plans. The Japanese government, in the key period from 1937 onwards, did little more than hold the ring; it endorsed both strategies, putting a severe strain on available resources.

In the early stages of the war against the United States, the Japanese Navy scored early victories when facing off against poorly-equipped outposts but fared poorly later in the war against superior numbers and technology.

1 Japanese Army strategy tested
2 Japanese Naval strategy
3 See also
- 3.1 See also

[edit] Japanese Army strategy tested

Despite having a militaristic culture and aggressive leaders, Japan was not ready to fight a modern war against Western powers due to lack of heavy tanks and artillery. Japanese training stressed a strong esprit de corps rather than a heavily mechanized fighting force, unlike most European powers. This can be traced back to victories in the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War where Japan defeated numerically or technologically superior foes.

The Japanese mind-set seemed reaffirmed after victories in China in the Second Sino-Japanese War in which smaller Japanese armies routed their Chinese counterparts. However, Chinese soldiers were often poorly trained and lacked a modern air force or navy.

In heavy skirmishes with the Soviet Union in 1939, the Japanese soldiers were crushed by the Soviets' superior armour and artillery.

[edit] Japanese Naval strategy

During the 1930's, Japanese Army and Navy leaders were involved in a debate over funds and strategy. The Army argued that it needed more men and equipment to defend against Soviet Russia. The navy argued for the "South Seas" operation in which Indochina, Malaysia, and the Dutch East Indies would be brought into the Japanese sphere of influence.

The Navy believed that a large naval battle would be the key to success as it had been in 1905 at the Battle of Tsushima. Early naval plans had the Army occupying Guam and the Philippines, then luring the United States Navy into a decisive battle. Although that plan was abandoned, the idea of a grand naval battle influenced the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Midway.

[edit] Formosa and the South Pacific Mandate

A political project known as "Taiwan and South Pacific Mandate" was created by Japanese Navy theorists created in Taiwan and South Pacific Mandate during the 1930s and 1940s. Such planning was focused narrowly on economic, political and military strategic aspects of these exterior provinces in relation to Japanese strategic planning for the Pacific.

[edit] The project

The Navy projected in these areas a great mobilization from the home islands as part of an imperial plan, which also stimulated and transformed various institutions in Japan. Naval bases were built in Taiwan and the South Pacific Mandate for further conquests in the Dutch Indies and Western possessions in the South Pacific and as the nerve center of navy operations in the area.

Policy took the local population as fit for economic exploitation. This process produced six modern transformations in these territories and Japan:

The administration of these provinces altered and expanded the role of increasingly commercialized and nationalizing mass culture in politics, while the central government founded industrial and commercial state monopolies.
Mobilization of various social groups at home for empire building overseas transformed the relationship between state and society.
Political building in these areas produced close, yet tenuous, alliances between Navy authorities and private economic interests (Zaibatsu groups) on raw materials and for industry.
The Japanese administration in those lands offered a wide range of career opportunities for displaced Japanese intelligentsia "exiles".
The Navy's project became a "laboratory" for experimenting with state capitalism, collectivism and industrial developmentalism, guided by the Navy's interests, which subsequently left their imprints on Japanese domestic economic structures.
The Japanese administrative process, particularly its emigration and colonization project, stimulated the expansion of state apparatus concerned with the Southeast Asian and Pacific areas.

[edit] Consequences

The Navy's "fief" building in the Formosan hinterland produced some alliances among military officers, bureaucrats, capitalists, and right and left-wing intellectuals. The example of success in Taiwan and the South Pacific Mandate also contrasted with Army failures in the Chinese mainland.