This second phase of the series on the Asia-Pacific War began with a goal of discovering if there was merit to the claims made by some historians that in the summer and autumn of 1941 the United States missed diplomatic opportunities that could have avoided war with Japan and at the same time took a series of economic actions that brought about U.S. involvement in the Second World War. The exploration has taken us from the pre-history to Japan of the early 20th century discovering currents, trends, events, personalities and changes that brought that nation to 1937. Along the way we considered the complex and evolving nature of Japan’s relationships with China, Korea, Russia, and the United States. All of this (and far more) were the ingredients in the mix that formed Japan’s strategic, economic, political, and civil policies.

A Future of the Asia Pacific Region

These policies brought Japan and the U.S. to a crossroad each having different objectives and visions of their roles and future in the Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. was committed to its own Westphalian vision of the world as its fundamental principles: democratic government (without kings or emperors), open markets with fair and free trade (at least in theory), respect for national boundaries and sovereignty (with an aversion to classic colonialism but with a Monroe Doctrine), and non-interference with the internal governance of another country (but trade and the Monroe Doctrine were priorities). Without a doubt that is so general a description it suffers in accuracy, but it has points and exceptions. Some of the exceptions are striking: Admiral Perry’s presence in Tokyo Bay ostensibly to open up trade in the western Pacific, the annexation of Hawaii, the territories of Guam and the Philippines, and its business interests in China. What was a fundamental driver of its Asia-Pacific ambitions? Business. The U.S. was a nation of massive natural resources, industrial power, financial wealth, and at least in a business sense, a drive to be a market leader. It was a country with minimal import needs and massive export capacity.

Japan was an island nation of limited key material natural resources, limited land for agriculture, a net importer of strategic raw materials and in the 20th century was over populated and a net importer of basic foodstuffs, even rice. While in its own history Japan had never been successfully invaded it was always concerned to the point of obsession with its vulnerability to invasion and embargo. The fall of the once great China to its state in the 19th and 20th centuries was a clarion call to protect Japan from the grip of the western colonial powers. This gave way to the transformation of the feudal samurai system to a modern army and navy based on European models, ultimately leading to rise in militarism that was only enhanced by Japan’s defeat of China and Russia within a 10 year period. Now it was ready to take its place and be recognized as a world power with a special sphere of influence in the western Pacific – a role and recognition it never received, only enhancing its sense of vulnerability to the western powers.

Colonialism and Racism

Japan abhorred western colonialism yet it had colonial ambitions for Korea (annexed in 1910) and Manchuria (conquered by 1932 and renamed the independent nation of Manchukuo) for both strategic buffer and for emigration of its people and access to food and raw materials. It participated in world trade but with a wary eye seeing what the “Open Market” policy (a U.S. initiative) had done to China. The Meiji Restoration and Constitution’s governance appeared as liberal democracy akin to Britain – and in many ways it was growing into it – but the military had an outsized place in the nation and without civilian control. The military was responsible only to the Emperor.

When modern people consider the 1942 internment of west coast U.S. citizens of Japanese origins, it is commonly held that it was basic racism and unwarranted fear that motivated the action. It was primarily fear and national politics, but that was just the immediate context for the underlying racism in California – which was present elsewhere. The U.S. federal government had to inject itself into California politics when the state passed laws restricting land ownership and segregating schools that applied only to Japanese. But in 1924, the federal government passed the 1924 Immigration Act which specifically excluded Japanese from U.S. and all territories, e.g. Hawaii. In 1924, 40% of Hawaiian residents were of Japanese origin. The U.S.  was just more overt about racism as Japan had its own form.

Japan viewed all westerners as decadent, weak, uncultured and morally inferior. At the same time, this anti-Western racial critique coexisted with hierarchical and discriminatory attitudes toward other Asians, especially Chinese and Koreans, who were frequently described as backward and in need of discipline. The result was a contradictory worldview: Japan opposed Western racism in principle, yet practiced its own racial and cultural hierarchy in Asia, a tension that shaped both its propaganda and its imperial conduct in the 1930s.

A Cautious Eye

These were the two nations that arrived at the crossroads of the 20th century each casting a cautious eye towards the other, each sensing that the other would be the inevitable rival. Early in the century each country, as is prudent, developed “what if” war strategies. Both countries were adherents of Mahan’s theory of naval power (The Influence of Sea Power upon History) and saw in each other threat to their own ambitions. Each nation’s naval war colleges developed and adjusted its Pacific strategies. Virtually every senior naval leader in the Pacific had studied these and contributed to it as new circumstances, technology, and situations arose. As one historian noted: “it was part of their DNA.”

Japan’s army faced west and northwest to expand its colonial ambitions on the Asian mainland. Japan’s navy faced south to the oil rich regions of the Pacific island nations as it also faced east to the U.S. its current major supply of oil and ship building materials. The U.S. navy had missions in the Atlantic and Pacific but only enough assets for a “one-ocean navy”. After World War I, the U.S. interest was controlling navies and the status quo. This led to the 1922 Washington Conference that established limits on capital ships. It also ultimately led to deep divisions with the Imperial Navy. One faction knew it could never match U.S. industrial power and wanted to avoid a naval arms race and was satisfied that the limits were within the Mahanian theory in that the U.S. would have to transit the Pacific Ocean. The other faction was more driven by an ideology of the Navy as the ocean guardian of the Imperial destiny of a greater Asia led by the Emperor. The Washington treaty was a barrier and worse, an insult to national honor.

Key Figures at the Crossroads

By 1937 it seems fair to say that Japan was a nation with an amazing degree of disunity within – and a single key to the unity of the nation as a whole: the Emperor and the idea of kokutai – and these were not clear to West nor it seems to Emperor Hirohito himself as to the role he could play.

Historians do not agree on the role Hirohito played in the path to the Asia Pacific War.  He was the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, yet his Kwantung Army in Manchuria feels free to do what it wants, not expecting and not receiving punishment for their actions. Emperor Hirohito’s response to incidents such as the Marco Polo Bridge affair was to “fire” the Prime Minister but not to take any action within Army ranks. This does not seem to indicate Hirohito feels he should be an absolute monarch or even the “buck stops here” commander-in-chief.  The range of views includes Herbert Bix’s assessment that Hirohito was an active, knowledgeable, directive monarch and had a key role in strategic military decisions. There is historian Stephen Large’s idea of “self-induced neutrality” in which Hirohito knew his power and authority but withheld its use to allow others to lead. The historian Peter Wetzler’s version is that the Emperor periodically put his thumb on the scale but he did not see himself responsible for the result. This version sees Hirohito aware of Japanese atrocities but taking no action to intervene but in the end it was Hirohio’s “thumb on the scale” that ended the war.

And yet the man and his role in Japanese governance was unclear at best to 1940 Washington leaders. But hardly less clear were key government positions. Between July 1937 and December 1941 there were nine different people serving in the role of Foreign Minister. There were six different Prime Ministers in that same period although Prince Konoe served for a total of 12 months and during critical periods.

In that same period Roosevelt was President and Cordell was Secretary of State – but they were not always on the “same page.” Hull was very territorial of his role and believed the role of the President was to set macro-level policy and everything else was the purview of the Secretary of State. But Roosevelt dabbled in foreign policy from time to time. Hull’s irritation with Roosevelt’s “dabbling” in Japan policy between 1937 and 1941 stemmed from the president’s habit of personal, informal, and sometimes contradictory diplomatic initiatives, which Hull feared undercut coherence, leverage, and credibility.

Roosevelt was noted and preferred back-channel and personal diplomacy. Most notably, FDR repeatedly encouraged or entertained the idea of a personal summit with Japanese leaders (especially Prince Konoe in 1941), sometimes through intermediaries or informal messages, without firm preconditions. Roosevelt also floated tentative peace feelers, exploratory trial balloons, and hypothetical compromises often orally, ambiguously, or indirectly rather than through formal diplomatic notes. In addition, FDR occasionally made public statements or private assurances that suggested flexibility (or restraint) that had not been fully coordinated with the State Department.

Hull’s experience was that Japan used negotiations tactically to buy time while consolidating aggression in China and preparing for further expansion. Roosevelt’s informal probes, in Hull’s view, risked sending mixed signals about U.S. resolve and principles, weakened bargaining leverage by suggesting concessions before Japan changed behavior, undermined State Department control over a carefully constructed, principle-based negotiating position, and encouraging Tokyo to believe that persistence or pressure might extract a deal from the president personally

Hull favored clear, written, multilateral, principle-driven diplomacy (non-aggression, territorial integrity, Open Door), whereas Roosevelt favored personal flexibility and strategic ambiguity. To Hull, the president’s “dabbling” threatened to turn diplomacy into improvisation at precisely the moment when clarity and firmness, he believed, were essential.

Even though our “cast of characters” was consistent, Hull was concerned the “message” was not. This added a degree of uncertainty to any dialogue that was compounded by the frequent changes in Japan. As one might imagine this was the tip of the iceberg.  More details were provided in the post American Diplomacy in 1937 which describes a lack of unified thinking with the State Department.

The Crosses

There are cross purposes, crossroads, crossed messages and more. In July 1940, the United States initiated significant export restrictions against Japan by passing the Export Control Act which allowed the President to license or prohibit the export of essential defense materials. Roosevelt restricted licenses for high-grade aviation gasoline, lubricating oil, and certain iron and steel scrap. These measures aimed to curb Japanese aggression, specifically in response to pressure on French Indochina, without triggering an immediate, total war-inducing oil embargo. In general, they were also intended to impact Japan’s aggression in China. These actions followed earlier 1938–1939 “moral embargoes” on aircraft and raw materials. All this complicated any foreign policy dialog between nations that were only going to become more difficult.

In November of 1940 retired Admiral Nomura was assigned as Ambassador to the United States. When Emperor Hirohito was in his teens, Nomura was one of his private tutors. He also served as Naval Attache in Washington DC when Franklin Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. They were friends and so it was hoped that the connections to the leaders of the two nations would help communications. But neither the Foreign Ministry nor State Department wanted such channels open and required formal communications through the usual chain.

