Response to Yukiko Koshiro's Review

In her stridently negative review of my book, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (JJS, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2007), Yukiko Koshiro dismisses the work as offering "nothing new" (p. 212) and rebukes my sloppy use of sources. My book examines the decision-making process of ending the Pacific War from an international perspective and the involvement of the three major actors, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Japan. Koshiro's criticism stems in part from the agendas of her own research. In "Eurasian Eclipse: Japan's End Game in World War II" (American Historical Review, Vol. 109, 2004), Koshiro argues that Japan's policy toward the Soviet Union was based on rational strategic thinking in an attempt to reconstruct postwar Asian international relations by welcoming the Soviet presence in Asia as a counterweight to the United States. She criticizes my book for concentrating merely on "the manner of Japan's surrender per se" and for failing to see "U.S.-Soviet rivalry beyond World War II into the cold war, or postwar Japan's place in it" (p. 212). I would like to make four points on these interpretive differences.

First, the objective of my book is different from that of Koshiro's article. While Koshiro deals with the grandiose scheme of Japan's imperialist ambition, my book focuses on the decision-making process of ending the war mainly during the brief period from April to September 1945. I concentrate on the intricate interactions among Japan, the Soviet Union, and the United States, on the one hand, and on the intense debates that ensued within each country. In fact, Racing the Enemy is the first monograph to place the drama of ending the Pacific War in its international context using multinational archives and sources. Ignoring this, Koshiro focuses on only one aspect of my book, the Japanese side of the story, and she criticizes the book for not covering issues beyond its scope.

Second, the question of whether Japan's approach to the Soviet Union was rational, reasonable, and workable must be understood not solely from the Japanese perspective but also against the background of Soviet ambitions and intentions. In light of Soviet policy, Japan's reliance on the Soviet Union to offset the United States was an egregious strategic mistake. Here, I feel more comfortable keeping company with authoritative scholars such as Akira Iriye and Robert Butow, whom Koshiro treats critically, although I add something "new" to this interpretation by introducing the Soviet approach to the war in Asia based on published and archival Soviet sources.

Third, Koshiro's "new" interpretation—that Japanese leaders, expecting Soviet entry into the war, were eager to exploit a Soviet presence in Asia as a balance against the United States—is exaggerated and is contradicted by a large body of evidence that indicates that the majority of leaders clung to the hope of keeping the Soviet Union neutral. My book points out the different views of the intelligence section and the planning and operation section within the Japanese army general staff as to Moscow's intention to wage war against Japan (Racing, p. 58). The Hirota-Malik negotiations and the Konoe mission were predicated on expectations that the Soviet Union would maintain neutrality.

Finally, Koshiro dismisses my emphasis on the importance of the kokutai in Japan's decision to surrender as a rehash of the "conventional narrative" (p. 213). But without considering the significance that Japanese leaders attached to the kokutai, the drama of Japan's decision to surrender cannot be understood. My book is the first attempt to focus attention on the intense debate on defining the kokutai at the highest policy levels in Japan during the crucial period from July 26 to August 14, and I believe I offer a completely new interpretation of this issue, including the importance of the Kido-Hirohito meeting on the afternoon of August 9.

As for her criticism of my use of sources, I did not feel it was necessary to cite extensive sources for the period outside the scope of this book such as the fall of...