A Letter by Ambassador Grew
In 1932, Joseph Clark Grew came to Tokyo from Washington DC as the ambassdor to the Empire of Japan.
Grew was a cousin of John Pierpont Morgan who founded the Morgan banking empire. Grew got many friends in Tokyo, especially in the upper class of the Japanese society, including the imperial family. He was also a good observer of the Empire without a racial prejudice and preconceived ideas based on the European sense of mastery.
Tokyo, May 11, 1933Truly, to fight until the end, defeat, and occupy any part of the US was not a national aim for the Empire of Japan even when it started to attack Pearl Harbor.
My dear Mr. Secretary:
For your information I am enclosing a copy of a special report from the Military Attaché of the Embassy, describing the Japanese Army's methods of increasing its strength by means of voluntary contributions from the people and indicating, in the closing paragraphs, the tremendous military power which Japan is developing. This report gives an admirable picture of one phase of Japan's fighting strength, but I would like to describe to you, briefly the whole picture as I see it; that is, the strength of the Japanese nation as a whole and particularly the strength of the combined Japanese fighting machine. Japan is so often spoken of as a small, over-crowded nation , cooped up within the confines of a few small islands, without natural resources, and largely dependent upon foreign sources for its foodstuffs, that people in other countries sometimes fail to appreciate the facts and to realize the actual and potential power of these people.
The Japanese Empire is not a small country, as compared with the countries of Europe, at least. The Empire itself, without "Manchukuo," has an area considerably greater than that of France or Germany and much more than that of either Spain or Italy. Including the area of "Manchukuo," which to all practical purposes is under Japanese control, the total area of Japan and its dependencies is greater than that of France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands and Denmark combined. The population of the Japanese Empire proper is 90 millions; with that of "Manchukuo" it is around 120 millions, or nearly the same as that of the United States. And these people (or that part of them which is of the Japanese race) are intelligent, industrious, energetic, extremely nationalistic, war-loving, aggressive and, it must be admitted, somewhat unscrupulous. So Japan cannot be considered as a small or a weak country. Nor is it living on the verge of starvation, keeping the wolf from the door by super-human exertions. Japan can and does raise enough foodstuffs (even without "Manchukuo") to feed the population quite comfortably, and in years of large harvests is embarrassed by the surplus of foodstuffs....
However, although we are faced with this tremendously powerful fighting machine across the Pacific, I think that our anxiety can be lessened by the fact that this machine does not seem to be designed for aggressive action outside of the Far East. The Japanese fighting machine, unless I am very much mistaken, is designed for the purpose of keeping Western nations from interfering while Japan carries out its ambitions in Asia, whatever they may be. It is true that the Japanese fighting forces consider the United States as their potential enemy, and sometimes direct their maneuvers against a potential American attack be sea or air, but that is because they think that the United States is standing in the path of the nation's natural expansion and is more apt to interfere with Japan's ambitious than are the European nations.
Whether directed at us or not, however, I believe that it would be well for us to keep this tremendous Japanese fighting machine in mind when discussing disarmament.
More than the size of the nation or the strength of its fighting machine, however, the thing which makes the Japanese nation actually so powerful and potentially so menacing, is the national morale and esprit de corps-a spirit which perhaps has not been equaled since the days when the Mongol hordes followed Genghis Khan in his conquest of Asia. The force of a nation bound together with great moral determination, fired with national ambition, and peopled by a race with unbounded capacity for courageous self-sacrifice is not easy to overestimate.
Respectfully yours
Joseph C. Grew
The Imperial Government could not withdraw its troops from China though the US requested so. But the Imperial Navy relied on crude oil it imported from the US for fuel of the imperial fleets while the US decided to stop exporting oil to the Empire in the summer of 1941 or several months before the Pearl Harbor attack.
So, in order to secure its freedom of military operation in China and Southeast Asia (to obtain natural resources), the Empire of Japan had to eradicate the interference power of the US. Its war against the US in WWII was not aimed at occupying Hawaii, landing on California, and taking American territory (except its colony the Philippines).
But how did they justify such an adventurous war against the US whose GDP was ten times larger than that of the Empire at the time?
Leaders of the Empire of Japan in late 1930s thought or expected that Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and the Empire of Japan could form an anti-Anglo-Saxon coalition. Nonetheless, Tokyo did not abolish its treaty with Germany despite Hitler's launching a war against the Soviet Union.
Of course, the history should have been very different if the Imperial military had started to attack the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 as Germany was advancing in the territory of the USSR toward Moscow. Imperial leaders actually studied this possible war, but finally they gave up the idea because expected casualties of the imperial troops could not match what it would be able to get in east Siberia. The Imperial Government decided to go and get rich natural resources in Southeast Asia where western powers built great infrastructure through their rule in colonies.
Anyway it was a crazy era as the Empire of Japan was making war against China, the US, and possibly the Soviet Union (though the USSR invaded the Japanese territory of the Manchukuo a week before the Empire surrendered to the US and its allies).
*** *** *** ***
Mar 8:19 When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve.
Mar 8:20 And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven.
Mar 8:21 And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?