Imperial Japan's Forever War, 1895-1945

[soryang]

Imperial Japan’s Forever War, 1895-1945
Paul D. Barclay
Asia Pacific Journal/ Japan focus
September 15, 2021
Volume 19 | Issue 18 | Number 4
Article ID 5635

Abstract: Between 1894 and 1936, Imperial Japan fought several “small wars” against Tonghak Rebels, Taiwanese millenarians, Korean Righteous Armies, Germans in Shandong, Taiwan Indigenous Peoples, and “bandits” in Manchuria. Authoritative accounts of Japanese history ignore these wars, or sanitize them as “seizures,” “cessions,” or occasions for diplomatic maneuvers. The consigning the empire’s “small wars” to footnotes (at best) has in turn promoted a view that Japanese history consists of alternating periods of “peacetime” (constitutionalism) and “wartime” (militarism), in accord with the canons of liberal political theory. However, the co-existence of “small wars” with imperial Japan’s iconic wars indicates that Japan was a nation at war from 1894 through 1945. Therefore, the concept “Forever War” recommends itself for thinking about militarism and democracy as complementary formations, rather than as opposed forces. The Forever-War approach emphasizes lines of continuity that connect “limited wars” (that mobilized relatively few Japanese soldiers and civilians, but were nonetheless catastrophic for the colonized and occupied populations on the ground) with “total wars” (that mobilized the whole Japanese nation against the Qing, imperial Russia, nationalist China, and the United States). The steady if unspectacular operations of Forever War-- armed occupations, settler colonialism, military honor-conferral events, and annual ceremonies at Yasukuni Shrine--continued with little interruption even during Japan’s golden age of democracy and pacifism in the 1920s. This article argues that Forever War laid the infrastructural groundwork for “total war” in China from 1937 onwards, while it produced a nation of decorated, honored, and mourned veterans, in whose names the existing empire was defended at all costs against the United States in the 1940s. In Forever War—whether in imperial Japan or elsewhere--soldiering and military service become ends in themselves, and “supporting the troops” becomes part of unthinking, common sense.

https://apjjf.org/2021/18/Barclay.html

[LT Barclay]

1. In the book "the Imperial Cruise" by James Bradley fault still comes back to the US for sending a

military advisor, some one-eyed civil war vet who encouraged Japan's modernization and militarization.

[soryang]

2. James Bradley

Great historian. His book The China Mirage is remarkable as well. I don't think any other book I've read on Asian history had such an impact except perhaps Bernard Fall's work on Vietnam.

Haven't read the one you mentioned. Thanks for the reference.

No doubt imo that Japan modeled its modern imperialism on the western examples. In fact, the two things modernization and imperialism were felt to go together. Among other examples Ito Hirobumi studied the so called Cromer model English imperialism provided in Egypt. German militarism and state organization was also the subject of great interest in Japan. The problem now is that some of the current crop of LDP leaders are nostalgic about this period and in denial of the excesses in their violent history. I think the description in the linked article of the significance of the Yasukuni Shrine to the Japanese militarist ideology is significant because currently it is undergoing a political and social revival since the advent of the Abe administration.

[LT Barclay]

3. Glad I could help, especially since your knowledge in this area is far greater than mine.

I'll provide one other tidbit. I was traveling and grabbed this book from a free pile to give me something to read on vacation:

https://www.amazon.com/Education-Wandering-Man-Louis-LAmour/dp/0553057030/ref=asc_df_0553057030?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80814158254528&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584413735811657&psc=1

I'm not much of a fan of his work and with his description of his reading habits I'm a bit surprised he never produced any more notable works. But the value of this book is primarily the bibliography in the back. He had a fascination with Asian history and read many books that I would doubt if they were still available.

[soryang]

4. Serendipity

Thanks for the input on Louis. I probably shouldn't admit that I probably read at least ten of his books when I was young. Later, I gave my collection of dog eared paperbacks to my son, who loved them.

I recall reading Last of the Breed in 1987 out of curiosity a bit later in life because of the aircrew survival story in Russia. So I'm guessing this is his last book you mentioned Education of a Wandering Man. I will ask my son for his copy, I never read it.

I started reading Imperial Cruise. I also watched one of Bradley's lectures on the book. The Roosevelt episode with Baron Kentaro Kaneko, the Taft Katsura agreement, the Portsmouth Treaty, is all in The China Mirage too.

This is one of my favorite pictures from that era:


(JTBC News- 11.19.2019) Alice Roosevelt riding a stone horse statue at the Memorial for Empress Myeongsong, acting as if she were "riding a carousel at an amusement park." The Empress had been assassinated by the Japanese in 1895 because she opposed Japanese dominance of Korea. The picture is from the Cornell University Library collection and is displayed in a relatively recent news broadcast highlighting the lack of political sensitivity of contemporary US diplomats and military leaders.