Ambassador Noruma was also not in the mainstream of senior naval officers as he was known to be a supporter of the 1922 naval treaties. He understood that the U.S. was the nexus between industrial power and ultimate sea power. He was also one of the few senior people who understood that the American public would see any Japanese-U.S. conflict as a battle of fascism vs. democracy, and also if Japan moved against British interests in the Pacific, Britain would be fully supported. 

He recognized that the only bulwark to prevent Japanese-US conflict would be if senior naval leadership acknowledged that Japan could not prevail in a protracted war with the United States nor would there be the “decisive battle” that caused the U.S. to negotiate a peace. Once bloodied, the U.S. could bring its industrial power to bear and in the interim the American public would give enduring support to war efforts. All of these positions were mixed at best among senior naval leaders. Among mid and junior naval officers these were discarded as weak thinking. This group was very positive about the Tripartite Pact with Germany and sought distinction in a naval move into the Southwest Pacific.

Nomura made his views known to Navy Minister Oikawa and Fleet Admiral Yamamoto who agreed. Yet former Prime Minister Yonai (a naval officer) warned Nomura that he was being sent as the scapegoat. He warned that Foreign Minister Matsuoka would take credit for any success and blame Nomura for setbacks and failures. At best Matsuoka would sweep into Washington DC with a separate agenda and negotiate as he had done in Berlin and Moscow.

As one dedicated in service to his nation, he accepted the position. And in a harbinger of things to come he was sent without specific policy instructions. 

When he arrived in Washington DC his naval attache was Capt. Yokoyama with whom he had served in the Military Mission in Britain years before. Yokoyama shared Nomura’s ideas and perspectives. But the American concerns in that time period were not Japan. The administration was focused on Europe having established a “Europe First” policy. The goals were munitions and supplies to Britain and convoy escort and protection.  U.S. Chief of Operations Stark (the title was actually different) bluntly told Nomura that war with Japan was “when, not if.”

This is the diplomatic milieu facing Japan and the United States at the beginning of 1941.

Stay tuned…

Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archives. 

The Japanese – U.S. relationship was difficult, ambiguous, conflicted at times and never seemed to find a “spot” where simple co-existence had any endurance. There were many actors in this drama, but one actor is often overlooked in the popular understanding of the dynamics leading up to Pearl Harbor: Prince Fumimaro Konoe. Prince Konoe was one of the most influential, and in a way, one of the most tragic figures in Japan’s descent into total war from 1937 until 1945.

A scion of one of Japan’s oldest aristocratic families, Konoe served three times as prime minister (1937–1939, January–July 1940, and October 1940–October 1941) and occupied a unique position at the intersection of civilian politics, imperial authority, and an increasingly autonomous military. Although he often recognized the dangers of war, most notably with the United States, his actions and indecisions ultimately contributed to Japan’s expansion in China, its southward advance into Southeast Asia, and the breakdown of diplomacy with the Western powers.

Entering the Political Realm

Konoe emerged from the prewar aristocratic elite with a troubled family history, his father dying when Konoe was 12 and his step-mother a distant and aloof person. But he was taken under the wing of Prince Kinmochi Saionji, one of the genro, who had guided Japan into the Meiji era. Saionji took the 27 year old Konoe to the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919. After the conference he wrote an essay denouncing the Conference as an “Anglo-American Peace.” In that essay, Konoe’s world view was evident: the division of nations into “haves” and “have-nots.” He viewed Versailles as the Western Powers rigging an international system to protect the status quo and their privileged position. This world view was present in his later basic approach to foreign affairs. The essay did not mention that Japan, an ally in WW I, was also the beneficiary of all of Germany’s Asia-Pacific colonies and territories from China’s Liaodong Peninsula to the Mariana, Marshall and Carolina Islands. This experience shaped his enduring belief that Japan must assert itself as a great power independent of Western dominance.

Konoe – Prime Minster

As a prince he gained a place in the House of Peers, the upper chamber of Japan’s parliament, and took his place in Japanese politics. His ascent in political stature was flamboyant, not without mistakes, and while he gained popularity in many circles, his mentor, Saionji, began to suspect Konoe’s judgment. Nonetheless, his bon vivant and youth stood in contrast to the drab, older political figures around him. His sense of courtesy engendered wide public support and confidence as well as within some political circles. He was the “John F. Kennedy” of his day, the new hope to lead Japan out of its many problems. As already noted, he ascended to the role of Prime Minister in 1937. There he discovered his charm only went so far. He discovered being Prime Minister was akin to herding cats: it was difficult to impossible to control the various factions. It is also important to know that Japan’s Prime Minister was not like Britain’s. The word in Japanese translated as Prime Minister basically means “head of the meeting” which was an apt description for the role that lacked direct control over cabinet ministers.

Konoe garnered a reputation for indecisions, short-sighted decision making, and seemed to believe he could control or at least shape forces beyond him: namely, the Japanese military. He recommended two of his cabinet appointments as a means to show favor to the military and exert increased influence in that sector. It proved to be fateful. Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka and Army (War) Minister Hideki Tojo. Yosuke, a supremely confident peer although low born, was a favorite of the Army. Tojo was a career Army officer, who served as a military attaché in Germany in the early 1920s, promoted to general in 1934, was assigned as chief of staff of the Kwantung Army leading military operations against the Chinese before eventually joining Konoe’s cabinet. He was known as the ultimate loyalist to the Emperor and an officer respected by all the factional divisions within the Army.

Yet, Konoe was never a militarist ideologue. He distrusted the army’s radical factions and feared Japan’s industrial inferiority relative to the United States. His dilemma was structural: as prime minister, he lacked constitutional authority over the armed forces, which answered directly to the emperor and were protected by custom and political intimidation – hence the two appointments.

The first goal of Konoe’s cabinet was establishing a comprehensive war economy with two goals in mind: resolution of the China quagmire and to position Japan for the coming change of the international order. 

Foreign Policy

Yosuke’s role – which in itself is a fascinating story – was highlighted by the signing the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy and then later negotiating the Russian-Japanese Neutrality Act. The Tripartite Pact was viewed extremely positively within Army circles as it aligned itself with the country where Japanese officers served as attaché (none served in Britain or the U.S.). It was equally unpopular with naval officers, most of whom served in the U.S. or Britain, fearing that such a pact would eventually draw them into naval combat with the U.S. – a war they did not believe they could win.

Interestingly, the Tripartite Pact was written in English possibly to signal the target of the agreement. The agreement was an absolute commitment to attack any nation who attacked a member of the Pact. Japan had reservations specifically about how this would apply to the United States. Yosuke and Germany’s Foreign Minister Eugen Ott devised a “side deal” that effectively gave Japan the option to engage or not engage the U.S.  This was a nod to the Navy’s concerns. However, the German requirement was that the “side deal” remain secret. After signing, Ott did not deliver the agreement to Germany. While Yosuke viewed the agreement as the means to acquire allies – those allies were half a world away. When the Pact was made public, all Japan really gained was potential enemies (U.S., Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands). They already did not trust Japan and this did not improve their view. Although Yosuke imagined and promoted himself as the “grand master” who would reshape Japan’s place in the world, the first “act” of a diplomacy whirlwind was not his idea. He admitted that the Army was the “playwright” and he was but the “actor.” This relationship would reappear again as regards Indochina.

China

Konoe’s first term coincided with the outbreak of full-scale war with China following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937. Initially, Konoe hoped the conflict could be localized and resolved quickly. Instead, he presided over a dramatic escalation. He sanctioned military expansion in China, despite limited strategic objectives and no clear exit strategy and approved the capture of major Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing. His distrust of the more radical elements of the Army proved valid as he and Tojo were unable to restrain the army’s operational autonomy, culminating in atrocities such as the Nanjing Massacre, which severely damaged Japan’s international standing. Perhaps his most significant failure in judgment was issuing the 1938 declaration rejecting negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek, effectively committing Japan to a prolonged war of occupation.

In late 1938 Konoe endorsed and announced the idea of a “New Order in East Asia” (Tōa Shin Chitsujo). While vague, it implied Japan would reshape China politically, not merely extract concessions; existing treaty-based diplomacy was obsolete; and peace would not come through compromise. Konoe’s rhetoric boxed him in and closed off any path to negotiating with Chiang Kai-shek, the symbol of resurging Chinese nationalism and sovereignty. Any return to conventional diplomacy would look like retreat.

It wasn’t just his rhetoric that boxed him in. The army did as well. They were clear that they did not view Chiang Kai-shek as a legitimate negotiating partner, demanded that the “new order in East Asia” be under Japanese leadership, and insisted that only total political restructuring of China could secure Japan. Going against them risked the resignation of the army minister which would automatically collapse Konoe’s cabinet. Given recent history, potential violence or coup threats by radical officers was to be feared. In addition Konoe feared a loss of imperial confidence in his ability to govern.

In Japan’s political culture, seeking peace too early after the army’s string of victories could be seen as implying that Japan’s enormous sacrifices had been unnecessary. He would lose popular support, internal support and be accused of betraying the “spirit” of the imperial mission. Konoe was also concerned that he lacked “strategic air cover” that while Hirohito expressed concern about the war’s direction, he did not explicitly order Konoe to negotiate. Without such a directive, Konoe was reluctant to challenge the army directly.

Konoe did not initiate the war in China but he legitimized it politically and foreclosed diplomatic solutions. His initial belief that Japan could force a settlement through military pressure proved catastrophically wrong as he and others misread Chinese resilience and the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek. As a result they locked Japan into a conflict that further radicalized domestic politics and moved the nation towards authoritarian controls by nationalist/militarists.

