Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (review)

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy is a significant contribution to our understanding of the final months of World War II in the Pacific. Provocative, balanced, and thoroughly documented, it should be required reading for anyone interested in the history of the war, as well as those with an interest in the complexities of war termination.

Most studies of American policy during this crucial period focus on the decision to use the atomic bomb, or view the end of the Pacific War in terms of a Cold War framework. Little has been written about Japan's leaders who, though aware the war was lost, were unable to find an acceptable formula to bring the fighting to an end. Until recently, Soviet documents were unavailable to researchers. Relying extensively on primary material from American, Russian, and Japanese archives, Racing the Enemy corrects all of these shortcomings, weaving the strategies and actions of the primary actors into a coherent whole and providing an international perspective lacking in previous studies.

Shifting from Washington to Moscow to Tokyo, Hasegawa illuminates the high-stakes diplomatic game Truman and Stalin played, set against the context of Japan's confused effort to find an acceptable resolution to the conflict. In Tokyo, a peace group, faced with hard-line army leaders determined to mount a last-ditch defense, enlisted the authority of the emperor in support of an approach to Moscow. Stalin, duplicitous as ever, held out the possibility of mediation while secretly preparing to enter the war against Japan. In Washington, the Americans tried to balance the competing interests of ending the war with Japan quickly while preventing Soviet expansion into the Pacific.

Hasegawa brings these threads together at Potsdam in June 1945. It was here that Truman learned of the success of the Manhattan Project, allowing him to resist Stalin's efforts to obtain a clear Allied request for Russian participation against Japan. Stalin wanted this as political cover for breaking the nonaggression pact with Japan. Truman and Byrnes, already wary of Soviet intentions, viewed the A-bomb as an alternative to Russian entry into the war. The author goes on to describe the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan, the launch of Soviet military operations in the Far East, and the ensuing deliberations within the Japanese leadership ultimately leading to their surrender. While the overall outlines of these events may be well known, Racing the Enemy offers new detail and insight into this critical period.

In a concluding chapter, Hasegawa speculates on a number of different scenarios and questions, including whether the atomic bomb forced Japan's capitulation. He argues it was not the shock of the A-bombs, but Soviet entry into the war that finally compelled the Japanese to surrender. In his view, fear of Soviet expansion and influence was of greater concern than the prospect of more cities being destroyed.

Racing the Enemy is detailed, clearly written, and is highly recommended to serious historians as well as the general reader with an interest in the Second World War.