The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War

The Japanese experience of war from the late-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century presents a stunning example of the meteoric rise and shattering fall of a great power. As Japan modernized and became the one non-European great power, its leaders concluded that an empire on the Asian mainland required the containment of Russia. Japan won the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) but became overextended in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1931-45), which escalated, with profound consequences, into World War II. A combination of incomplete institution building, an increasingly lethal international environment, a skewed balance between civil and military authority, and a misunderstanding of geopolitics explains these divergent outcomes. This analytical survey examines themes including the development of Japanese institutions, diversity of opinion within the government, domestic politics, Japanese foreign policy and China's anti-Japanese responses. It is an essential guide for those interested in history, politics and international relations.

• The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949
• On Grand Strategy
• Return of the Barbarians: Confronting Non-State Actors from Ancient Rome to the Present
• The Secret River
• The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire
• Nation Builder: John Quincy Adams and the Grand Strategy of the Republic
• Jihad as Grand Strategy: Islamist Militancy, National Security, and the Pakistani State
• Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The difference and why it matters
• East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute (Contemporary Asia in the World)
• Japan's Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall (Modern War Studies)