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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c h a p t e r t w o ........................................................... containment, rollback, and the onset of the pacific war, 1933–1941 Sidney Pash Admiral Yamamoto knew that the Empire’s future rested on the opening battle of the war. His task force had to sail undetected over a vast sea and destroy the enemy fleet in port. If his ships were detected or if the enemy set a trap, all would be lost. A smashing victory in the war’s early hours could lead to a negotiated settlement but not victory because the enemy possessed a true two-ocean navy and Japan’s European ally had not proven that it could prevent the redeployment of this second mighty armada. Compared with its opponent, whose people numbered more than 100 million and whose territory spanned a continent, Japan was a second-rate power. But Yamamoto had to set these considerations aside. Convinced that negotiations had failed and alarmed by the enemy’s continued military buildup, the Japanese cabinet voted for war.1 In the months leading up to war, Japan’s rival celebrated the success of its Far Eastern strategy because desultory negotiations bought time for the deployment of tens of thousands of soldiers and scores of warships to Asia. But in the end, the strategy for containing Japanese continental expansion may have been too successful. In the final months of peace, the conviction that Japan would never fight had spread to friend and foe alike, thus obviating the need for compromise and fatally undermining any chance of achieving the kind of diplomatic breakthrough that could have averted war. In Japan, meanwhile, the specter of continued diplomatic failures, combined with a deteriorating strategic position, led the government to cast the die for war. Japan’s last pre-war prime minister, a diehard opponent of the coming conflict, saw that the Empire had little choice. ‘‘There is no question,’’ he argued, ‘‘but that [our opponent’s] aim was from the start to increase her military and naval forces and then reject Japan’s demands.’’ Given this policy, he noted, ‘‘if Japan does not now go to war and defend her threatened interests, she will eventually have to kowtow.’’ The decision to wage war, however, could not mask fatalism akin to desperation. Another former prime minister and onetime general —hardly a rarity for interwar Japan—neatly summed up the Empire’s position: ‘‘Although we cannot foretell victory or defeat, we must enter the battle confident of victory. If we should by any chance fail, it would be an immeasurable catastrophe.’’2 Given these considerations, Japan’s senior leaders opted to gamble all on a war that the Empire likely would not survive. One day after the Imperial Conference endorsed the cabinet’s decision for war, Admiral Gonnohoye Yamamoto ordered Admiral Heihachiro Togo to attack the Pacific fleet at Port Arthur. Russian containment had failed. It was 1904, and the Russo-Japanese War had just begun. A generation later, another Japanese rival adopted a strategy startlingly similar to the failed Russian program of the early 1900s. Longer in duration and grander in scope, America’s containment strategy also helped to bring about the war that it was designed to avert. Following the start of the Second Sino–Japanese War in July 1937, the Roosevelt administration developed a remarkably cautious and generally successful strategy to stave off a Chinese defeat, contain Japanese expansion, and after September 1940, negate Tokyo’s contribution to the Axis. This successful American containment strategy rested on four firm, apparently proven pillars. First, the United States sought to avoid any diplomatic agreements that might strengthen Japan and weaken China. Second, senior officials increased American economic and military aid to China in an attempt to even the odds on the battlefield and bolster Chinese morale. Third, the United States vastly increased its martial power and later its military presence in Asia in an attempt to deter further Japanese expansion. Finally, American policymakers set about weakening the Japanese economy through a multifaceted program of sanctions. This policy, although often unpopular at home among supporters of China, isolationists, interventionists, and competing government agencies , was generally successful. By spring 1941, Chinese armies had managed to tie down the vast Japanese war machine for almost four years. This was no mean feat given that although the 1894–1895 Sino–Japanese War dragged on for nine months, the issue was decided in four. As late as 1931, Sidney Pash : 39 [3.142...

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