Military Transformation: The Japanese Army during the 1920s and 1930s
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- Опубликовано: 15 май 2011
- Dr. Edward Drea, Historian, Joint History Office.
Following World War I, the Imperial Japanese Army sought to modernize its weapons and equipment and transform its force structure. For almost two decades, the best and the brightest staff officers assigned to the War Ministry and General Staff grappled with transformation issues as they sought to create a modern force capable of protecting Japanese interests in Northeast Asia. The fundamental question revolved around how to prepare Japan for a future conflict that would require national, industrial, and military mobilization to fight and win a protracted war. Shifting political trends and Japan's weak industrial infrastructure limited the parameters for transformation. This resulted in fierce debates about Japan's future military strategy and diverse theories about total war in the offices of the Army General Staff and the War Ministry that set officer classmates against one another.
The Imperial Army's story of military transformation involves more than weapons procurement and acquisition policies. It was a twenty-year struggle for the soul of the Army. The officer education and promotion systems played central roles in the drama because these determined the choice assignments for future advancement and high command. Between the early 1920s and the mid-1930s, multiple transformative initiatives faltered until one brilliant but eccentric Army colonel seemed on the cusp of achieving the Army's goal of a national mobilization state.
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A clear coverage of a very convoluted period in Modern Japanese History. A good lecture, well delivered, and never boring. I might be a Navy man, but I appreciate the research and effort that goes into this series of excellent lectures.Thanks for posting!
Excellent. Exactly the information I was looking for. What I am missing is the INDUSTRIAL military development in detail.
amazing and well done.not like 90% of the lectures on youtube which just regurgitate basic info
Insight with reason. Is the dilemna of Japan's military modernization at all useful to inform US tendency towards military overextension at the expense of improvement in the core structure of units.
Great lecture, if the IJN and IJA had cooperated instead of being rivals. If Japan had stopped in Manchuria, and built up a war industry. With a tank factory in Manchuria, it would eliminate the need to transport by ship, and they may have developed a better tank than the one's they did. If they waited to the last German offensive on Moscow, to launch a surprise attack in Outer Mongolia, they could have defeated the Soviets. The war practically won. Britain couldn't have defeated the combined Axis powers alone.
Thank you for the lecture. I was always curious about Japan. Japan is very different to the rest of Asia regarding Military policy. Against Russian Communism then attacked China then Pearl Harbour?... what is the Japanese thinking?.. really puzzle me!
34:56 The US needs to relearn this.
This lecture reinforces my view that the Japanese military leadership was delusional. To believe that Japan could defeat the United States and the Soviet Union was sheer madness.
@oldeafcoot
I think the establishment at the time were afraid of a Communist uprising, more so than going on a suicidal endeavour. Remember, Hirohito had no intention to surrender, even after Nagasaki.
Nationalism promoted brain rot, as it often does.
It all began when Commodore Perry forced open ancient Japan to the rest of the world especially to modern west.
And yet...Life went on.
Japan used just 15% of their war production for land warfare, 50% went to navy and 1/3 for air war. But in most of other military powers (with USSR only exception) land war was not a priority by any means. Germans used 70% for air and sea war too and western allied some 75-80%. Armies got not much of production. Only exception was Soviet Union giving some 65% for land warfare. But Red Army warfare was rather backward, primitive taking huge human losses too : 14 241 000 deceased or missing soldiers according latest Russian Military Academy study.
GNU/LINUX .
In short Imperial Japan was a fellow Capitalist Nation in competition with world resource domination; but still for what? Buddha says prestige status and power elite..
Contrary to popular belief, WWII began in Asia in 1931 when Japan invaded and attacked Manchuria, not the 1939 invasion of Poland by Germany!
Well, here's the thing with that - it wasn't a "World War" yet. So, I'm someone who thinks that WW2 merged from two different conflicts - The Second Sino-Japanese War and the Spanish Civil War. One in Asia and one in Europe, and eventually they merged into one Global conflict. That's my belief, but stating that "WW2 started in 1931 when Japan invaded Manchuria" is a statement that defeats itself. What was it that occurred? "Japan invaded Manchuria" okay, so how is it a "World War" again? See what I mean? I personally don't like thinking of WW2 as starting in 1939, because it unintentionally nullifies the violent ramping-up of hostilities in different regions of the world before then - it's a Anglo-Franco version of looking at the war, and I personally don't like taking the view of two countries that sat by with their thumbs up their asses while thousands were already dying in Europe and Asia, but saying that "WW2 started in 1931" - when it's not even a consensus among Historians if the "Second Sino-Japanese War" started in 1931 or 1937 (I personally believe it's the former) - is a false statement, I believe. You're on the right track, but I think you go too far in your characterization of the events.
@@fuzzydunlop7928 If you consider World War as a global conflict, then the First World War was the global conflict between England and France during the 18th/19th centuries. Both powers slugged it out all over the world - India, Southeast Asia, South Pacific, Atlantic, North America, South America and Europe. Interestingly, Winston Churchill wrote the same thing in his voluminous History of the Second World War.
I think I'm going to quote the speaker in my book on Japan's nuclear program during WWII.