Japan

The Thirties were marked by confrontation and violence. The Western diplomats practicing Appeasement believed it would prevent another global war, but were woefully unaware of what they were dealing with. Most of the confrontation was between the ideologies of Nazism and Communism; they became mortal enemies in the thirties, which made their non-aggression pact and the dismemberment of Poland all the more shocking.

Korea had been an outright occupied province of Japan since 1910. In reality Japan had controlled the government since 1905. The Korean Army was disbanded and the Korean language and culture were outlawed.

The Imperial Japanese Navy (Nihon Kaigun) in 1941 was unquestionably a world power. With the help of the British, who trained the Japanese to the point that all bridge orders were issued in English, a Japanese fleet was built in the early twentieth century.

The Japanese economy had been operating at full capacity since 1931. But the decentralized production, with home production of many components, could not compete with the assembly lines of the West. The Japanese High Command believed that the war would be short, and the military production could be converted to home production after the war was over. Unlike the Western powers, Japan waited until 1944 before mobilizing their home population for total war.

The American public largely ignored the war crimes trials in Tokyo and throughout Asia in 1946-1948. Unlike the charismatic Nazi leadership, who were infamous throughout Europe, the Japanese leadership was not well known. That was due in part to the Allied propaganda, which did not want to criminalize the Emperor.

In August 1945, the Japanese situation was desperate. The major cities were devastated by atomic or conventional attack, and the casualties numbered in the millions. Millions more were refugees, and the average consumption was below 1200 calories a day. The fleet was lost, and the merchant shipping could not leave home waters or sail from the few possessions still held without braving submarine or mine attack.

Allied planners had seriously underestimated the strength and effectiveness of Japanese Forces. Allied opinion held that they could not shoot straight, since many Japanese were nearsighted.

The seeds of the Pacific War were planted in 1853. In that year, feudal Japan came to an end. Fifty two years later, she would stand in front of the world as a major power. The transition from feudalism to a modern government would be a time of massive social, political, and technological evolution. This evolution would forever alter the way the world thought about Japan, and started to dig the chasms over which the Pacific War would start.

Throughout the Nineteenth Century, Japan dealt with a population that it could not sustain with its national food production by encouraging immigration. Thousands of Japanese traveled abroad. Many settled in the Hawaiian Islands, and on the American Pacific Rim.