Listen to Victor Davis Hanson and cohost Jack Fowler as they discuss the revolution in Syria, discipline in the military, the arrest of a Boston City Council member, the false consciousness of Obama, pardons for Biden’s family and members of his administration, Trump’s first hundred days, and Japan’s Pacific war in 1941.
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It helps to have a little background into Japan’s history after opening to the West, and the Meiji Restoration.
The Japanese looked at the rest of Asia and saw how the other countries, even China, had been colonized by the West, or at the least, forced to submit to the Western nations. They decided that they would not share that fate, and that was a great impetus for rapid modernization and industrialization. Their victory over Russia in 1905 showed that they were capable of standing up to a Western power, even if the Russians were the least of the Europeans in industrial and military power.
The Japanese set about to become THE Asian power from that point. They fought 2 wars with China, which brought them control of Taiwan (China ceded it without much thought; the Chinese thought it a backward province of no real value), and strong influence in Korea. Japan forced a treaty on Korea in 1905, then basically annexed it in 1910 and made it a province. That gave them a doorway into Manchuria.
Japan sided with the Allies in the Great War, and reaped Germany’s Pacific possessions as a result. Along with the island groups in the central Pacific, there were additional concession in Chinese port cities. But there was a growing complex among the Japanese, that fed into their growing hypernationalism, that the rest of the great powers did not treat the Japanese as equals (continued in the next post)
For the Yamato race, descended from the gods, living in the Land of the Gods, as they saw themselves, that was an insult that couldn’t be borne.
Victor touches on this when he talks about the Japanese who visited the United States in the 20s and 30s, and reinforced their impression that we might be an economic power, but we were a decadent, lazy people, who wouldn’t fight.
Yamamoto did oppose the “war party”, on the ground that he knew Japan could not compete in the long run with our economy. But when it came to it, he went with duty and rolled his dice.
I agree with those who say that had the Japanese not attacked any American possessions, we would not have gone to war with them. And Japan’s strategy of a forward network of islands as a defensive perimeter never could have worked. We still would have fought our way back, regardless of the cost. It was a gamble, and they crapped out.
I really enjoy this man and his logic. It’s appealing to me, and I’m a redneck from Idaho. Farm and ranching and construction is my background. Yet I’m really blown away with VDH and how his explaining complex issues leaves me wanting more.
No truer words than “Donald Trump has done more for the sanity of the world in three weeks than Joe Biden has done in four years” probably more appropriately put Trump has done more for the sanity of the world in three weeks than Joe Biden has done in 50 years.
Hrabowsky@me.com My understanding of the 1945 surrender of Japan is that the Nagasaki plutonium bomb had little effect on the Imperial War Council. Of greater concern was the Red Army occupation of the Kurile Islands. It was then that Japan chose to surrender to, and be occupied by, USA rather than USSR. This choice illustrates love for their own people especially when compared to Hitler’s choice not to realize Stalin’s great rational fear and make a separate peace with USA.
Fascinating bit of history on Japan, their attitude, and some of their behavior in WW2.
Some of information was meandering across news several years ago about how Japan pilots were considered worse than Nazi pilots in that they, once an Allied warplane was hit and its pilot jumped out, the Japanese pilot would then go after the parachuting Allied pilot. It was reported the German Nazis did not do such deeds. Quite a few in China still have memories of some of the atrocities performed on citizens there.
I entered kindergarten in September, 1941, just before Pearl Harbor, so I was raised on war news on the radio, in newspapers, and magazines like “Life.” Most of my military-age relatives were in the military — most in Europe, but we were very happy to see WWII come to an end. Although the news and government propaganda portrayed the Japanese as very bad people, I don’t think we understood just how really bad they were. Imperial Japan deserved whatever hell we thrust upon it.
Your fog experience and driving experience . . . I spent a year consulting at the Rancho Seco Nuclear Plant near Sacramento. I lived in Citrus Heights and only had one bad fog day. I could barely see past the hood of my car and crazy to even be on the road. I felt like sticking my arm out the window so I could feel my way along. If other cars were on the road, I didn’t see them.
Your description of drivers in the fog, especially truck drivers, reminds me of traffic on the interstate between Chicago and Detroit in the 1970s. Most drivers never slowed down in the snow despite seeing cars and trucks stuck on the shoulders or parked in the nearby fields. I actually started shaking when trying to drive and survive on the snowy, Michigan highways. Driving in inclement weather and marginal road conditions has always been bad, but it’s probably worse now. People don’t think the laws of physics apply to them.