Resignation

The Konoe cabinet collapsed on January 4, 1939 when Konoe resigned. The immediate cause was a political deadlock over how to end or even manage the war in China, combined with Konoe’s loss of control over the army. Konoe recognized the war was becoming open-ended and economically draining, but lacked the authority to impose negotiations. At the same time cabinet unity broke down as the army and navy pushed very different strategic postures for the nation (the North vs. South Expansion). Facing the risk of being blamed for an unwinnable war, Konoe chose to resign.

In what would prove to be another questionable judgement, after resigning in 1939, Konoe remained politically influential. He came to believe that party politics were obsolete and that Japan required national unity to survive in a hostile world. This belief culminated in his sponsorship of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (IRAA), designed to replace competitive party politics with a mass mobilization structure under elite guidance (meaning him). With this Konoe abandoned even the remnants of liberal constitutionalism in favor of a vague, authoritarian leadership, one that ultimately empowered the very forces he feared.

Konoe was reappointed Prime Minister in July 1940 because Japan’s leadership wanted a prestigious, non-party figure who could unify the nation, manage the military, and stabilize foreign policy at a moment of deep crisis without provoking the army. As a prince of the ancient Fujiwara line, Konoe carried symbolic authority acceptable to both the emperor and the military, there was a political vacuum, and Konoe promised to transcend party politics via the IRAA. In essence, Konoe was brought back not because he had solved Japan’s problems before, but because he seemed the least dangerous compromise. He was a figure who could command legitimacy without challenging the military head-on.

Indochina

The Army had aligned Japan with Germany via Matsuoka, the Foreign Minister, and the Tripartite Pact. The fall of France in 1940 “orphaned” French Indochina and left it under the control of the Vichy French government – an ally of Germany. The local French governor understood only too well what this meant. Even before formally asked by Japan he suspended all trade and arms traffic to China. But the Army wanted more. They wanted to be the enforcement of suspended trade and wanted to position and move troops through Indochina to attack southern China.  The Army General Staff wanted an immediate invasion. The Army Ministry wanted diplomacy. Diplomacy won the day and French Indochina agreed to terms and conditions acceptable to Matsuoke and Army Minister Tojo. But not to the Army General Staff.

In a series of events, as byzantine as it comes, with orders, counter-orders, forged orders and flagrant insubordination and refusal to follow orders, an armed invasion crossed the border on September 23, 1940. Combat operations continued after direct orders to stop but did not. When the dust settled the Kwantung Army had invaded (unnecessarily) and occupied Northern Indochina. General Tojo took immediate measures to restore chain-of-command and discipline.  Offending officers – including the one who forged imperial orders – were dismissed and transferred to other duties, but no court martial actions were taken. The junior officers remained in place but were warned next time severe punishment would follow. All the senior officers eventually returned to important wartime commands. This all followed the pattern of the Mukden Incident that started the Sino-Japanese War.

Southern Expansion

Facing resource shortages exacerbated by the China war, Konoe endorsed the “southern expansion” into Southern French Indochina and Southeast Asia (he was again Prime Minister). These moves were intended to secure oil, rubber, and strategic depth but they directly challenged American and British interests. In July 1941, Japanese forces entered and occupied Southern Indochina (South Vietnam). The reaction was decisive as the U.S. froze Japanese financial assets and slow-rolled approval of required export licenses for oil, gasoline and other critical supplies. It was a de facto oil embargo. The details of this were covered in “The Financial Freeze.”

Final Attempt at Peace

In the late spring and summer of 1941 quiet negotiations – of a sort – were being conducted between the U.S. Secretary of State, Cordell Hull and Japan’s Ambassador to the U.S., Admiral Kichisaburō Nomura. This will be covered in a later post, but in short the talks were fruitless. This was also approaching the time when “Plan A” and “Plan B” were proposed by Japan (also covered later) as a way to forestall war. Meanwhile in Japan, it had already been decided to initiate combat in the Southwest Pacific and against Pearl Harbor – with one caveat. The Emperor insisted that there be one more attempt at some diplomatic solution to forestall war. With approval of the Emperor, Konoe made a genuine, if belated, effort to avoid war with the United States. He sought a personal summit with President Roosevelt, hoping imperial prestige and personal diplomacy could break the deadlock. The summit was opposed by Hull and in the end was never acted upon by Roosevelt.

Konoe resigned in October 1941, clearing the way for Army Minister Tojo to become Prime Minister and at the same time continue as Minister of the Army (now increasingly called “War Minister”). 

Why this long post?

There are a number of revisionist historians (meaning later working with newer sources) who hold that the U.S. was culpable for what followed by not taking the summit with Konoe. There is an argument to be made that given both sides felt they were rapidly approaching the threshold of war that any dialogue was better than no dialogue at all. But by this time the U.S. had broken “Code Purple”, the diplomatic code (sometimes referred to under the general rubric “MAGIC”). We were able to “look behind the words.”

By late September 1941 we knew that Japan was repositioning military assets to move on the Southwest Pacific and the moderate wing of government had no leverage to change the tide of war. If these were reason enough to prepare for the inevitable, it must be remembered that Konoe “came to the table” with a history.

Konoe had never been able to enforce civilian control over the military. In addition, Kanoe was the author of the “New Order in East Asia” (Tōa Shin Chitsujo) which at its root was, from the U.S. perspective, the core problem. Kanoe had not started the war in China, but he had expanded the war. Later he was unable to stop the occupation of Southern Indochina. In the view of the State Department – “new boss, same as the old boss.” Japan was still not considered trustworthy given their history of vague diplomacy, military aggression apart from civilian control, and a habit to ask specific current actions of the U.S. while pinning their commitments to future events that might or might not happen. There was nothing in Konoe’s resume that indicated there would be anything new.

And finally, intercepted diplomatic cables made clear, Japan would not offer anything new not already considered in Plan A and Plan B.

And now they were proposing Konoe as the new voice of diplomacy and he could not offer a coherent negotiating position before the summit. In the end the summit came to nothing. Konoe resigned in October 1941, clearing the way for General Tōjō, whose government would authorize war.

In his book, Tower of Skulls, historian Richard B. Frank describes part of Konoe’s story in a chapter rightly called “Japan’s Prince of Self-Destruction.” Prince Kinmochi Saionji, his early mentor, was prescient in wondering if Konoe possessed a keen sense of judgment.

Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archive. | Source credit: Tower of Skulls by Richard B. Frank notably the chapter “Japan’s Prince of Self-Destruction”

In the previous post, we considered the actions taken by the United States in response to the Japanese occupation of Southern Indochina. In short, with the Export Control Act of 1940 already in place, in July 1941 President Roosevelt authorized the Treasury to freeze all Japanese assets held in US institutions. The export of goods to Japan required an export license and the approval of the FFCC (Foreign Funds Control Committee) to release funds to pay for the commodities – including and perhaps especially oil.

Edward S. Miller’s book, Bankrupting the Enemy, was an in-depth and interesting exploration of the financial aspects of US financial and foreign policy. It is filled with statistics, graphs and all manner of things that are probably not the reading fare of most people. But he uses all that data to make his case and take a new approach toward the U.S. financial and trade sanctions against Japan by treating “embargoing” and “bankrupting” of a hostile nation’s economy as two different economic sanction strategies. The author suggests that the trade embargoes (both export and import controls) that the Roosevelt administration employed against Japan, although discriminatory enough to hurt the Japanese trade and their feelings, did not produce desired outcomes, and he even goes so far as to argue that the abrogation of the 1911 Commercial Treaty in January 1940, traditionally considered as an important step in U.S. economic sanctions against Japan, was “a meaningless gesture because the United States did not invoke any trade penalties” (p. 83). 

Miller points out that as early as 1933 the Roosevelt administration was aware that Section 5(b) of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 empowered the president to regulate American financial dealings with all foreign countries and entities, and Roosevelt momentarily flirted with the idea of a financial freeze against Japan when Japan invaded China in July 1937. However, his administration continued to rely mainly on moral embargoes partly because U.S. financial experts at that time did not believe that Japan could wage a long war because of its lack of hard currency. Unbeknownst to them, Japanese banks had hidden a reserve of U.S. dollars large enough to postpone its bankruptcy perhaps to 1943. The moral embargoes were ineffective.

Leading up to the summer of 1940, the Economic Control Administration (ECA) undertook vulnerability studies of Japan’s strategic resources, including commodities essential for the Japanese people such as food and clothing on the premise that in total war there should be no distinction between soldiers and civilians. Miller’s discussion of the vulnerability studies by the ECA reveals the extent of the U.S. government’s understanding of the state of Japan’s economy and its vulnerabilities and how to exploit them. The U.S. government was fully aware that petroleum was the most vulnerable resource for Japan’s economic life and especially for its military, and that petroleum supplies from the United States were irreplaceable. 

Any consideration of freezing Japan’s assets was not something in isolation, but was part of a larger action that froze the assets of Germany and all nations under Nazi control. At this point one has to consider “financial freeze” as having some element of being an offensive weapon. Unfortunately for Japan, at this same time Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The effect was that Japan no longer had access to the Trans-Siberian Railroad to ship/receive goods from its European trading partners. This made the U.S. dollar Japan’s only medium of international exchange but it was sorely lacking in trading partners. But Japan had put in place contingency plans.

Immediately before the FFCC was established, as of June 1941, Japanese companies had already obtained approved licenses for 7.1 million barrels of gasoline, 21.9 million barrels of crude oil, and 33,000 barrels of lubricants, altogether worth about $50 million. This was already licensed, but not shipped. It would have been sufficient, above and beyond current Japanese reserves, to supply all of Japan’s needs until the end of 1943. With a single stroke of an FFCC pen, it was possible to cut U.S. exports to Japan to zero despite the approved licenses for oil purchase Japan had already obtained. Under Secretary Dean Acheson who served on the FFCC was the one who ensured FFCC approval was not obtained.

