Embargo did not force Japan to fight USA in 1941

Hyperbole? Hardly. Planning goal? It all depends upon what you mean by the term. World conquest has been a multi-generation goal for Japan's leadership. Yet, Japanese military operations plans were never prepared for world conquest. Instead, there were only the most broad policy goals over which the principals in Japanese government and society continually squabbled, often with lethal consequences to themselves.

The divine goal of world conquest was the impetus for everything Japan did in foreign affairs from before the Meiji period. Hideyoshi described his plans for world conquest in a letter written on 18 May 1592. In the Lord Hotta Memorial of 1858, senior Bakufu Grand Councillor Hotta Masayoshi, 'Among the rulers of the world at present, there is none so noble and illustrious as to command universal vassalage, or who can make his virtuous influence felt throughout the length and breadth of the whole world. To have such a ruler over the whole world is doubtless in conformity with the will of Heaven.'

The Tanaka Memorial in 1927 said, 'The Yamato Race is then embarked on the journey of world conquest! According to the last will of Meiji, our first step was to conquer Formosa and the second step to annex Korea. Having completed both of these, the third step is yet to be taken and that is the conquest of Manchuria, Mongolia and China. When this is done, the rest of Asia including the South Sea Islands will be at our feet. That these injunctions have not been carried out even now, is a crime of your humble servants.'

Tadahiko Imaizumi announced over Tokyo Radio on 12 October 1942, 'From the standpoint of Hakko Ichiu, the Emperor of Japan is the Emperor not only of Japan but all the races of the world. Judging from the present condition of our Imperial Majesty, he is the Emperor of Japan alone at the present time, but his Majesty of Japan is the Emperor of the world, for the spirit of Hakko Ichiu has been the traditional principle of our nation. To have the Hakko liberated is the traditional desire of each Emperor of Japan.' Tadahiko Imaizumi made another announcement over Tokyo Radio in 1944, 'If the ways of the Emperor were understood fully by the people of the world there should be no objection in having our Emperor as the ruler of the world. Under the principle of Hakko Ichiu, our Emperors were authorized to extend the rule of peace and happiness to the entire world. The foundation of international peace must be based upon the Imperial House of Japan'

Shigeki Kondo wrote in 'The Japanese- English-Chinese War, Tokyo, 1939...Spread the Imperial Way to all the world, to all humanity. Make the whole world as one, and...make a new national birth in the chaotic world of the minorities of Western Europe, and rule over it. The rule of China is merely the first step toward rule of the world by the Imperial Way'

A Japanese broadcast from Batavia Radio on 5 December 1943 warned, 'If Japan's constructive war objective cannot be fulfilled in out time, it is to be carried forward to the next generation, and if still it is not yet done, it is to be sent over to the succeeding generations until final victory and peace is assured'

It was and is the uninformed who have been 'fooled' into assuming the propaganda amounted to nothing more than 'hyperbole.' Although the conquest and consolidation of East Asia and the Pacific was the first stage of Japan's plans for what they described as the Pacific War, it certainly was not the final goal. Japan's long-range strategic policy goals extended far beyond the boundaries of the original and extended defensive lines of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere envisioned in the period of 1938 to 1942.

At a Japanese victory celebration in Singapore on 14 February 1942, Colonel Hideo Ohira spoke, 'Japan is firmly determined to fight, in close collaboration with Germany and Italy, even a Hundred- Year War to crush the United States and Great Britain...[and the]...aim is to dictate peace to the United States in the White House at Washington.'

On 1 February 1942, Tokyo Radio broadcast the message, 'Those who do not understand the true intentions of the Japanese ought to go to Hell.'

Such a plan is true...only as far as it goes in early to late 1942. Once the U.S. Pacific Fleet's capital ships had been lured into one or more great fleet battles and decisively destroyed, The Japanese war plans were to proceed with the next major stage of conquests in concert with Japan's Tripartite partners in world conquest.

You are looking only at the military operations plan and its goals for the capture of the Southern Resource Area. Japan had broad policy goals and strategies for many generations which were oriented towards world conquest. These broad policy goals were typically not reduced to final military operations plans until shortly before a military expedition was launched, despite the previous decades of strategic and tactical studies about conflicts with likely enemies. As late as September 1940, when Japan joined with Germany and Italy in the Tripartite Axis, Japan still did not have a definitive 'military' operations plan for war with its primary choice of enemy, the United States. Instead, Japan had only a very vague and broad policy in which war with the United States was regarded as virtually inevitable.

