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

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

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Description 1 online resource (ix, 70 pages) Series War and Terrorism Collection Academic OneFile Military & Intelligence Database War and Terrorism Collection 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 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 Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 60-70) Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL English digitized 2011 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL In Gale Academic OneFile Gale Subject World War, 1939-1945 -- Causes. World War, 1939-1945 -- Campaigns -- Japan. Military campaigns War -- Causes World War II. SUBJECT Japan -- History -- 1912-1945. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85069502 Subject Japan Japan -- History -- decisionmaking -- culture -- psychology -- leadership. Genre/Form History Form Electronic book Author Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute. ISBN 1584873787 9781584873785

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