In Going to War With Japan: 1937-1941, the author Jonathan Utley argues that the intent of the dual track arrangement of Export Controls and the FFCC was not to cut off all oil, but to ration it at a rate that let Japan know we control the spigot. This was the understanding of Hull and Sumner Wells. Utley asserts that Acheson, an advocate for a complete embargo, used his position to implement the de facto embargo from the FFCC side. Hull and Sumner were away from Washington on summer vacations and were unaware. There is good indication that Roosevelt was well aware and did nothing to alter Acheson’s actions. It was September before Hull became aware of the extent of Acheson’s action and by then any change in de facto policy would send the wrong signal to Japan.

Miller’s book’s main argument is clear: the U.S. government’s actions to date had done nothing to deter Japan from its “New Order” policy announced by Prime Minister Konoe. The announcement of a true embargo was a declaration of war – not a path that Roosevelt wanted to take in the summer of 1941 – but some response and action that was new and had some possibility of deterrence was needed given Japan’s move into Southern Indochina. Miller’s argument is that this was the point when the U.S. deliberately pursued the policy of using financial leverage to ratchet up the pressure on Japan. From Japan’s point of view, it was a declaration of economic “warfare.”  All of Japan’s reserves for foreign trade were US dollars, including the assets banks had secured out of sight of the international banking system – but with Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union, the only trading partner available with the needed supplies was the United States. Japan was facing potential bankruptcy even with funds available to purchase needed supplies. But the one supplier judged all those supplies to be supporting the war machine that was Japan in East Asia.

Miller holds that it was the financial freeze that was the most devastating effect in that by not approving oil sales it could halt military operations, but the financial freeze’s impact also affected every aspect of Japanese life on the home islands. Miller argues that the U.S. attempt to defeat the enemy by moving them in the direction of bankrupting its economy provoked the enemy into the very war that the Roosevelt administration hoped to avoid.

Miller points out that although the U.S. already possessed enough data to have analyzed the effects on Japanese civil society, it did not do that specific analysis until after Peart Harbor. Miller argues that if key U.S. leaders had known, they would have made other choices. I can’t say that I agree. Via embassy staff and a network of information streams, the Departments of State and Treasury knew the conditions. 

If anyone would have objected to the actions it would have been Secretary Hull, but he had just finished three months of secret discussions with the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and the Prime Minister. It reinforced two impressions: Japan was not an honest dialogue partner and the moderate wing of the Japanese government had no significant influence. The military/nationalist wing was clearly in charge. The New Order Policy was announced and intelligence clearly pointed to repositioning of military assets moving towards Southwest Asia. To this point Hull’s policy had been to press for fundamental agreements that could become lasting treaties and along the way to do nothing to aggravate the Japanese. The combination of three fruitless months of talks plus the move into Southern Indochina was the tipping point for Hull. Now, apart from Ambassador Grew, the U.S. was committed to more positive action in an attempt to change Japan’s aggression.

Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archive. | Source credit: Bankrupting the Enemy: The U.S. Financial Siege of Japan before Pearl Harbor, by Edward S. Miller – and and Japan Prepares for Total War: The Search for Economic Security, 1919-1941 by Michael A. Barnhart

This post is not a summary of all the actions with unintended consequences that step-by-step drew the U.S. into the Asia-Pacific War. Perhaps the entire history of Japanese-U.S. relations has been marked by these. At one level it is not surprising given cultural differences. Compared to Japan, the United States was an infant country without substantive history, traditions, and a society that most readily ignored boundaries and traditions that did not seem to suit our future. The U.S. was a cauldron of immigrants, settlers and pioneers – all from somewhere else – completely committed to the idea that there were no limits. Japan was the antithesis of that. Steeped in tradition, social class, racial purity, a nation apart from all other nations – and so many other factors. Japan, its culture and language, were subtle, nuanced and intentionally vague at times. The American psyche lacked all those things. The difference can be seen in the U.S Department of State’s basic view towards Japan: they were not an honest dialogue partner in that their words “did not mean what they said” – a trait sometimes maddening to even the Japanese. If diplomacy is the art of words to reach mutual agreements, the relationship was bound to face hurdles. None more so the Japanese move into Southern Indochina and U.S. reaction to that move.

One of the intriguing tales of the summer of 1941 was the role of the Foreign Funds Control Committee (FFCC). After the July 1941 asset freeze, the FFCC was created and composed of representatives from State, Treasury, and Justice. It was created to decide whether frozen Japanese funds could be released to pay for licensed exports. Although approved licenses already existed for items as required by the 1940 Export Control Act (including oil), funds had to be released for transactions to occur. The FFCC became the final control point, bottleneck, obstruction – take your pick – for the commodity to be transhipped to Japan.

As Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Dean Acheson was the State Department’s principal representative on the FFCC and the member most concerned with the strategic implications of fund releases so that such releases were consistent with policy and plans. Depending on the historian’s point of view, he fulfilled his role in accordance with the directions and desires of State and the President, or he was the rogue bureaucrat responsible for pushing Japan to attack the U.S., or he was a de facto operative of the White House acting as directed in the moment by the President, or was part of a governmental-industrial conspiracy to accelerate the U.S. to war with Japan and with Germany. 

The FFCC was charged with determining whether frozen funds could be released to pay for licensed exports. This structure preserved formal flexibility and allowed the administration to claim that economic pressure could be adjusted in response to Japanese behavior. In practice, however, the committee became the instrument through which flexibility slowly disappeared.

But it was Acheson’s interpretation and execution of the financial freeze that effectively converted an ambiguous measure into a de facto total embargo.

Intended Ambiguity

Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull had deliberately left the asset freeze ambiguous, preserving room for maneuver. They put the FFCC in place with the State Department’s representative, Acheson, with essential veto power over the release of assets for approved licenses – even ones already approved before the establishment of the FFCC. Acheson approached the asset freeze with a clear premise: Japan’s actions had fundamentally altered the strategic situation and partial economic accommodation would undermine U.S. credibility as to the seriousness of Japan’s actions in Indochina most immediately and China in general. But it was Acheson’s interpretation and execution of the financial freeze that effectively converted an ambiguous measure into a de facto total embargo.

The practical effect of the FFCC’s decisions was swift and unmistakable. Japanese oil imports from the United States ceased almost entirely. While the administration never formally declared an oil embargo in July 1941, Japanese officials and American observers alike understood that this was its substance. Japan faced the prospect of exhausting its fuel reserves within eighteen to twenty-four months or sooner if military operations expanded.

Historians often describe this moment as one in which bureaucratic implementation became strategic policy. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull had deliberately left the asset freeze ambiguous, preserving room for maneuver. Acheson’s strict enforcement closed that space. Importantly, neither Roosevelt nor Hull reversed or overruled the FFCC’s decisions once their effects became clear. This silence has led most scholars to conclude that Acheson’s actions, while assertive, aligned with the administration’s evolving judgment that Japan must be confronted decisively.

The central historiographical debate concerns Acheson’s intent. Did he deliberately seek confrontation, or did he accept it as just the risk inherent in enforcing policy? There is little evidence that he desired conflict for its own sake but he was noted for believing Hull’s policy to date had been continually ineffective – and yet Hull appointed him to the FFCC.

More critical interpretations suggest that Acheson underestimated the degree to which economic strangulation would empower hardliners in Tokyo and eliminate remaining diplomatic leverage (if there were any by this point). From this perspective, the FFCC’s rigidity foreclosed possibilities that Ambassador Grew and Japanese moderates still hoped to explore. Yet even these critics tend to frame Acheson’s actions as firmness, not reckless adventurism or rogue action.

What is broadly agreed upon is that Acheson understood the stakes. He recognized that denying oil would be perceived by Japan as an existential threat. His willingness to proceed reflects a judgment, shared by Hull and Roosevelt, that deterrence required clarity, even at the risk of war.

Strategic Deadlock

From Tokyo’s perspective, the FFCC’s decisions confirmed the worst suspicions of the Japanese Army. Diplomats reported repeatedly that licensed exports meant nothing if funds could not be released. The oil cutoff became central to Japanese strategic calculations, reinforcing arguments that the United States sought to force Japan into submission without regard for its survival.

This perception mattered more than American legal distinctions. Japanese leaders concluded that time was running out and that negotiation under embargo conditions could only produce humiliation or surrender. The FFCC thus played a direct role in accelerating Japan’s decision-making timetable, but it did not dictate the final choice for war. That choice was Japan’s.

By late 1941, both Japan and the United States viewed their positions as defensive and morally justified. Japan believed economic strangulation threatened national survival and left only force as an option. The United States believed failure to draw a firm line would invite endless expansion and undermine international order. The tragic irony is that each side’s attempt to avoid future disaster accelerated immediate catastrophe.

The road to Pearl Harbor was thus paved not by a single decision, but by a decade of incremental actions, misconceptions, and narrowing choices. Japan’s pattern of faits accomplis eroded trust; America’s gradual escalation of economic pressure collapsed the space for compromise. In that sense, the final crisis of 1941 was less a sudden rupture than the inevitable culmination of a long, unresolved confrontation between power, principle, and fear.

Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archive

Between July 1940 and the Summer of 1941, the war in China continued. The military situation in China was characterized by a transition into a brutal war of attrition against Japanese occupation, alongside a significant internal breakdown in the alliance between Chinese Communist and Nationalist forces. Among major actions was the “Hundred Regiments Offensive” (Aug 1940 to Jan 1941). It was the largest Communist-led offensive of the war, involving roughly 400,000 troops. It targeted Japanese-held infrastructure, specifically railroads and mines, in northern China to disrupt supply lines. In retaliation, the Japanese initiated the “Three Alls” policy: kill all, burn all, loot all. It was a scorched-earth policy, leading to widespread massacres and the destruction of thousands of villages.

Meanwhile to the south, the Nationalist Army enjoyed some victories and endured some losses. It was a clear implementation of the “war of attrition” policy against the Japanese.

During this period the U.S. continued to provide supplies via the Burma Road and began formalizing military aid through the Lend-Lease program, which included the procurement of P-40 aircraft for the American Volunteer Group, known as the “Flying Tigers.”

