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Post by oldpop2000 on Nov 22, 2022 11:41:32 GMT -6
The Japanese fought two short wars: the Sino-Japanese and the Russo-Japanese. The former lasted one year and so did the latter. However, after their participation in WW1, they realized that modern war was going to be longer and more extensive. They also realized that they had no mobilization plans nor the natural resources to maintain and increase the size of their forces, both Army and Navy.
After WW1, they began to change how they approached war. They began the development of a mobilization plan. They also had to find more natural resources like Iron ore, oil, coal, food sources and room for their country to expand their population. This resulted in the movement into Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and Northern China. In China, after WW1, they acquired some German colonies on the coast and islands. The Japanese were imperialist and wanted to be a world power. But their economics was not capable, at this time. But during the 1920's,, they were a democratic nation and were beginning to industrialize. However, the depression ruined the economics and they felt that democracy and capitalism were no good, and this began the movement toward a military government. It also began the search for more sources of natural resources. This was the birth by the IJN, of the Southern Operation.
The invasions of Manchuria and China initialized the Western Powers embargoes on exports of natural resources plus the purchase of their exports. This is what led to the War in the Pacific. I will say that the Manchurian Campaign was the work of the "out of control Kwantung Army" but it does speak to the lack of governmental control over the army at this time.
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Post by vonfriedman on Nov 23, 2022 2:21:30 GMT -6
During that time the population of Japan was increasing at the rate of 700,000 - 1 million every year. This too had an impact on the political decisions of Japan (and its allies in the Axis) and had its own rationality. Today, however, we are observing aggressive attitudes on the part of nations with a sharp demographic decline.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Nov 23, 2022 7:09:37 GMT -6
During that time the population of Japan was increasing at the rate of 700,000 - 1 million every year. This too had an impact on the political decisions of Japan (and its allies in the Axis) and had its own rationality. Today, however, we are observing aggressive attitudes on the part of nations with a sharp demographic decline. Population increase is one of the reasons they wanted to take over Manchuria. They wanted a place for their people to go and settle.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Nov 27, 2022 12:33:54 GMT -6
The explosion on the rail line near Mukden was the start of WW2. The incident, actually performed by the Japanese army, was as an excuse to invade Manchuria and take it over; thereby creating the state of Manchukuo, which was supposed to be an independent, democratic country with links to Japan. The chaos in Manchuria over the incident was supposed to transfer to the Japanese nation. It did. It created chaos in Japan and pushed the IJA into control. However, it began the process of embargoes from western nations and the League of nation's statements about the incident. All this eventually led to the invasion of China, more embargoes especially oil from the US. This led to the Southern Operation and the rest is history.
The second incident, the one that really set Japan on a collision with the US was the Marco Polo Bridge.
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