Prepared for the IIPS Symposium onJapan’s Position as a Maritime Nation
16 – 17 October 2007
TokyoSession 3
Wednesday, 17 October 2007

The Japanese and British Naval Heritage

Philip Towle
University of Cambridge

1THE JAPANESE AND BRITISH NAVAL HERITAGE
PHILIP TOWLE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Geopolitics
Japan and Britain share many geopolitical features as small, denselypopulated islands, dependent on trade and located off great continents. They have both‘learnt the hard way’ that the sea can be a defensive shield if it is in friendly hands andan avenue for invaders if it is dominated by hostile states. For a thousand years from theRomans to the Normans the British Isles were subject to successive waves of invaders,
it was hardly surprising that the English devoted so much effort, however intermittently,
over the next millennium to building a strong navy and to monitoring political changeon the continent.1 The Japanese tried to isolate themselves from the outside world for
200 years and then also began to build up one of the world’s great navies at the end of
the 19th Century.2
Yet the culture and circumstances of the two states have also been very
different. China was the predominant land power in East Asia until it was crippled byWestern aggression in the 19th Century. Europe, by contrast, has never had such a power
after the fall of the Roman Empire. When a hegemonial state threatened to arise, theweaker states combined against it often financed and led by Britain as the predominant
naval power. European history has, therefore, been more turbulent than Asian, since theobject of the balance has not been to keep the peace but to preserve the independence ofindividual states, however small.3
Historic Precedents
There are, nevertheless, some parallels between the current East Asian situationand the correlation of European forces before 1914. Then, as now, a number of new
great powers had begun to emerge. Just as British naval dominance, investments by theCity of London and Britain’s free trade policy facilitated world-wide economic
development in the 19th Century, so US naval dominance since 1945 and its free trade
policy have enormously benefited the rising powers. The greatest economic andpolitical success story since 1945 has been the export-led development first of Japan,
then of the Asian Tigers and China, and now of India. But Asian economic success has
naturally led to the emergence of new naval and military powers, precisely the situation
which the Europeans failed to manage before 1914. Chun Kun Lee of the Korean
Institute for Maritime Strategy calculated that World military spending fell by 31.4%
between 1985 and 1996 while East Asian spending grew by 39.9%, representing a very1Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond, Statesmen and Seapower, Clarendon, Oxford, 1946;
Garrett Mattingley, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Penguin, Harmondsworth,1962; Norman Longmate, Defending the Island: From Caesar to the Armada, Grafton,London, 1989; N A M Rodger, The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain,
1649-1815, Allen Lane, London, 2004.
2
For a brief history see Stephen Howarth, Morning Glory: A History of the Imperial
Japanese Navy, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1983.
3
Max Beloff, The Balance of Power, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1968.