The Turning Point

In July 1941 Japan moved into Southern Indochina. This was the “bridge too far.” By mid-1941, Japan’s strategic position had become increasingly precarious. The war in China showed no sign of resolution, Japan’s economy was under strain, and dependence on foreign, especially American, oil had become acute. The occupation of southern Indochina in July 1941 represented a decisive escalation driven by both necessity and ambition, as Japanese leaders concluded that time was working against them.

The immediate rationale lay in Japan’s southern expansion strategy (Nanshin-ron), which had become the strategic plan after the defeat at Nomonhan at the hands of the Soviet Union. Southern Indochina offered strategic airfields and naval bases particularly around Saigon and Cam Ranh Bay. This placed Japan within striking distance of British Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies, the latter being Japan’s most coveted objective due to its vast oil reserves. Control of southern Indochina would serve as a springboard for future operations, not merely a continuation of the China war.

Japan also viewed the move as defensive and deterrent. Japanese planners feared that continued U.S. and British pressure would eventually choke off vital imports. Occupying southern Indochina was intended to secure strategic depth, signal resolve to Western powers, and strengthen Japan’s negotiating position.  Coercion had proved successful before and so Japan stayed with what worked.

Japanese leaders still hoped to avoid war with the United States but the nationalist and military believed that a show of strength would compel Washington to accept Japan’s dominance in East Asia or at least negotiate a settlement recognizing Japan’s “special position.” As with earlier expansions, Tokyo framed the occupation as temporary and stabilizing, carried out with Vichy French acquiescence rather than outright conquest.

Unlike the occupation of northern Indochina in 1940, which could be justified as cutting Chinese supply lines, the move south had no plausible defensive rationale. It directly threatened Western colonial holdings and, crucially, placed Japanese forces astride the sea lanes connecting the United States, Britain, and Southeast Asia. For American policymakers, southern Indochina marked the point at which Japanese intentions could no longer be interpreted as limited or negotiable. Their goal of regional domination, far beyond trade, was unmistakable. All signs were that Japan was preparing for an offensive war – which was exactly the Nanshin-ron strategy.

The U.S. Internal Debate

The Japanese move triggered an intense but brief debate within the Roosevelt administration. The debate was brief because all the arguments had already been raised during earlier crises. Within the State Department, Cordell Hull concluded that Japan had crossed a qualitative threshold. While Hull had previously opposed measures such as an oil embargo on the basis that it might force Japan into a corner, he now accepted that failure to respond decisively would invite further expansion. Southern Indochina confirmed Hornbeck’s and others’ arguments that incremental pressure and diplomacy were never going to constrain Japan.

At the same time, Treasury Secretary Morgenthau and others argued that the United States had been subsidizing Japanese aggression through continued trade, especially petroleum exports. Morgenthau pressed for immediate financial measures that would cut off Japan’s access to dollars and strategic materials. President Roosevelt, who had long sought to balance deterrence with delay, now sided with the more forceful camp.  It was not because he sought war, but because he believed that credibility and long-term security required drawing a firm line. Southern Indochina convinced Roosevelt that ambiguity no longer served U.S. interests.

U.S. Actions and Their Consequences

In response, the United States took a series of actions that fundamentally altered the strategic environment. Two coordinated actions were put in place. In July 1941 the U.S. froze all Japanese financial assets in the United States. The funds were available when connected to a valid and approved export license. The 1940 Exports Control Act already required an export license for oil and oil products, but now companies and purchasing agents had to navigate the dual administrative processes. At no point did the U.S. formally announce an oil embargo, but a de facto embargo was enacted by these two administrative processes that could “slow roll” any license applications. These two actions effectively prevented Japan from purchasing American goods, including oil, as approvals became trapped in the bureaucracy of the two separate processes. That being said, Japan’s petroleum supply from the U.S. was effectively cut off. Given Japan’s heavy dependence on American oil, they viewed this as an existential threat.

Britain and the Netherlands soon imposed similar freezes, closing off alternative sources in Southeast Asia. Japan now faced the prospect of economic strangulation within a year if no resolution was reached. 

These measures were intended to force Japan back to the negotiating table. American leaders hoped that the severity of the response would compel Japan to halt further expansion and reconsider its position in China. Instead, the effect was the opposite: Japanese leaders increasingly concluded that only force could secure the resources Japan needed to survive and continue their military expansion.

The occupation of southern Indochina was Japan’s final major expansion before U.S. involvement in the Asia Pacific War. From their point of view it was driven by strategic desperation, resource insecurity, and overconfidence in coercive diplomacy. For the United States, it marked the moment when gradualism gave way to decisive economic action. The resulting asset freeze and effective oil cutoff were not intended as steps toward war, but they made war increasingly likely. 

Japanese leaders were nationalistic and supported the military. Their analysis of history was that it was only with military power and control that Japan’s future against western powers could be secured. And so for them they saw that peaceful options had run out. The irony is that for the previous four years, Japan had never taken a peaceful option but had always exercised the military option – and always via surprise attack and mobilization: Mukden, Nomonhan, and soon enough, Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese move into Southern Indochina was the irreversible hinge between diplomacy and conflict. It was the moment when both sides believed they were acting defensively, yet set in motion the final march toward Pearl Harbor. 

Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archive

By June 1939 Japan was deeply entrenched in China with a military stalemate, the Chinese willing to fight a war of attrition, and there was no political settlement in sight. Japan had just suffered a major defeat at Nomonhan, though this was not fully appreciated in Washington at the time, and elements of Japanese leadership were increasingly suspicious of Western intentions. That same month the U.S. formally notified Japan it would terminate the 1911 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, effective January 1940. This did not impose sanctions immediately but freed the U.S. legally to restrict trade later. The purpose of the actions was to signal displeasure with Japan’s conduct in China, create leverage without escalation, and preserve diplomatic ambiguity. It was not well received in Japan as they understood that beginning in January 1940 there would be no treaty in place that could limit trade restrictions. At the same time the State Department issued nonbinding requests to U.S. firms not to sell aircraft, aviation fuel or strategic materials to Japan. This reflected Hull’s belief that economic pressure should precede coercion, and coercion should precede war. This would come to be known as the “moral embargoes” and marked the first move from moral pressure towards economic leverage

French Indochina

A key reason China could continue fighting was that foreign supply routes remained open, especially the Burma Road and rail and port access through French Indochina, particularly via Haiphong into Yunnan Province.From Tokyo’s perspective, cutting these supply lines became essential. Japan was presented a strategic opportunity with the collapse of France to German forces in June 1940. As a consequence the Vichy regime replaced the French government. This left French colonial authorities isolated, under-resourced, and politically uncertain. To Japanese planners, Indochina now looked militarily weak and diplomatically unsupported and unlikely to receive British or American military support in the short term. To the Army, Navy, and politicians this created a low-risk window of opportunity.

Japan initially pursued its objectives through coercive diplomacy, not outright invasion. Japan demanded that Vichy France close supply routes to China, permit the Japanese to station inspectors at transportation junctions (and later military forces), and provide unfettered access to airfields in the North. Vichy France wanted to preserve sovereignty but lacked the military means to resist and so hoped that accommodation would prevent full occupation. Negotiations dragged on while Japan prepared militarily, a familiar pattern since Mukden.

Despite French promises, Japan believed that supplies were still leaking into China, French officials were unreliable, and only physical control could guarantee closure of routes. The Japanese Army argued that diplomatic assurances were meaningless without troops on the ground, reflecting the Army’s broader pattern of fait accompli strategy.

In September 1940, Japanese forces crossed into northern Indochina and occupied key airfields and rail lines. They clashed briefly with French colonial troops but soon enough all resistance collapsed. Shortly afterward a formal agreement legalized the Japanese presence while French administration remained nominally in place.  Japan was fine with leaving administration to the French because they had gained what they wanted: control of transport corridors and air bases from which to control supplies into China.

Japan limited itself initially to northern Indochina because the stated goal was cutting China’s supply lines and it allowed Japan to test Western reactions in an incremental way as it avoided directly threatening oil supplies.

To the international community, Japan deliberately framed this as a “temporary” measure, a defensive necessity and not an annexation. But while China was the immediate justification, larger strategic calculations were at work. After the defeat at Nomonhan, the Northern expansion against the USSR lost credibility and attention shifted south toward Southeast Asia. Indochina offered a stepping stone toward the Dutch East Indies with airfields within reach of British Malaya. Japan also believed a decisive move would demonstrate resolve to the point the U.S. and Britain would protest but would not fight or take any decisive action. Internally it provided prestige to the military and the government and was promoted at home. Japan calculated that in the short term Britain was fully engaged in a battle for its national life (the “Battle of Britain”) while the U.S. was still divided and formally neutral.

The U.S. response was as Japan expected: a strong diplomatic protest, limited export controls, but no other embargo action. All in all, this reinforced Japanese beliefs that incremental expansion would work.

Reaction with the U.S. Government

The U.S. response to Japan’s occupation of northern Indochina exposed deep internal divisions within the Roosevelt administration over how far and how fast to confront Japan. At the center of the debate was a shared recognition that Japan had crossed an important threshold, but no consensus on whether that threshold justified decisive economic retaliation or continued diplomatic caution.

Within the State Department, Secretary of State Cordell Hull favored a measured, incremental response. Hull believed Japan’s move was aggressive but still reversible and that premature, sweeping sanctions, especially on oil, risked provoking a war the United States was not yet prepared to fight. State Department officials continued to emphasize negotiation, the preservation of legal and moral principles (such as the Open Door in China), and the use of graduated economic pressure to influence Japanese decision-making. Hull and his advisers, especially Ambassador Grew, held out hope that divisions within Japan, particularly between civilian moderates and the military, could still be exploited diplomatically.

