Japanese Military Strategy in the Pacific War: Was Defeat Inevitable? [Hardcover]

James B. Wood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0742553396 | ISBN-13: 978-0742553392

In this provocative history, James B. Wood challenges the received wisdom that Japan's defeat in the Pacific was historically inevitable. He argues instead that it was only when the Japanese military prematurely abandoned its original sound strategic plan_to secure the resources Japan needed and establish a viable defensible perimeter for the Empire_that the Allies were able to regain the initiative and lock Japanese forces into a war of attrition they were not prepared to fight. The book persuasively shows how the Japanese army and navy had both the opportunity and the capability to have fought a different and more successful war in the Pacific that could have influenced the course and outcome of World War II. It is therefore a study both of Japanese defeat and of what was needed to achieve a potential Japanese victory, or at the very least, to avoid total ruin. Wood's argument does not depend on signal individual historical events or dramatic accidents. Instead it examines how familiar events could have become more complicated or problematic under different, but nevertheless historically possible, conditions due to changes in the complex interaction of strategic and operational factors over time. Wood concludes that fighting a different war was well within the capacities of imperial Japan. He underscores the fact that the enormous task of achieving total military victory over Japan would have been even more difficult, perhaps too difficult, if the Japanese had waged a different war and the Allies had not fought as skillfully as they did. If Japan had traveled that alternate military road, the outcome of the Pacific War could have differed significantly from that we know so well_and, perhaps a little too complacently, accept.

Editorial Reviews

Review

[Wood's] carefully constructed arguments stem from a wide reading and understanding of the war's historic literature, and his suggested alternative courses of Japanese actions are entirely credible...[his] careful examination of alternative possibilities in the Pacific War is an impressive example of good counterfactual history. (Col. Stanley L. Falk Army )

Wood has raised many provocative points worthy of debate. Recommended. (Choice 2008 )

This impressive counterfactual analysis demonstrates that the course of the Pacific War was not set in stone. Wood demonstrates, through careful analysis of alternatives actually discussed by Japan’s leaders, that the decision to go to war was not an exercise in national suicide. Instead, specific choices closed a window of opportunity for Japan to have bought more time and might well have altered fundamentally the war’s conclusion. (Dennis Showalter )

[Wood's] carefully constructed arguments stem from a wide reading and understanding of the war's historic literature, and his suggested alternative courses of Japanese actions are entirely credible...[his] careful examination of alternative possibilitiesin the Pacific War is an impressive example of good counterfactual history.... (Col. Stanley L. Falk Army )

About the Author

James B. Wood is Charles Keller Professor of History at Williams College.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 152 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (August 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742553396
• ISBN-13: 978-0742553392
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,752,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Place to Start a Conversation, April 15, 2008

By 

Richard Worth (MO, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Japanese Military Strategy in the Pacific War: Was Defeat Inevitable? (Paperback)

This intellectual tidbit offers no ground-breaking scholarship, with its bibliography full of secondary sources, all of them English-language. This is no crippling flaw though, given the author's purpose simply to challenge the conventional view of Japan's inevitable defeat by the Allied industrial powerhouses.
The text highlights some Japanese mistakes familiar anyone who has read about the Pacific War: failure on the offensive and defensive sides of the submarine duel, piecemeal commitments to dubious campaigns, etc. Perhaps Wood's most novel point concerns suicide attacks, which he regards as effective and commonsensical and worthy of refinement.
His critique of Japan's war effort fails to distinguish between strategic mistakes and defeat in battle. When the Japanese lose while pressing their initiative, they are guilty of systematic over-extension; when they lose on the defensive, they are guilty of conceding the fight to the enemy's terms. They are criticized simultaneously for failing to stick to their game plan and for failing to adapt to new situations. Apparently the Japanese can neither have their cake nor eat it.
Likewise, readers must go without a precise definition of the defeat in war that Japan is trying to avoid. Is any negotiated settlement that prevents occupation of the home islands better than a "defeat"? Wood seems content to see Japan lose all its conquests and all its continental holdings, avoid invasion, and call it a draw.
At its essence, Wood's alternative scenario is a fundamental switch from Japan's short-war strategy. He examines the salient features of a long-war strategy, and while the book gives only a superficial look at the global ramifications of this switch, it does usefully summarize the immediate consequences. There is little examination of Allied counter-moves.
The text provides a few geek-ticklers, and the always popular super-battleship "Yamamoto" makes an appearance. Other matters are more disturbing. The author has swallowed whole the regurgitated American-centric nuggets concerning Adm Kurita's actions at Samar, and then poured further indignity on the admiral by mis-naming him. (Ozawa!) Some passages stopped my reading dead in its tracks. Page 9 gives an overview of the years running up to the outbreak of hostilities: "American hostility to Japan's position in Asia was manifest and in retrospect, the conclusion that the United States was bent on war was in no way a misreading of American intensions." (None of Asada's works appear in Wood's bibliography.) But even this gaff lies tangential to the main thrust of the book.
The serious flaw in the author's argument is his treatment of two issues that largely trump the long-war advantages. The atom bomb and the Soviet threat appear in the main text only long enough to be sidestepped, then reappear in the conclusion for a more formal but equally shallow dismissal. The Soviets apparently could be bribed into staying out of the war by ceding Manchuria to them, an idea that might have made Molotov smile; it presumes that the Japanese pre-empt Allied deals with Stalin and that the Russians accept as payoff something that was already theirs for the taking. As for the A-bomb, Wood's long-war scenario implies a delayed capture of the Marianas so that an atomic bombing would not take place in the context of routine mass-bombings, thus diminishing the emotional impact of a 1-Bomb/1-City event. To me, this seems counter-intuitive and even silly. It also ignores that B-29's first struck Japan from bases in China, not in the Pacific. In general, Wood turns a blind eye to warfare on the continent, justifying this because the Pacific was historically the decisive sector--ignoring that his central thesis is a change in the way the war was fought.
Wood's book suffices as a conversation-starter more than as a comprehensive argument. However, many readers will find it a useful introduction into the significance of major mistakes made by the Japanese in World War II.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars More Worthy Books Available, February 9, 2009

By 

Scott "chaps" (Japan) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Japanese Military Strategy in the Pacific War: Was Defeat Inevitable? (Paperback)

This book is over priced for both the lightness of its content and the number of its pages. The execution is very sloppy (mistaking the Japanese Admiral Ozawa for Kurita, and various misspellings), and I have to admit that this flaw in editing or writing causes me to cast a jaundiced eye at any conclusions the author seeks to draw. In the conclusion author states that he sought to challenge the conventional historic understanding of the war in the Pacific, but in my reading of a number of books on the Pacific I have never confronted the problem that he is challenging. You are better off spending your money elsewhere!