2
considerable East Asian arms race, particularly when the collapse of the Soviet Navy inthe area is taken into consideration. 4
It is, of course, the rise of China and the Chinese Navy, which causes mostanxiety in Washington and Tokyo. The official 2006 Chinese paper on National
Defence states that:
The Navy aims at gradual extension of the strategic depth for offshore defensive
operations and enhancing its capabilities in integrated maritime operations andnuclear counterattacks. The Air Force aims at speeding up its transition fromterritorial air defense to both offensive and defensive operations, and increasing
its capabilities in the areas of air strike, air and missile defense, early warningand reconnaissance, and strategic projection.5
In fact, the Chinese are apparently not, for the moment, planning to follow the policy
pursued by Germany under Tirpitz and Doenitz of threatening both their potential
enemies’ trade and their main fleet, but rather they seem to see their navy as a wing of
the land forces in the protection of the homeland and its vicinity. Nevertheless, their
2006 paper revealed that the ‘official’, annual average increase in Chinese defence
expenditure from 1990 to 2005 was some 15.35%, despite the end of the Cold War. Of
course the Chinese fleet still does not compare technically with the carrier battle groupsof the US Navy but, like the German High Seas Fleet in 1914, its rise will make it moredifficult for the predominant navy to operate close to its coasts. This is all the more thecase since it would coordinate its activities with land based anti-ship missiles whichhave already proved their effectiveness against the warships of other navies.
Before 1914 the great powers made a number of abortive efforts to enhanceinternational security by reducing the arms race. The Tsar convened the Hague Peace
Conferences of 1899 and 1908 to control military spending, but these succeeded only innegotiating relatively peripheral agreements. Bilateral Anglo-German negotiations toabate the most important naval arms race failed because the Germans insisted that
Britain should promise to be neutral in the event of a continental war and this was
precisely what the British could not agree because of the fear that Germany would
become the continental hegemon.6 In the last days of peace the British Foreign
Secretary, Sir Edward Grey tried desperately to convene a conference to arbitrate thedispute between Austria-Hungary and Germany on one side and Russia and Serbia on
the other, but this too failed because the Austrian and German Emperors insisted thatthe assassination of the Austrian Archduke, Franz Ferdinand was an affair of honour notopen to a negotiated solution.7 The Concert of Europe, arms control and disarmament
had all proved abortive.
One further reason for that failure was the assumption by the European
general staffs that they had to mobilise, or strike first, in the event of a crisis. This
greatly shortened the time available to statesmen to find a solution and enabled thearmed forces to overrule the German, Austrian and Russian Emperors and insist that,once started, their mobilisation timetables could not be halted or reversed, even if this
4Chun Kun Lee, ‘Seapower and security at the close of the Twentieth Century’, inDavid Wilson and Dick Sherwood (Editors), Oceans Governance and Maritime
Strategy, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards NSW, 2000, p 33 ff.
5China’s National Defense in 2006, Information Office, Beijing, 2006, p. 13.
6Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions: German Politics from 1911 to 1914, Chatto andWindus, London, 1975. pp 129-130; Zara S Steiner, Britain and the Origins of the FirstWorld War, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1977, pp. 94-99.
7Prince Lichnowsky, Heading for the Abyss: Reminiscences, Constable, London, 1928.

3made war inevitable. Despite fears expressed at the time, the naval balance was, in fact,more stable. The British First Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher had suggested on a number ofoccasions before 1914 that the Royal Navy should launch a preventive attack to destroy
the German High Seas Fleet before it became too powerful, but, fortunately, thegovernment dismissed his suggestions. The British have pre-empted navies in wartimeat Copenhagen in the Napoleonic Wars and at Mers el Kebir in the Second- but they
have not generally staged preventive or pre-emptive attacks in peacetime. The Japanese
may have gained militarily more than they lost politically by their pre-emptive attack on
the Russian fleet moored outside Port Arthur in 1914, but their similar attack on Pearl
Harbor in December 1941 made the United States absolutely determined to crush its
opponents at whatever cost and however long it took. Powerful democracies are not
likely to compromise, as the Russian autocracy did at Portsmouth in 1905, withoutavenging their hurts.
Wartime Precedents
While Britain gave priority to its navy rather than its land forces, both Services
often languished for lack of finance in peacetime. The consequence was usually a seriesof defeats at the beginning of a great war from whose effects Britain was only saved by
the protection offered by the English Channel. Before the Battle of Trafalgar in October1805 and again before the Battle of Britain in 1940, the country was under direct threatof invasion. Only once, before the First World War because of the efforts of Sir JohnFisher, was the Royal Navy generally well prepared for the ensuing conflict with many
more battleships than the High Seas Fleet and with most battleships withdrawn to homewaters and the Mediterranean, thanks to the Anglo-Japanese alliance.8 In the inter-war
period the Royal Navy was much less successful than the Imperial Japanese Navy or theUS Navy in developing large aircraft carriers with the most modern aircraft- adevelopment which was all the more ironic since the RN had pioneered this area. Thiswas in part due to faulty RN doctrine, partly due to continual financing problems and,above all, due to the way in which priority was given to the Royal Air Force andparticularly bombers in the 1930s, at the expense of RN aircraft. 9
In the Falklands War, the RN’s last major engagement, its forces had beendeveloped for anti-submarine operations in the North Atlantic on the assumption that
the Soviets would be the enemy. Instead, the Royal Navy had to cope with Argentine
anti-air operations in the South Atlantic despite the lack of airborne early warning
aircraft or conventional fighters. The consequence was, and was expected to be, the lossof a number ships including two cruisers and a converted helicopter carrier during therecapture of the Islands. However the British claimed to have shot down at least 72
Argentine aircraft, 20 of those by STOVL Sea Harriers and 21 with shipborne
missiles.10 It was a typical triumph of determination over resources.
Despite inadequate finances, the British naval tradition, following Sir Francis
Drake and Admiral Nelson, has been offensive. In practice, this was often
disadvantageous, as when the RN was reluctant to form convoys of merchant ships
8Arthur J Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, five volumes, Oxford
University Press, 1961-1970; Jon Tetsuro Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy
1889-1914, Routledge, London, 1989.
9Richard Harding, (Editor), The Royal Navy 1930-2000, Frank Cass, London, 2005,
chapter three; Andrew Field, Royal Navy Strategy in the Far East 1919-1939, FrankCass, London, 2004.
10The Falklands Campaign: The Lessons, Cmnd 8758, London, December 1982.