By contrast, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr., supported by some in the Interior and Navy Departments, argued that Japan’s occupation demonstrated that incremental pressure had failed; it had been applied for almost three years. This faction favored stronger economic sanctions, including tighter export controls and financial restrictions, to signal that further expansion would carry unacceptable costs. Morgenthau was particularly concerned that continued U.S. trade, especially in oil, gasoline, aviation fuel,  and scrap metal, was materially enabling Japanese aggression. President Franklin Roosevelt ultimately sided, for the moment, with Hull’s caution: the U.S. imposed new export controls and intensified diplomatic protests but stopped short of an oil embargo. The compromise reflected a broader strategic judgment that time was needed to strengthen U.S. defenses while keeping open the possibility, however slim, of restraining Japan without war.

Export Controls Act 

In July 1940 Congress passed the Export Controls Act in response to Japan’s move into northern French Indochina. At the core of the legislation was that the State Department gained authority to license or deny exports. Immediately restrictions were placed on aviation gasoline, high quality scrap iron and machine tools. The licensing process gave the State Department the ability to “approve” the request and then slow march the license through the administrative process where decisions were deliberately incremental and often reversed

The Departments of Treasury and Interior wanted stronger measures and more excluded items. Despite pressure from Treasury and some Navy officials, the administration deliberately excluded oil from the provisions of the 1940 Act. Petroleum exports continued, ordinary commercial goods remained largely unaffected, and financial transactions were not yet frozen. All this reflected Secretary Hull’s view that an oil embargo would be indistinguishable from a declaration of economic war. This marked a clear escalation in U.S. policy, but one carefully calibrated to apply pressure without forcing an immediate showdown.

Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archive

In the summer of 1939 Japan was increasingly bogged down in combat with China. As you can see in the map below, Japan controlled not only Manchukuo (Manchuria) but swaths of Inner Mongolia and China. Importantly, Japan also controlled almost all major seaports facing the East and South China Sea. Manchukuo presented its own control issues, largely centered around rampant banditry, but all the other areas required the Kwantung Army (Imperial Japanese Army on the mainland) to provide occupation and policing forces in areas they had conquered. At the same time the Kwantung Army continued offensive operations in Northern China.

Notice that Japan also had an extensive border with the Soviet Union as well as a history of conflict with czarist Russia that extended some 60 years back in time including the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War which removed Russian presence in Manchuria and Korea. Russia lost the warm water ports in Darien and Port Arthur, access to the resources of Manchuria, and was often required to transport goods and resources via the Trans-Siberian Railway rather than via ship. In addition Russia was required to cede the lower half of Shanklin Island (just north of Japan). All of this fit into Japan’s “strategic buffer” concept keeping China and Russia/Soviet Union at “arm’s length” from the home islands.

The Nomonhan Incident

Also known as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol, the Nomonhan Incident was a major but undeclared border war fought between Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union’s Mongolian forces from May to September 1939. It occurred along the poorly defined frontier between Japanese-controlled Manchukuo and Soviet-aligned Mongolia. Though officially termed an “incident” by Japan to avoid acknowledging a formal war, the conflict involved tens of thousands of troops, armor, artillery, and aircraft, making it the largest land battle Japan fought before the Pacific War. The fighting ended in a decisive Soviet victory, delivering a shock to the Japanese military and reshaping Japan’s strategic direction on the eve of World War II.

The Background

At the root of the conflict was a disputed, ambiguous border. Japan claimed the boundary lay along the Khalkhin Gol (Halha River), while the Soviets and Mongolians insisted it lay several miles east. The area was remote, sparsely populated, and economically marginal but symbolically important as a test of sovereignty and power. It was also extremely remote from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) Staff and Ministry in Tokyo. All of this was simply ingredients of a toxic stew only awaiting the flame to start a boil. And the Kwantung Army was only too happy to ignite the flame.

The Kwantung Army had a well earned reputation for acting autonomously from Tokyo, initiating aggressive actions to force what it believed were the necessary political outcomes, and viewing itself as the vanguard of Japan’s continental destiny. This attitude led to the Mukden Incident (1931), the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (1937), and the quagmire of the Second Sino-Japanese War. By the summer of 1939 the IJA was already stretched thin, had terrible logistics support, and was lacking in combined arms capability – meaning tanks, artillery and ground support from aviation assets. Financially, Japan was stretched thin in trying to keep the IJA funded at the same time funding the Navy’s capital intensive shipbuilding efforts.

Nonetheless, by 1939 the bane of IJA’s existence – an independent, insubordinate junior officer corps believed that controlled escalation against the Soviets could secure Japan’s northern frontier, expand the strategic buffer or even open the door to expansion into resource-rich areas of Siberia. In the view of Japan, the majority of the peoples in Siberia and Mongolia were Asiatic and thus properly best served under the Imperial Protection of the Emperor. They did not bother to ask the people of those areas about their preference.

Northern Expansion Doctrine (Hokushin-ron)

Within Japan’s strategic debates, the Army strongly favored Hokushin-ron, the idea that Japan’s future lay in expanding northward against Russia rather than southward into Southeast Asia. This belief rested on overconfidence from victories in China, an underestimation of Soviet military modernization, and a deep seated anti-communism which was, at this time, being suppressed in the home islands. Nomonhan emerged from a belief that the Red Army could be tested, pressured, and defeated through limited engagement. It was less a grand strategy and more a tactical escalation.

In part it was also pushing back on the evolving southern expansion doctrine being proposed by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) whose interest lay in the resource-rich Southwestern Pacific, especially the oil fields of Borneo, Malay and Java.

The local IJA commanders were confident that Japanese infantry superiority would compensate for weaknesses in armor and logistics. In addition, they believed that the Soviets would avoid a major escalation. The Kwantung Army assumed that a sharp, localized victory would strengthen Japan’s hand diplomatically and militarily.

The IJA horribly misread Soviet intentions. The Soviets retained the memory of the humiliating defeat by Japan of czarist Russia. It was a lingering shame that the Soviets would never let happen again. They were more than willing to fight. They also had superior tanks and artillery and a capacity for combined arms operations with their ground forces. Japan also failed to recognize that the Soviets had the same essential “strategic buffer” view as Japan. Mongolia as part of that buffer and the Soviets would respond decisively to any threat in that region.

Combat

In the period May–June 1939, the initial clashes involved cavalry and infantry skirmishes for small areas of land as well as an island in the middle of the border river. Japanese forces crossed into disputed territory, driving out Mongolian units. Early successes reinforced Japanese confidence.

In June, the Soviets appointed General Georgy Zhukov to command. Zhukov rose to prominence with his leadership at Nomonhan. He was a brilliant tactician and field commander later becoming the most prominent and successful Soviet military commander during World War II often credited as the key strategist behind major Eastern Front victories against Nazi Germany. He rose to the position as Chief of the General Staff and a Marshal of the Soviet Union, leading the defenses of Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad and commanding the final assault on Berlin. He was formidable. 

Long story, told short, Zhukov prepared a coordinated counteroffensive rather than piecemeal retaliation, amassing artillery, tanks, and aircraft supported by secure logistics/supply lines. In late August, Zhukov launched a classic double-envelopment, using tanks and mechanized infantry to encircle Japanese forces who lacked effective anti-tank weapons, were undersupplied, and relied on infantry assaults against armor. The result was catastrophic. Entire Japanese formations were destroyed or rendered combat-ineffective. It was a clear battlefield defeat involving some 20,000 Japanese casualties with the loss of experienced officers and elite units. Japan agreed to a ceasefire in September 1939, restoring the status quo but psychologically, the damage was done. It was the first unequivocal defeat suffered by Imperial Japan since the Meiji era.

Unintended Consequences

Nomonhan should have shattered Japanese assumptions – but it did not. Japan continued to believe that Japanese fighting spirit and bushido were enough to triumph and could overcome material inferiority and weak logistics. This would plague them all the way through 1945. They also continued to believe that wars could be tightly controlled and limited.

The defeat decisively undermined the Northern Expansion faction within the Army. After 1939 all plans for war against the Soviets were shelved, a defensive posture was adopted along the Manchurian frontier, and Japan avoided conflict with the Soviets for the remainder of WWII. This shift paved the way for Nanshin-ron (southern expansion), pushing Japan toward Southeast Asia and the Dutch East Indies’ oil. It was the path to confrontation with Western colonial powers. In this sense, Nomonhan helped set Japan on the road toward Pearl Harbor.

Perhaps the most profound unintended consequence was for the Soviet Union. Stalin gained confidence that Japan would not attack in the east and soon enough the two nations signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact (1941) allowing Soviet divisions to later be transferred west to defend Moscow against Germany. The Nomonhan incident influenced the outcome of the European war, not just Asian geopolitics.

The Nomonhan Incident stands as a warning ignored about the limits of aggression driven by ideology rather than sound political and military strategy and tactics. It revealed the dangers Clausewitz warned of: wars initiated for political symbolism without a clear path to decisive victory would ultimately end in disaster for those who initiated the action.

Nomonhan was not merely a border clash. It was Japan’s strategic crossroads. Historians have come to now recognize Nomonhan as one of the most consequential “incidents” of the twentieth century – even though it largely remains unknown in the West.

Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archives. | Pacific area map of 1939 courtesy of MapWorks via Wikipedia Commons.

After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (July 1937)  the United States took measured but meaningful actions in support of China, while still stopping well short of alliance or military intervention. The pattern is best described as moral, diplomatic, and limited material support, shaped and heavily limited by existing U.S. neutrality laws and the general sense of isolationism among the American people and Congress.

Given the mood and legal constraints facing the Roosevelt administration there was little to be done if the goal was to avoid military actions. What actions were taken are best described as nonrecognition and positioning. To that end the U.S. refused to recognize Japanese territorial gains in China, continued to uphold and advocate the Open Door Policy regarding commercial trade with China, and treated China as the legitimate sovereign power throughout the conflict.

