Well, the US had little problems with accepting the UK with equal strength in the pacific, while Japan was forced to accept a navial presence in it's, by default, homewaters of a relative strength as the french who btw regarded the area as secondary to french interests, and clearly inferior to either the US or UK as a result of the London and Washington treaties. But yes, one can say that it was unacceptable for the US to allow some asians to rival them, in an area that the US saw as it's cheif area of expansion, while the French and the UK was simply powerfull nations that one had to deal with, and not just cite some homemade doctrine that stated that "we own/control/influence that and this"
They didn't. AFAIK the UK was NEVER (by that I mean post 1850) present in the pacific in as much strength as the US when the US was in a position to do something about it. When the two were comparable the US viewed them as a significant strategic competitor. In 1908 the USN’s “Great White Fleet” came to visit Australia, and even though they were met with crowds of hundreds of thousands of waving Australians, the fleet commander ordered his men to survey the port defenses, simply because the US saw a war with the UK and her ally Japan as likely.
You need to take off the ideological glasses colored by the "morally corrupt westerners" notion. You think the western powers are the only ones who have exploited others throughout history? How come the UK allied with the "subhuman" Japanese in order to take German and Chinese possessions in WW1 if no western power could tolerate an Asian peer? Or is it just the US that can’t see their own national interest through the thick cloud of their pervasive racism? Give me a break. Long term foreign policy trends are not driven by ideology; they are driven by strategic objectives and national interest. You think the western allies fought world war two to stop Nazism? Not a chance in hell. They fought because neither could allow a European power to achieve hegemony over the European land mass. If that happened, said hegemonic power could concentrate vast resources on naval technological advance and construction, and the allies naval dominance would be threatened. To the UK that meant their national survival would be at stake. It didn't matter if it was the Germans, Russians or the French. You think the Germans fought WW2 because of the Nazi's? Nope, WW2 was a continuation of a conflict that began with the unification of Germany and the Franco Prussian war. The western powers did what they could to limit Japanese power after WW1 not because they were racially motivated (although without doubt some of the individual’s were), they did because they saw Japan as a potential threat that had to be contained. They still would have viewed Japan in that light if the Japanese fleet was crewed with white haired blue eyed Aryans. Remember they treated the Germans the same way.
The US isn’t going to tolerate any challenger to its naval dominance and in the early 20th century its major competitor in the pacific basin was Japan. If it was the UK then the US would have fought to challenge or contain the Royal Navy. But in reality throughout the 20th century Britain was a declining power, and she was constantly engaged in massive European struggles and unable to concentrate enough power to realistically challenge US naval dominance in the Pacific. So the reason the US took such stringent actions to strangle Japanese naval power was (1) it had the ability to do so (it didn’t with the UK) (2) Japan had the potential to be a much larger threat than the UK (the UK was a declining power rather than an ascending power, forget about the French). Even as allies in WW2 the US took actions to limit the UK’s naval capability and remove it from the list of potential naval competitors; through the lend lease program the US demanded all the most advantageous Atlantic bases under the UK’s possession. The UK handed the US the keys to the Atlantic, and from that point on US naval domination of the worlds most trafficked ocean was assured. Allies or not the US, like any nation, will act in a manner that allows it to achieve its strategic goals.
Yes, because China was to be raped by westerners only.
If you take the emotive "white devil" ideology out of your analysis (or at least put it in perspective) you will see things much more clearly. I do not doubt that racism existed (or was prevalent) but you’re claiming that it was the driving force behind US foreign policy, which is a ludicrous notion. Any nation would ally with their worst enemy if it allowed them to achieve their strategic goals.
Though the japaneese attacks on China proper as well as the earlier attack on Manchuria came after (and as a result of) the point where Japan (or rather millitary-political circles) realized that Japan had to fend for it self against the US (and by necessity against the Europeans) and could not follow the anglophone policy, that it has pursued since the Mejin periode.
