Diskurs uber die Wehrhaftigkeit einer Seenation (review)

The Western way of warfare, so vividly pictured by John Keegan, also implies other ways of warfare. This eighteenth-century translation of a Japanese tractatus on the defense of a maritime nation is an example of this, and an especially valuable one, since Japan was in those days isolated from foreign influences, i.e., Western influences.

From the middle of the seventeenth century, the Dutch were the only Westerners allowed in Japan. They lived on the small island of Deshima in the Bay of Nagasaki. Although samurai Hayashi Shihei (1738-1793) had contact with the so-called Holland scholars in Japan, and also lived for some time on Deshima, it is not very likely there was any western influence on his writing. At the time of the conception of the Diskurs, between 1764 and 1785, not many people in the Western world had elaborated on maritime strategy. The first maritime doctrine in Dutch, at least to my knowledge, was on naval operations (Grondbeginselen der zee-tacticq) and was published in 1782. It is not very likely that this book was available in Japan by 1785.

Friedrich Lederer, initially trained as a physicist, presented this translation at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich as a dissertation. Thus, this is a linguistic study rather than a study on military strategy. The analysis of the presented strategy, for instance, is rather superficial (pp. 428-45).

The book consists of six sections. The first three deal with the Japanese context and the life and work of Hayashi Shihei. The main part, some 330 pages, is on the translated text of the Diskurs, which comprises ten volumes. The first two books are on war at sea; book three is on land war; books four to seven deal with personnel and topography; book eight is on cavalry; book nine is about the handling of horses; and book ten is an appendix. In part five, the translator elaborates on the meaning and interpretation of Hayashi Shihei and his magnus opus. The last part is comprised of several extensive appendices, something one can expect in a German dissertation.

According to Hayashi Shihei, for a country surrounded by water the sea serves as both a protective moat and a means of invasion. In Japan, the Chinese doctrinal tradition of continental thinking was accepted. The book deals with how as a maritime nation Japan can be defended against aggression from the sea. So, the Diskurs is not about maritime strategy—in for instance, the tradition of Alfred Mahan's concept of sea power and command of the sea—but on homeland defense. A maritime nation such as Japan had to be defended from the land.

Although written in the eighteenth century, the first edition of this work was published as late as 1978/80. It is now for the first time available in a Western language. And, in this time of renewed thinking about homeland defense it is of importance. All in all, a unique document.