This stance mattered because it denied Japan international legitimacy as virtually all nations followed the U.S. lead in this matter. It also gave China an enhanced standing in international diplomatic forums. The actions, limited as they were, did signal U.S. sympathy without military commitment. While Secretary Cordell Hull worked the diplomatic world, striking a balance that applied limited international pressure in a moral sense to Japan, he also had to temper calls from Britain for concrete economic sanctions. Britain was at the threshold of war in Europe (which began September 1939) and was concerned with Japanese aggression in the Asia Pacific area against British colonies and interests.

A Divided Asian Policy

In the post “American Diplomacy in 1937” we considered some of the key figures in determining the U.S. diplomatic response to Japanese aggression in China: President Franklin D. Roosevelt; Cordell Hull, Secretary of State; Stanley Hornbeck who headed the Far East Department; Nelson Johnson, Ambassador to China; Joseph Drew, Ambassador to Japan; and key advisors to Hull – J. Pierpoint Moffat and Hugh Wilson. Moffat was the son-in-law of Joseph Drew. Wilson had served in Japan in the mid-1920s.

Roosevelt, Hornbeck and Johnson can be viewed as members of an “activist camp” although in varying degrees. Hull, Grew, Moffat and Wilson would be viewed as members of a “don’t aggravate Japan” camp who wanted to confine U.S. responses to diplomatic channels while avoiding economic sanctions of any form as well as military action. At this point “military action” primarily meant action by naval and marines forces stationed in Shanghai as protection of U.S. citizens and interest in Shanghai’s International Settlement as well as citizens and interests upstream on the Yangtze River.

Hull’s position was to do nothing to antagonize Japan but nothing to assist them either. President Roosevelt did not like Hull’s Asian policy. While he accepted them as prudent the President was frustrated by a policy that let Japan get away with blatant aggression. Roosevelt was known to keep his own counsel and on occasion “go his own way.” In October 1937 he gave what came to be known as the Quarantine Speech that implicitly condemned Japan’s aggression (alongside Italy and Germany). In the speech he framed Japan as a disturber of international order but deliberately avoided naming Japan to prevent escalation. But his meaning was clear: “The present reign of terror and international lawlessness… [means that] the very foundations of civilization are seriously threatened…international anarchy destroys every foundation of peace…This situation is of universal concern.” Roosevelt went on to compare the terror and lawlessness to a contagion becoming an epidemic and note that the only reaction to an epidemic is quarantine. “War is a contagion, whether it be declared or undeclared…There must be positive endeavors to preserve peace.”

The speech did everything that Hull was trying to avoid. First, it exacerbated diplomatic relations with Japan. Although Roosevelt never named Japan, Japanese leaders and the press immediately understood that Japan was one of the principal targets. From Tokyo’s perspective, the speech signaled that the United States was morally siding with China, Japan was being described as a threat to international order, not merely a regional power pursuing interests, U.S. neutrality was becoming conditional rather than detached, and this signaled a shift from U.S. disapproval to U.S. warning.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry responded with measured, non-confrontational statements. This restraint reflected a desire to avoid provoking sanctions, an awareness that Japan still depended heavily on U.S. trade, and a hope that American isolationism would reassert itself. In the Cabinet it was viewed as a trial balloon for later economic sanctions. Within the military it added to the view that the U.S. viewed them as a second-rate nation. The Japanese Army dismissed it as moralizing. Within the Navy the speech confirmed fears that American opinion was shifting and that the current moral pressure could evolve into economic or naval measures – but still considered armed conflict years away.

Hull was also concerned that the speech would have the western signatories to the Nine Power Treaty call for an international conference (which it did) and that the U.S. would be thrust into the leadership role. Within domestic politics/policy it marked the beginning of a division within the nation’s foreign policy with Roosevelt pushing for something more dynamic and assertive – and yet not giving any concrete substance to the notion – while at the same time Hull was trying to maintain the established policy. 

This difference would prove to be somewhat problematic as Roosevelt tended to think in broad, sweeping terms while avoiding detailed plans. Hull tended to think in categories of fundamental goals without incremental steps towards that end.

Proposals and Next Steps

Among the activists, Hornbeck shared Hull’s conviction that diplomatically Japan was not an honest dialogue partner, but also understood Japan’s foundational interests: economic and political security in her area of interest. While much of the U.S. Department of State believed Japan had “taken on more than it could chew,” Hornbeck understood that with every bite, Japan’s appetite increased, but that there were very different levels of “appetites” between the nationalist/militarists in Japan and their moderate counterparts in civil governance and diplomacy. Hornbeck wanted to actively approach Japan with the “carrot” that would give them the security they desired, but needed a “stick” to forestall further Japanese aggression in China. In this he was aligned with President Roosevelt, but the President in 1937 did not believe he had the support of either Congress or the public for any form of “carrot.”

While the U.S. internal debates continued and Japan aggressively moved in China, an element of the Japanese government initiated “feelers” from offices in Tokyo, Washington DC, and Paris. They wanted to see if the U.S. would help present Japan’s terms for peace and moderate Sino-Japanese talks. Unfortunately, Japan’s offer matched their history of vague diplomacy, asking for specific current actions from China while pinning their commitments to future events that might or might not happen. Ambassador Grew in Japan, in general more positive about Japan than others, acknowledged that his analysis of the terms to China were really full capitulation couched in ambiguous language. Grew attempted to get Japan to commit to “details” consistent with the Nine Nations Treaty of which Japan was a signatory. Eventually the initiative “died on the vine.”

By December 1937, Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, of a like mind with Roosevlet and Hull, raised the possibility of beginning to seize Japanese assets held in the U.S. as a first step. Roosevelt was initially keen on the idea, but by late January 1938 that initiative “died on the vine.”

There were other initiatives but in the end all suffered the same fate. The U.S. was not able to field a policy for Japan other than Hull’s “don’t aggravate, just wait.” Some of the division and lack of action was certainly tied to U.S. politics with the American people largely isolationists, still suffering from effects of the Great Depression, and mid-term elections being close by. But a good deal was connected to the divisions with the State Department.  Ambassador Grew, long serving in Japan, had a belief in the moderates of the party – people he had known since the 1920s. Historians agree that he placed too much emphasis on the standings of the moderates, who by the 1930s were largely sidelined.  With Washington DC, the Far East Department (FED) firmly believed that the nationalists and military elements held key control of Japan’s policies. FED believed that Japan had not only regional but global aspirations and foresaw in the spring of 1938 that Japan would formally partner with Germany and Italy – which they did in the September 1940 Tripartite Treaty.

By the Spring of 1938, China was holding its own…to some degree. Hull concluded that Japan was overextended, lacked the resources to capture China, much less control China, and concluded that Japan would never win the war. And that they might even lose the war over time. This “betwixt-and-between” view was supported by General Joseph Stillwell, US Army, an advisor to Chiang Kai-shek.  The next effect was to further convince Hull that his policy of waiting while not aggravating Japan was the right course of action.

As a result, a routine was established:  Japan took some action which required Ambassador Grew to protest. Japan offered conciliatory words with no concrete actions apart from a renewed request for the U.S. to moderate peace talks (as before). In the end, with no actions forthcoming, the U.S. would formally protest. Japan did not respond.  It was a cycle of rinse and repeat as each incident came along.

In May 1938, Japan initiated a campaign of strategic bombing of Chinese civilian populations. This campaign was extensively covered by U.S. news outlets and American missionaries. At the movies, new reels and reports of the campaign were seen by the American public. It is estimated that in 1938, in urban America, the average adult saw two movies in-theatre each week. It did not take long for a wave of public outcry to arise. From that came the calls for U.S. companies to stop their “blood trade” with Japan. The outcry forced Hull to initiate a “moral embargo” asking U.S. companies to voluntarily stop trade with Japan in aircraft, aviation maintenance items, aviation fuel, and key resources and tools needed for the production of war goods. Hull’s goal was to calm the U.S. public.  At the same time Hornbeck and other departments in State wanted the U.S. to abrogate the 1911 U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement.

The war in China continued through the summer and into the autumn. The Chinese lost the city Xuzhou at the end of May but the battle proved the Chinese strategy of attrition that increasingly made Japan pay an ever increasing costs in terms of casualties and equipment. The Japanese were drawn into the Battle of Wuhan which involved over 1 million soldiers and great loss, but marked the end of Japan’s rapid advance and the beginning of a long-term strategic stalemate. This advance was also forestalled when Chinese forces breached the dikes of Yangtze River, creating a massive, man-made flood to block the Japanese advance.

In November 1938, the Prime Minister of Japan, Prince Konoe, gave what is called the “New Order” speech that made public what the Far East Department (FED) had long promoted – Japan’s ambitions were super regional and also global. This was the start of a coming change within the State Department, the Treasury Department and Congress to make loans to China and begin to discuss abrogating the 1911 U.S.-Japan trade agreement. Withdrawing from this agreement made later sanctions and embargoes possible.

Of interest is also at this time, Ambassador Grew was vacationing in the United States, and when asked the Charge of Affairs Doorman reported that the military and nationalists were in complete control of the governance of Japan. This March 1939.

Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archive

So far in this series we have worked our way up to 1937. From the summer of 1937 until Pearl Harbor the conflict in mainland China is the dominant factor that drives and animates Japan’s relationships (or lack thereof) with China, the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, and all the nations of the Asia-Pacific region. The ebb and flow of this conflict known as the Second Sino-Japanese War is really the beginning of the Asia Pacific War that will become World War II upon the 1939 outbreak of war on the European continent and the entry of the United States into the war after the attack on Pearly Harbor in December 1941. 

The Second Sino-Japanese War began not as a formally declared conflict but as a local military clash that escalated beyond political control, reflecting the structural weaknesses of both Chinese sovereignty and Japanese civilian authority over the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). From the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937 to the summer of 1941, the war evolved from a short punitive campaign into a protracted, brutal struggle that reshaped East Asia and set Japan on an increasingly irreversible path toward wider war.