Yes, exactly! Japans aggressive moves were internally seen as defensive. Even Japans pacific drive would have been seen as a measure to protect her from US aggression and to ensure Japanese resource flows which were being used as a weapon against her. Where I think your going wrong is thinking that only Japan was acting defensively. The rapid Japanese military buildup, and military expansion in Korea, Manchuria and China was seen by the US as extremely aggressive, and the various moves Washington took to contain and constrict Japan were seen as purely defensive and a reaction to the militaristic Japanese. Clearly both sides could claim that the “militaristic, evil, feudal Japanese regime” or “racist, imperialist, hypocritical US invaders” were the aggressors, but in reality both nations were simply acting in their own interest, trying to preserve or further their strategic goals and protect their position in the region. Rome and Carthage both acted defensively during the Punic wars even though both powers invaded the others heartland.
I disagree with "those realities still stand today.". In feudal system a country can only prosper through war, since prosperity is equal to land, which is a limited commodity. In a capitalistic system prosperity of one country has as a necessity that other rival countries also prosper, which kind of renders war for conquest and gains old fachioned and pointless.
The problem of the 30ties were that perhaps the economy was capitalistic (except USSR) but the mindset of the political decession makers was feudal (perhaps america in the least degree).
If the above (competion for ressources) is the first (and now obsolete, given our economical system) reason for war, The cold war was an example of the second arch type of war: Religious/ideological war, this is the last type of war which is "modern".
Why is it that people think capitalism somehow prevents conflict from occurring simply because economic growth is to some extent mutually beneficial (its not always politically beneficial for your competitors to be expanding economically)? Pre 1914 Germany used masses of UK capital to fund nation building projects: European capital markets were massively intertwined and any disruption would have cost the various European powers dearly in economic terms. That did nothing to stop WW1 when those powers saw their vital interest at stake.
It wasn’t competition for resources that fundamentally drove the pacific war; that is a clear misunderstanding of the nature of the conflict. The US was a net exporter or resources; it had no need for South East Asian oil. Washington simply used one of its available levers to pressure Tokyo (its economic control over critical resource flows to Japan) in order to contain a potential geopolitical threat. Recourses were a tool not a cause.
The conflict was not driven by the economic system, the model of government or the prevailing ideology of either power either. Those things are usually the reasons governments use to justify conflict driven by deeper geopolitical trends. It wasn’t even driven by a “war of conquest”, feudal style (although feudal wars were usually succession related rather than purely “wars of conquest”). This is pretty clearly illustrated by the apparently ideologically driven “cold war”. Well even though old fashioned communism is as dead as the dodo we are headed for another confrontation along the same lines with the same protagonists. Geography, demographics and economics (Geopolitics) determine a nations’ foreign policy and usually who their friends and enemies are.
Practically all conflict is geopolitical in nature at a fundamental level, the ideology or quest for resources or religion is usually just the catalyst. Even the US jihadist war is not really religious fundamentally; it’s an attempt by the jihadists to stem the demographic changes that are happening in their parent societies and eroding the established power base, due to passive western influence and industrialization. Religion is just the enabler. Wars are not fought for recourses alone, but domination of resources as a way to gain leverage over an opponent, look at the way Russia leverages its domination over central and Eastern Europe’s energy supplies.
The fundamentals of war have not changed since its inception, only the way it is conducted. Truly the cold war would have been instantly understandable to a Roman strategist: Rome was more than used to such conflicts. The Jihadist war would also be very familiar (much akin to the Jewish rebellion, which although appeared to be religious in nature was actually geopolitical). The only thing “modern” about modern wars is the technology and tactics used to wage them. Dividing warfare into “feudal” wars of conquest to secure resources and “ideological/religious” modern conflicts is simply a false distinction in my opinion, as neither are the fundamental drivers of most conflicts, only the catalysts.
I see no, what so ever, fault lines between Japan and the US, instead I see a complete (and aware) inter-dependence.
That’s because you are looking at this from an ideological/political standpoint. i.e. How can two modern, western, capitalist and economically connected allies ever end up in strategic competition again?