'Memorandum by the Secretary of State Regarding a Conversation With the Japanese Ambassador (Nomura), 8 March 1941.... The Ambassador then said that it would be well-nigh unthinkable for our two countries to fight each other on account of the destructive effects that would inevitably result in any event. I here spoke and said that my country entertained the same idea about the destructive effects of a military clash between our two countries. I then inquired of the Ambassador whether the military groups in control of his Government could possibly expect important nations like the United States to sit absolutely quiet while two or three nations before our very eyes organized naval and military forces and went out and conquered the balance of the earth, including the seven seas and all trade routes and the other four continents. Could they expect countries like mine to continue to remain complacent as that movement is going on? I inquired further what countries like mine would have to gain by remaining complacent in the face of a movement to substitute force and conquest for law and justice and order and fair dealing and equality. The Ambassador sought to play down the view' that such military conquest was really in the mind of his Government and he then said that embargoes by this country were, of course, of increasing concern, and that he did not believe there would be any further military movements unless the policy of increasing embargoes by this country should force his Government, in the minds of those in control, to take further military steps. To this I replied that this is a matter entirely in the hands of his Government for the reason that his Government took the initiative in military expansion and seizures of territory of other countries, thereby creating an increasingly deep concern on the part of my own and other countries as to the full extent of Japanese conquest by force which was contemplated; that my country has not been at fault and none of the nations engaged in conquest have pretended seriously to charge it with any action of omission or commission in relation to the present movement of world conquest by force on the part of some three nations, including Japan. The Ambassador sought here to minimize and mildly to controvert the idea that Japan is engaged in broad unqualified military conquest. I then repeated the terms of the Tripartite Agreement and the public declaration of Hitler and Matsuoka and other high authorities in Japan to the effect that their countries under the Tripartite arrangement were out by military force to establish a new order not for Asia alone, not for Europe alone, but for the world, and a new order under their control. I said that whatever interpretation the Ambassador might give these utterances and military activities in harmony with them thus far, the American people, who were long complacent with respect to dangerous international developments have of late become very thoroughly aroused and awakened to what they regard as a matter of most serious concern in relation to movements by Japan and Germany, presumably to take charge of the seas and the other continents for their own personal arbitrary control and pecuniary profit at the expense of the welfare of all of the peoples, who are victims of such a course and of peaceful nations in general. I said, of course, these apprehensions and this tremendous concern will remain and continue so long as Hitler continues his avowed course of unlimited conquest and tyrannical rule and so long as the Japanese Army and Navy increase their occupation by force of other and distant areas on both land and sea, with no apparent occasion to do so other than that of capture and exclusive use of the territory

I suspect that if you took random bits of chest-puffing propaganda from virtually anywhere, including the United States, you could construct all number of hair-raising hypotheses about that nation's 'multi-generational goals'.

The Japanese leaders, surprised by the ease at which they had achieved their goals in 1941 and early 1942, succumbed to 'victory disease' when they actually thought they could advance any further. By the time they had reached their furthest expansion limits, however, their merchant marine fleet was stretched to the breaking point and could go no further.

The Japanese comments made at that time are the equivalent of 'their eyes were bigger than their stomach'. In other words, they began believing their own press and felt there was no way the US or anyone else could stop them from going whererever or doing whatever they wanted.

John Lansford

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I think you've got this exactly right.

If the Japanese militarists didn't actually plan to conquer the whole world it was only because even they might have understood that it was impossible - not because they didn't desire to do it. Had it somehow become possible, they would have jumped on the chance.

For the fascist powers, the motivation for expansion was never to 'secure their rights' as their propaganda claimed. Chamberlain made the mistake of imagining that when Hitler brought all of the Germans under one roof - in the Rhineland, in Austria, in the Sudetenland, he would be satisfied and stop. But events quickly showed that any talk of German rights was just a cover for a naked grab for the lands and riches of other countries.

Some appeasers thought the same thing about Japan - all they want is to secure sources of vital raw materials. All they want is to secure their trade routes. All they want is to have an enclave in China that will secure their ability to trade in Asia. But the plain and obvious truth is that that's not all they wanted. What they wanted was everything they could get. Amazingly, their greed was exceeded by their foolishness - imagining that the other powers would not have the will or the strength to stop them.

Perhaps the quotations that Mr. Patterson posted could be balanced by some more reasonable quotations from other Japanese officials of the time. But I would like to see someone try to find some equally hair raising quotations from members of the governments of United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, Czechoslovakia or any other democracies of that time. I can't recall anything that bad.

Alan