I think we're turning Japanese

IN THE NEWS
As the Bush Administration tries to turn the national security bureaucracy and public opinion increasingly against Iran, the natural question is, How serious is the risk of war? With the American position in Iraq continuing to disintegrate, how could any sane person in the US government contemplate expanding the war? With memories of the mendacious PR campaign to invade Iraq, followed by the horribly botched occupation, still fresh, who would listen to the same pitchmen making the same pitch about Iran?

I’m sure that many people hope these questions are rhetorical. American military over-extension, which is doing grievous damage to the US Army and Marines, should be reason enough to take an attack on Iran off the table. (Since there’s little chance that air and sea power alone could eliminate the Iranian nuclear program, or change the Iranian government’s policies, ground attack must be considered as part of any campaign.)

Unfortunately, expanding the war into Iran is not inconceivable. If you think that rational human beings, given these circumstances, could only conclude one way, think again.

In August 1945, the Pacific War was in its final stages. The Imperial Japanese Navy had been smashed to bits, incapable even of assembling its few remaining ships into a fleet. Counterattacks had devolved into suicidal assaults against American ships, planes, or soldiers. The nation had a fraction of the oil needed to continue the war effort. Women and old men were being armed with sharpened wooden spears and drilled to defend the Japanese home islands. American bombers had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and American firebombing attacks had inflicted even greater death and destruction.

Still, the same factions that had driven Japan into conflict with China, the USSR, Britain, and most disastrously, the United States, believed that Japan should continue to fight on. Four years earlier, these same generals and admirals had argued that the only way to solve the deadlock in China was a surprise attack on the United States. By 1945, victory may not be in their grasp, but these leaders believed that preserving national honor was more important than preventing continued, pointless losses. (Of course, having conflated themselves with the national interest, protecting their own careers was, by extension, protecting the nation.)

Had the Emperor not made an uncharacteristically direct, firm, and unambiguous decision to unconditionally surrender, Japan would have fought on. Earlier, the Emperor worried that the militarists might remove him in a coup, if he had made just such a decision. Now, he risked his throne, and possibly even his life, in ordering Japan to end the war.

Emperor Hirohito’s recorded announcement was recorded within the Imperial palace on August 14, to be played on the radio to the nation the following day. A junior officer, Major Kenji Hatanaka, learned of the decision and tried to stop it. Leading his unit of the Imperial Guard, he broke into the palace (a capital offense), searched the grounds for the recordings. Hatanaka threatened Chamberlain Yoshihiro Tokugawa and other members of the Imperial household, and it’s unclear what would have happened if he had confronted the Emperor. Fortunately, Hatanaka never found the recordings, even when he burst into a radio station that was to play the announcement. When the commander of the Imperial Guard, General Giishi Tanaka, learned of the attempted coup and regained control, Hatanaka committed suicide.

Before you object to the comparison, let’s get the obvious dissimilarities out of the way. No, the United States in 2007 is not exactly like Japan in 1945. For example, the US military is obedient to civilian authorities; officers in the Imperial Japanese Army regularly ignored orders from Tokyo, starting and running wars on their own. As awful as American policies on torture and renditioning have been, they do not match the pain and death inflicted by the Japanese military during the Pacific War.

However, if you look at Japan then, and the United States now, you might see some familiar faces. A determined faction of aggrieved nationalists, having gambled the nation’s fortunes on high-risk ventures (the invasion of China or Iraq), now see the expansion of the war as the only way out of the current deadlock. Rather than question the whole enterprise, or the way it is being fought—in other words, to accept criticism—these men would rather find a “solution” through the elimination of foreign support for their enemies (Chinese guerrillas or Iraqi insurgents).

These sorts of men go farther than history should allow if they are propelled by larger, transcendental concerns. In the 1930s and 1940s, many Japanese felt that their government, led by the divine person of the Emperor, should assert its role as a great power. Since 2001, a faction of unilateralists, supported by Christian fundamentalists who believe in a God-sanctioned mission for the United States, have used the 9/11 attacks as the starting point for an effort to re-shape the region of the world most troublesome for US power.

As the failures mount, the transcendental ingredients of this political brew immunize leaders from their own mistakes. Setbacks become a test of faith, not a rebuttal of the original strategy. Normal rules of conduct, such as the Geneva Conventions, become intolerable restraints. Internal dissent becomes a treasonous attack on national will. To hell with what the rest of the world thinks, as long as the government can continue the pattern of lies and apologies, for as long as it keeps foreign leaders stammering in frustration. The worse things get, the more faith has to outshine everything else—diplomacy, democracy, treaties, international law, even mundane tactical questions—for fear that Providence will turn its face away permanently. As nations, Japan in 1945 and the United States in 2007 are very different. As wars, Japan’s conflict in the Pacific is not the same as the US occupation of Iraq. However, many of the stock characters in these two dramas are the same. When these familiar members of the dramatis personae start talking about new enemies, we should take what they say very seriously. They certainly do.

Comments

[A.E.]

Interesting historical comparison. The neocons remind me more of the LeMays and MacArthurs, wanting to drop nukes on Cuba, China, Russia, or wherever else a copy of the Communist Manifesto could be found.

[The Constructivist]

Only worry is that this account minimizes the responsibility of the Emperor and thereby avoids the question of whether he should have been tried for war crimes in the Tokyo trials--two parallels that may let Bush off the hook (as the movie American Dreamz rather naively does, as well)....