I was watching Tora! Tora! Tora! the other day. I very much enjoyed the movie and it spends alot of time on the build up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Especially from the japanese PoV. They depict political conflict between the Navy and the Army and also between politicians in favour of war with the US and those against.
Now I always approach historical movies with caution since they always take artistic liberties (not a bad thing per se) or even grossly misrepresent the actual history. For the most part I watch historical movies because the subject matter already interests me and I have been reading about it already. So usually I have enough knowledge to spot substantial mistakes and misrepresantations. With this movie however I am at a loss since I know pretty much nothing about the internal politics in Japan at the time.
So here is my question. Can somebody give me a summary and some pointers to good introductionary reading material about the japanese politics leading up to Pearl Harbor? Who where the factions in the government? What did they want? Why did they want it? How came the decision to attack the US to pass?
I hope this question is within the scope of what can be answered here and I send thanks in advance to those who bother with answering.
Japanese internal politics were deeply fractured leading into Pearl Harbor. There were schisms between the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy, between young, radical army officers and the Tokyo General Staff, between the General Staff and the Emperor, and between the military establishment and civilian politicians.
In May 1932, Prime Minister Inukai was assassinated by a team of eleven young ultra-nationalist Army and Navy Officers. This exacerbated tensions within the Japanese government, and on 26 February 1936 the Army staged a coup to depose Prime Minister Okada. While the coup was put down, the military effectively seized power and asserted that the Prime Minister and Cabinet would be subject to military oversight and approval of key ministers.
The main crisis facing Japan at that time was the occupation of Manchuria. After the 1932 coup, the new Prime Minister official recognized Occupied Manchuria (Manchukuo) as an allied state of Japan. This was in direct defiance of the United States and the League of Nations, who had called on Japan to withdraw from Manchuria after the Kwantung Army seized power and informally annexed the territory for Japan in 1931. Notably, this action was in direct defiance of the Diet and Prime Minister, but the Kwantung Army, stationed to defend a Japanese railroad through Manchuria, ignored the civilian government and reported only to the General Staff.
In 1937, Japan invaded China proper. The international community condemned the action, but no European power was willing to risk an Asian war to protect Chinese sovereignty. Even following the sinking of an American gunboat in China, President Roosevelt struggled to find support from a strongly isolationist Congress.
On 26 July 1939, the United States Congress formally nullified the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of 1911 that gave privileged trading status to Japan. Subsequently, the Roosevelt Administration banned exports of many industrial supplies, like metal and fuel, to Japan. Facing isolation from vital war materials, especially aviation fuel, Japan allied militarily with Germany and Italy in the Tripartite Pact of 1940. This alliance provided much-needed trade partners and access to Vichy French bases in the Pacific. By July 1940, the Japanese Government decided war was the only way to ensure economic stability. A document to this affect dating from 27 July 1940 clearly lays out a South Pacific expansion, to potentially include an attack on the United States.^1
Japanese war planners considered a variety of proposals, including considerations of a war against Russia. The stumbling block for nearly all plans was China, whose stubborn resistance was requiring far more force strength than the Imperial Army had anticipated after the early successes of 1937.
There was constant infighting. More conservative factions favored formal recognition of the Chinese occupation as an end goal, with the minimum requirement that the United States lift fuel and metal sanctions.
From September to December 1941, Japanese and American diplomats negotiated terms, while Navy and Army General Staff made plans for a coordinated strike across the Pacific, with a point-of-no-return set for 29 November 1941.
On 26 November 1941, the United States returned a hardline proposal: Japan would only be pardoned if all forces withdrew from China and Manchuria. This was an unacceptable position economically and militarily. Even so, the Emperor hesitated at the news. On 1 December 1941, he authorized offensive operations to commence on 7 December 1941. In the name of establishing an Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japanese forces struck Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island within hours of the attack at Pearl Harbor.
This is a very brief overview of a very complicated issue, and questions of Northern or Southern Expansion were part of Japanese politics going back decades. If you have any specific questions, please feel free to ask.
Good introductory reading material about the Japanese politics leading up to Pearl Harbor?
Conroy, Hilary and Harry Wray, eds. Pearl Harbor Reexamined: Prologue to the Pacific War. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990.
Shaffer, Ralph E., ed., Toward Pearl Harbor: The Diplomatic Exchange Between Japan and the United States: 1899-1941. Pomona: California State Polytechnic University, 1991.
Japanese High Command had a inter-service rivalry between the Army and Navy. It didn’t really work together as well as the US army and navy. The IJN and IJA both tried to get resources for themselves, rather than sharing them. Every ton of steel not used for a tank for the army, was a ton of steel not used for a ship for the navy.
In 1937 before the Second Sino Japanese War, the Army was in good favor and benefitted from more resources pouring into it. The Army favored a war with the Soviet Union and taking Siberia and it’s resources. However many in the army believed in securing China first before even attempting a war in the north. After the Marco Polo bridge incident that kicked off the war between China and Japan, Japan moved rapidly into China. But by 1939 they were stopped after their initial breakthrough, they were now caught in a stalemate with China. Then a undeclared border conflict emerged between the Soviet Union and Japan near Mongolia. After the battle of Khakhin Gol where the Japanese were defeated, a non aggression pact was signed between the two powers. This not only brought realization that the IJA was not ready to fight the USSR but it also lost favor in Japanese High Command.
The Navy favored a strike towards the Southern part of Asia such as Indochina and more importantly the Dutch West Indies. The Dutch West Indies has a lot of resources, two of the big resources were oil and rubber. Most rubber was made naturally from the rubber tree and close to 90-95% of the rubber in the world is located in British Malaya and the Dutch West Indies. This not only would favor the Japanese Navy who would have naval dominance in the area, but also its armed forces could squash the Colonial troops in these regions. It’s only problem was the US who would be a major threat to their expansion.
By 1940 the US, UK, and Dutch government in exile ended all exports to Japan. Japan tried heavily on US exports of raw material, lubricants, and most importantly oil. With these resources cut off Japan would wither and die from lack of supplies. Japan had two choices: to stop its aggression into Indochina and China and negotiate with the western powers, or knock out the Pacific fleet and take the South Pacific.