The current interdependence is purely political and military, economic interdependence is really only as connected as most other first world nations are to each other (and the American uber-market), and that political and military interdependence only exist as long as there is a significant mutual threat in North East Asia. First it was the Soviet Union, now it’s China. Once the Chinese threat disintegrates the foundations of that political and military interdependence will disintegrate too. Once the Chinese threat is gone, the US will be facing what it always fears, an advanced, dynamic and competent naval power in the pacific basin which is a significant threat to US naval dominance in the region. And Japan isn’t as easy to contain a China (Chinese Geography means its naval approaches are surrounded by US allied nations: Japan, RoK, Taiwan, The Philippines and Singapore. Chinese geography effectively contains itself on land). The Japanese will expand regionally, if not by overt military action then through political and economic hegemonic expansion. They have too; Japan is facing massive demographic issues that can not be fixed in the same manner as the “frontier” nations (Aus, US, Can, NZ) and most European societies (through migration). As Japan expands throughout the region, and she must in order to protect her economic prosperity and long term viability, Japanese interests will not only diverge from the US, they will collide. The US will resist any rising power that reaches a critical mass and is not under hegemonic control. When Japan starts acting unilaterally to address its demographic issues it will no longer be under US hegemonic domination, and it will be a significant naval power.
It has little to do with economic systems, ideology or party politics, and everything to do with long term strategic needs, geographical realities and economic and demographic trends.
As an example of what I’m trying to illustrate I’ll use Australia. Why was Australia so closely aligned to Britain in the first half of the 20th century? You might argue it was the cultural ties that bound the two nations together (most Australian’s considered themselves British at the time) or their economic interdependence (the UK was Australia’s primary market for exports) or perhaps the extremely similar systems of government, or maybe the fact that Australia’s security lay with the Royal Navy. I would argue that it was purely because it was in Australia’s national interest to be aligned with Britain, because London was both the destination for most Australian exports and the dominant naval power in South East Asia. However none of those things stopped Australia from aligning with the US and not the UK in a matter of weeks when the military reality changed. The US was now the dominant naval power in the Pacific and Australia would be aligned with her, even if it went against cultural ties and economic interest (the US was an economic competitor). Almost overnight a seemingly inseparable relationship between the UK and Australia dissolved, and although the two remained friendly the level of political and military interdependence steadily evaporated. This was all because the geopolitical reality shifted and although the two nations remained culturally very close, it was no longer in Australia’s interest to be aligned with the UK (and it has to be said the other way around as well).
Just because the US and Japanese interests converge now doesn’t mean they wont quickly diverge and even collide in the not too distant future.
In regard to China there is a potential for "religious/ideological war" given the facistic nature of the chinese system and the democratic nature of "the west" (which includes japan). We will see - one thing is given, right now there are happening strong fluctations in the geopolitical realities of the east, such stuff is known to cause instabillity.... Ofcourse by "war" I mean "Cold war", two large powers will never go hot on each other (you know: E=MC^2).
Sorry I should probably clarify as well: By conflict I don’t mean 1942 style total war where one society throws itself against another. By conflict I mean cold war, with the possibility of a limited, conventional conflict to establish dominance.
Again I disagree that religion or ideology would be the foundation for any war or conflict with China. The system of government is basically inconsequential (good for morale though, you know “lets kill the commies/imperialists” ect). The fact is the rise of China’s military and her hegemonic ambitions threatens the established security order in the western Pacific, just like the rise of Germany destabilized the European order in the late 1800’s. WW1 had nothing to do with religion or ideology or political systems, and everything to do with geography, demographics and economics. The established security order will resist the destabilizing force, through containment and confrontation. If said destabilizing force is strong enough they will all come to blows, but in this case I don’t believe China is.
It doesn’t take long for former allies to become enemies, as soon as their strategic interests are no longer aligned there is the potential for strategic competition, and in that environment distrust can build quickly. Look at how rapidly the Japanese and British went from allies to dreaded enemies, barely 20 years, simply because their strategic objectives, driven by forces outside of either of their control, converged. It won’t take much for former allies to turn to competitors in the western pacific once again.