4against submarine attacks during the First World War and almost starved the country asa consequence.11 The Imperial Japanese Navy similarly failed to devote sufficientattention to the protection of seaborne trade in the Second World War with calamitous
affects. By the end of the conflict, Japan and the whole of its Empire were reverting to a
subsistence economy and slowly starving.12 The Japanese armed forces were both
extremely daring and resourceful, often carrying out operations which Occidental armed
forces would have regarded as impossible, such as using their air forces in a number oftheatres at the same time and transporting personnel over the sea before maritime
control had been gained. This paid off during the first phase of the war, it became
increasingly wasteful as the tide of battle turned against them.13
The Royal Navy is currently following its tradition of preparing for offensive
operations by procuring two aircraft carriers over 50,000 tons, more than twice the sizeof the Harrier carriers currently in operation. Equally, it is still hampered by peacetime
finances, and the procurement of suitable Joint Strike Fighters for the carriers from theUnited States is currently causing budgetary problems because the RAF is rearmingwith Typhoon aircraft, the RN also needs to replace the Trident submarines and thearmy needs fighting vehicles appropriate for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In contrast, the Maritime Self Defence Force has been based on much greater
financial stability and has focused its attention on convoy protection. This focus ishardly surprising given the experience of the Second World War and Japan’s position asa maritime nation. The MSDF is slightly larger than the Royal Navy with some 44,000
personnel against under 40,000 in the Royal Navy and with the International Institutefor Strategic Studies listing over 53 principal surface combatants in the MSDF against
34 in the RN.14
Conclusion
Both the Royal Navy and the Maritime Self Defence Force operate in uncharted
waters because they depend upon their stronger ally to balance the power of potential
enemies. Japan, the other Asian nations and the United States have to manage the reemergence of China as a great power without a calamity of the sort that the Europeansbrought upon themselves in 1914 and 1939. There are many more maritime andterritorial disputes in East Asia today between Japan and Korea, Korea and China,Taiwan and China, China and Japan, Russia and Japan, than there were between themajor European nations before the First World War; then the only significant one was
between France and Germany over Alsace and Lorraine and the French were not goingto wage war over that issue. Naval power and the introduction of confidence building
measures between navies are going to play a major role in Asia and the Pacific overcoming decades.
On the positive side is, firstly, the cat’s cradle of regional bodies to improve
relations which the Asian states have established in recent decades and which are of a11John Winton, Convoy: The Defence of Seaborne Trade 1890-1990, Michael Joseph,London, 1993: John B Hattendorf el at, (Editors), British Naval Documents, ScolarPress, Aldershot, 1993, pp.76-766.
12
Philip Towle, From Ally to Enemy: Anglo-Japanese Military Relations 1900-45,
Global Oriental, Folkestone, 1905, chapter 10.
13
Jeremy Black (Editor), The Second World War Volume 111: The Japanese War 19411945, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007, pp. 160, 172.
14
The Military Balance 2006, Routledge, 2006.

5sort undreamt of in Europe before 1914.15 Secondly, trade between the USA and Chinais now regarded as symbiotic, rather than strictly competitive, as Anglo-German trade
was before 1914.16 Thirdly, all the major regional powers, -Japan, China and theRepublic of Korea- have played a constructive role in the recent Six Party Talks on theNorth Korean nuclear programme which appear, as of September 2007, to have beensuccessful. Fourthly and most importantly, the nuclear arsenals of the Great Powers
have made them much more cautious about allowing themselves to be drawn into
conflicts than their predecessors were in 1914.

15Melissa G Currey and Nicholas Thomas Editors, Advancing East Asian Regionalism,
Routledge, London and New York, 2007.
16
Bernard Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform, George Allen and Unwin, London,
1960.