Makers of Modern Strategy by Paret

Ref: Peter Paret (1986). Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton Press. ISBN: 978-0691027647.

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Summary

US and Japanese Strategy before and during WWII.
The width of the Southern Reaches of the Japanese Empire at its greatest extent was 6,400 miles. The empires north-South extremities were 5,300 miles apart. The oceanic perimeter of the Japanese advance at its zenith was 14,200 miles in length.
The strategic direction of the Allied war in the pacific was carefully monopolized by the US.
Each nation (Britain, US, China) was too suspicious of the others motives to coordinate efforts for a decisive joint venture.

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Pre-WWII
- The US abrogated its trade treaty with Japan and, in response both to Japan's continuing aggression in China and its moves into Indochina, inaugurated a graduated series of embargoes on oil, iron, steel, and other strategic exports to Japan.
- The 4 basic aims of America's pre-1941 national strategy in the Far East were:
  - Prepare PI for Independence.
  - Open Door Policy on China.
  - Maintain flow of raw materials from SE Asia important to American industry.
  - Deter Japanese Expansion in those areas.
WWII
- War Plan Orange: US Strategy for a Pacific confrontation with Japan.

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Pre-WWII
- Prior to WWII, Japan sought resources from SE Asia to continue its war in China. Japan created the Greater East Co-Prosperity Sphere as a guise to invade.
- Japanese leaders envisioned their nation not as a leading maritime state but rather as the dominant continental power of East Asia.
- By late 1938, Japan found itself locked into a war of attrition with an alarmingly heavy drain on its military manpower and materiel and no decision in sight.
- Japan badly miscalculated America's capability to mobilize its industry.
- Japan desired concept of Pan-Asianism
WWII
- There was little cooperation between Japanese War Planners and those of the European Axis Powers.
- Japanese Forces: 1.8M deployed outside the home islands in China and Manchuria (of 3.2M troops).
- When Japanese forces pushed westward into Burma and S into New Guinea and the Solomons, they encountered logistical nightmares: great distances from supply centers, inhospitable terrain and weather that exerted constant, adverse influences on materiel and men. Supplies and Equipment rapidly deteriorated, and prodigious engineering feats were required to develop air fields, harbors, and other military installations.

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“The principal cancer of Japan- the independence of the military from civilian control.”-Japanese Ambassador to the US Adm. Kichisaburo Nomura, 1941.
“Of all the faulty decisions of the war, perhaps the most unexplainable one was the failure to unify the command in the Pacific. It resulted in divided effort, waste, diffusion, and duplication of force, and the consequent extension of the war with added casualties and cost."-US General MacArthur.

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MAGIC: WWII Intelligence Operations that decrypted Japan’s Purple Machine, decoding many of their secrets.
Military Strategy: Employment of armed services to secure the ends of national policy by force or the threat of force.
National Strategy: Utilization of all necessary resources- political, diplomatic, military, technological, economic, propagandistic, and others in achieving the objects of national policy.
Open Door Policy: Preservation of the Independence, sovereignty, and territorial and administrative integrity of China.

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Mar, 1942: The US CJCS establish 2 JOA’s in the Pacific; the SW Pacific Area under MacArthur and the Pacific Ocean Area under Nimitz.-Makers by Paret.

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