The Marco Polo Bridge Incident and the Slide into War

Since 1905 and the Boxer Revolt in China, foreign nations, including Japan, had the right to station troops to protect their nationals and legations. For the Japanese this included guarding key railway lines connecting Beijing to the port of Tianjin. The Marco Polo Bridge spanned the Yongding River and sat on the main rail and road routes linking Beijing and Tianjin. As such it was of high strategic importance to Japan and a tactical chokepoint. Because of this Japanese units frequently patrolled and trained nearby. Night exercises were common and technically permitted under treaty arrangements.

On July 7th, Japanese troops were conducting a night training exercise near the bridge when one soldier failed to return, Japanese officers suspected detention by Chinese forces and demanded entry into a local city to search for their comrade; the Chinese refused. Shots were exchanged, and the situation escalated.

Similar incidents had occurred before and had been defused diplomatically. What made 1937 different was not the presence of troops, but the political climate surrounding the incident.

By 1937 Chiang Kai-shek’s coalition of northern and central warlords was deemed to be weakening in the view of the Japanese. This gave the Japanese field commanders (junior officers) the opportunity to aggressively respond as was their inclination. As discussed previously, by this time the field commanders knew that the civilian leaders in Tokyo were reluctant to restrain the Kwantung Army and so they pressed ahead. But they had misread the resolve of the Chinese leaders. So to speak, this time the incident was a bridge too far. The system that once contained incidents had broken down. Neither side was willing or able to step back once violence occurred. Mutual distrust, heightened nationalism, and the absence of firm political restraint allowed the confrontation to spiral.

Neither Tokyo nor Nanjing initially sought full-scale war. Japanese civilian leaders hoped to localize the conflict, while Chiang Kai-shek remained cautious, wary of Japan’s military superiority. Yet Japanese field commanders continued to press forward, and political leaders in Tokyo, fearful of appearing weak and constrained by past precedents of insubordination, ratified military escalation rather than restraining it.

By late July, Japanese forces had seized Beijing and Tianjin. What might once have ended in diplomatic compromise instead became a test of national will.

Shanghai and the Expansion of the War

The conflict escalated dramatically with the Battle of Shanghai (August–November 1937) a key seaport and source of income to the Chinese government. The Marco Polo Bridge incident ignited the conflict; Shanghai made it irreversible. Before August 1937, both governments still claimed to want containment and find a “local solution.” But locally, the Japanese approach into the region was a punitive campaign initiated by local field commanders and Shanghai was the goal.

Shanghai was China’s economic and financial center. It was a major port for foreign trade and it controlled the Yangtze River which was the “highway” into Central China. By 1937, Japan had a large civilian population and commercial interests in Shanghai including banking and shipping. As well, Japan had naval facilities and marines stationed in their part of the International Settlement. Any fighting in or near Shanghai could be framed as protecting Japanese nationals and treaty rights giving them a legally defensible pretext for military involvement. The hope was to draw Chiang Kai-shek into battle, force him to negotiate resulting in a collapse of Chinese Nationalist morale, and bring the war to a quick end. This reflected a persistent Japanese belief that China would not endure sustained pressure. That working theory had not proved true in Manchuria which Japan still struggled to control. It would not provide true now nor would it prove true at any point over the next 8 years.

Chiang Kai-shek understood the Japanese intent and chose to commit his best German-trained divisions in China’s most international city.  His aim was to demonstrate Chinese resistance to the international community with its large contingent of foreign press and media. While the Marco Polo Bridge was “out of sight”, Shanghai would force Japan to fight in full view of the world. Video of the fighting became a staple in US movie theatres in the news trailers that preceded the feature film. Chiang hoped the result would be foreign mediation and that they might intervene diplomatically.

Japan responded with overwhelming force, deploying naval, air, and ground units. Once fighting began, Japanese prestige and military logic demanded escalation rather than withdrawal. The battle became one of the largest and bloodiest urban engagements of the interwar period. Although Japan ultimately captured Shanghai, the cost in casualties, time, and resources dashed Japanese assumptions of a quick victory. But it did not extinguish the IJA’s optimism about the glory or destiny of the war.

The Shanghai campaign marked a turning point as the war became total in scope, involving mass mobilization on both sides. At home as the Japanese press reported success while not reporting the tremendous losses, Japanese public opinion increasingly supported the war and the Army, making it even more difficult as diplomatic compromise became increasingly untenable. The intentional strategic bombing of civilian areas as a means of breaking morale exacerbated the breakdown.

Shanghai became a symbolic test of national honor. In China, the battle unified the Chinese factions in the common cause against Japan – even the Communists joined. In Japan, the narrative fed into the State Shinto program that the Army’s sacrifice demanded public support and sacrifice all the way to victory.

After months of brutal fighting any compromise would be perceived as betrayal as the war became morally and emotionally entrenched in the psyche of the nations. There were no diplomatic off-ramps. Japan rejected mediation efforts and were on the road to total victory. China could not accept terms without sovereignty remaining intact. Historians often note that before Shanghai, war was possible. After Shanghai, peace was politically unimaginable.

Nanjing and the Descent into Atrocity

Following the fall of Shanghai, Japanese forces advanced up the Yangtze River toward Nanjing, then the capital of the Nationalist government. The city fell in December 1937, after Chiang Kai-shek had withdrawn the government inland to Wuhan.

What followed, the Nanjing Massacre (also known as the Rape of Nanking) became one of the most infamous episodes of the war. Over several weeks, Japanese troops committed widespread atrocities, including mass killings, rape, and looting. Estimates of the dead range from tens of thousands to over two hundred thousand.

The significance of Nanjing extended beyond the immediate horror. It destroyed Japan’s international reputation, hardened Chinese resistance, made negotiated peace politically impossible for Chiang Kai-shek, and deepened Japan’s moral and diplomatic isolation. Within Japan, however, the massacre did not provoke accountability; rather, it was subsumed beneath censorship and nationalist narratives, reinforcing the pattern established after earlier acts of military excess.

Nanjing was the most visible atrocity of the Second Sino-Japanese War, but it was only one episode in a broader pattern of mass killing, terror, and repression that unfolded across China from 1937 to 1945. Most historians agree that atrocities were systemic, not accidental and that violence escalated as Japan failed to secure quick victory. The dehumanization of Chinese civilians became embedded in military practice and was demonstrated in the 1938 Wuhan Campaign and Yangtze Valley operations, the Sankō Sakusen  (kill all, burn all, loot all) policy in Chinese Communist areas from 1940-1943, the 1943 Changjiao Massacre, and the list goes on.

Stalemate and the Failure of Decisive Victory

By early 1938, Japan controlled China’s major cities, ports, and railways but not China itself. The Nationalist government retreated first to Wuhan, then to Chongqing, deep in China’s interior. From there, Chiang adopted a strategy of protracted resistance and giving up territory to garner time while the Japanese were stretched even thinner. At the core, Chiang relied on China’s vast geography and population.

Japan faced a growing dilemma as military success did not translate into political control. The vastness of their conquest and occupation required ever-larger troop commitments. The IJA had been modeled on the Prussian system, and yet Japan failed to understand the noted war theorist, Hans Clausewitz who argued that merely occupying territory is not the same as defeating an enemy. If an occupier controls cities, roads, and fortresses but fails to destroy the enemy’s army, government, or will to resist, the population will turn to partisan guerrilla warfare. Such resistance can and will bleed the occupier over time, even when conventional victory seems complete. The fall of Wuhan in October 1938 failed to end the war. Instead, Japan found itself trapped in what many leaders privately acknowledged as a “China quagmire”, though publicly they insisted on eventual victory.

Ideology, Policy, and the Deepening War

As the war dragged on, Japan’s political and ideological posture hardened. In January 1938, Prime Minister Konoe declared that Japan would no longer deal with Chiang Kai-shek’s government, foreclosing diplomatic settlement. This decision, often cited by historians as a critical error, was driven by military pressure, nationalist public opinion, and the belief that China would eventually collapse internally. In practice, this policy eliminated Japan’s best chance for a negotiated exit.

Japan attempted instead to construct a “New Order in East Asia”, envisioning China as a subordinate partner under Japanese leadership. In reality, this meant expanded occupation, collaborationist regimes, and intensified repression.

Throughout this period, the United States remained formally neutral, but increasingly sympathetic to China. American responses included moral condemnation of Japanese aggression, loans and limited aid to the Chinese government, and growing public outrage after incidents such as the Panay Incident (1937) when the Japanese sank a U.S. gunboat involved in rescue operations of U.S. citizens along the Yangtze River. However, until 1940, U.S. actions remained cautious, constrained by isolationism and legal neutrality. Japanese leaders interpreted this restraint as reluctance to intervene militarily, reinforcing the belief that the China war could continue without provoking direct conflict with the United States.

The Road to Wider War, 1939–1941

By 1939–1940, the war in China had become institutionalized. Japan had mobilized society for long-term conflict. Military influence over government had deepened and political dissent was suppressed. The outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 altered Japan’s strategic calculations. With France defeated and Britain embattled, Japan turned increasingly toward southern expansion, while continuing the China war without resolution.

In 1940, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, further alarming the United States. American responses escalated gradually to include export controls on aviation fuel and scrap metal, increased support for China, and increased strategic planning for potential conflict with Japan. In July 1941, Japan’s occupation of southern Indochina prompted the United States to impose a freeze on Japanese assets and an effective oil embargo. By this point, Japan was fighting an unwinnable war in China while facing mounting pressure from the world’s leading industrial power.

From the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to the summer of 1941, the Second Sino-Japanese War evolved from a local confrontation into a protracted, brutal, and strategically disastrous conflict. Japan’s inability to control its own military escalation, combined with nationalist ideology and structural flaws in governance, transformed early victories into long-term overextension. For China, the war became one of survival, unity forged through suffering. For Japan, it became the central trap from which all subsequent decisions would follow: southern expansion to the Southwest Pacific region, confrontation with the United States, and ultimately the full Asia Pacific War.

Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archives.