Japan's decision for war in 1941 : some enduring lessons / Jeffrey Record.

Format:

Book

Government document

Author/Creator:

Record, Jeffrey

Contributor:

Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute

Series:

War and Terrorism Collection.

War and Terrorism Collection

Academic OneFile

Military & Intelligence Database

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Japan--History--1912-1945.

Japan.

World War, 1939-1945--Causes.

World War, 1939-1945.

World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Japan.

Military campaigns.

War--Causes.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 70 pages)

Contained In:

Gale Academic OneFile Gale

Place of Publication:

[Carlisle, Pa.] : [U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute], [2009]

Language Note:

English.

Summary:

Japan's decision to attack the United States in 1941 is widely regarded as irrational to the point of suicidal. How could Japan hope to survive a war with, much less defeat, an enemy possessing an invulnerable homeland and an industrial base 10 times that of Japan? The Pacific War was one that Japan was always going to lose, so how does one explain Tokyo's decision? Did the Japanese recognize the odds against them? Did they have a concept of victory, or at least of avoiding defeat? Or did the Japanese prefer a lost war to an unacceptable peace? Dr. Jeffrey Record takes a fresh look at Japan's decision for war, and concludes that it was dictated by Japanese pride and the threatened economic destruction of Japan by the United States. He believes that Japanese aggression in East Asia was the root cause of the Pacific War, but argues that the road to war in 1941 was built on American as well as Japanese miscalculations and overestimated the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a deterrent to war, whereas the Japanese underestimated the cohesion and resolve of an aroused American society and overestimated their own martial prowess as a means of defeating U.S. material superiority. He believes that the failure of deterrence was mutual, and that the descent of the United States and Japan into war contains lessons of great and continuing relevance to American foreign policy and defense decisionmakers. The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this monograph as a contribution to the national security debate over the use of force to advance the objectives of U.S. foreign policy--p. v.

Contents:

Introduction : A "strategic imbecility"?

The presumption of irrationality

Japanese aggression and U.S. policy responses, 1937-1941

Japanese assumptions

Japanese decisionmaking

Failed deterrence

Conclusions

Lessons for today.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 60-70).

Electronic reproduction. [Place of publication not identified] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2011.

Other Format:

Print version: Record, Jeffrey. Japan's decision for war in 1941

ISBN:

1584873787

9781584873785

OCLC:

302412461

Access Restriction:

Use copy Restrictions unspecified