Japan’s Master Plan for Victory: What Could Have Been.
Hiromichi MotekiSociety for the Dissemination of Historical Fact, 2020
Originally published as Daitoa senso: Nihon wa shori no hoteishiki wo motteita (HeartPublishers, 2018).
Reviewed by: Tadashi Hama“…Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man
who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose awar; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.”-General George Patton, June 5, 1944, in a speech to the US Third Army.
The dominant narrative of the so-called Pacific War, the conflict between Imperial Japan,
the West and its allies, is that the Japan’s defeat was “inevitable,” even “irresistible”.
“How could a country with a GNP [gross national product] about that of… Canada
expect to win…” against the West? On the other side of the same coin, Japan was written
off as “basically evil,” an “aggressor nation” showing a “total lack of sympathy or respectfor her neighbors.” Logically, according to the dominant narrative, Japan deserved
America’s relentless fire-bombings of all her cities and America’s one-sided nuclear
war—these, in the world of the “dominate narrative,” were “manifestly just”. Even themere thought that there are alternative narratives would be “hateful” to Americans.
Few Japanese historians, as well as most Western historians, have bothered to transcend
the “dominant narrative” in order to clearly understand Imperial Japan’s motivation to go
to war against the West. One possible reason why such a challenge has yet to beundertaken is that it could lead to uncomfortable realizations that the Allies could havelost or could not have achieved the “unconditional surrender” they demanded, as per thePotsdam Declaration of July 1945. A few Americans, though, have mulled over Imperial
Japan’s decision to take on the West.1 General Douglas MacArthur, former Supreme
Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan, stated his thoughts before a US Senate
subcommittee in 1951. MacArthur stated that because Japan was entirely dependent on
the “Asiatic basin,” which supplied “basic materials” necessary for Japan’s survival,
denial to these basic materials would lead to social and economic collapse. Thus,MacArthur stated, “[Japan’s] purpose… in going to war was largely dictated by security.”
While this was likely to be the case, one further wonders if Japan had a plan or a strategy
to prosecute such a critical war for survival.
Author Moteki Hiromichi picks up on the missing thread, of Japan’s strategic plan toensure its own survival by grinding away the US’s will to fight through a series of boldtactical, psychological and economic as well as military maneuvers. Moteki tells us thatthe missing thread that clearly showed that Japan thought carefully of her own survival,
rather than world domination, was the “Draft Proposal for Hastening the End of War
Against the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Chiang Kai-shek,”
Not a few scrupulous American scholars have gone beyond the “dominate narrative” to show the stark
truth and, in return, have been rewarded with condemnation. E.g., Charles Tansill, author of Back Door toWar (1953, Henry Regnery).
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or the “Draft Proposal,” for short. This plan was duly adopted at a Liaison Conference
between Imperial General Headquarters and the Imperial Government, held on November
15, 1941. While Moteki has written extensively on prewar and wartime Japan, he relates
that the “Draft Proposal” was new to him. He has interwoven history that is not very wellknown to Westerners, placing the “Draft Proposal” into context of the times.
A group of civilian economists in the Army War Economy Group, Ministry of War, weretasked to compare Japan’s war fighting potential to that of other nations, especially theUK and the US, and to create a winning strategy based on Japan’s potential. Theeconomists issued a report, “Survey of US-UK Allied Economic Potential, Part 1,” inJuly 1941, which covered not only military strategy but psychological, diplomatic andeconomic strategy as well. The “Survey” was used to guide planning within the Japanesemilitary and following internal discussions based on the “Survey,” “Guidelines for War
Against the US, the UK and the Netherlands” was issued and approved by theDepartment of the Army and Navy, and Imperial General Headquarters, on September 29,
1941. In turn, Lt. Col. Ishii Akio, Ministry of the Army, and Commander Fujii Shigeru,
Ministry of the Nay, utilized the “Guidelines” as the basis of the “Draft Proposal,” which
was adopted by the Liaison Conference.
The “Draft Proposal” spelled out the weaknesses at the time in industrial production ofboth the US and UK. Given the UK’s reliance on American industrial production, it madestrategic sense to attack the UK, and with the UK weakened or unable to continue, Japanwould persuade the US that conflict with Japan would be futile. According to the “Draft
Proposal,” goals were to be achieved by a coordinated Axis effort to stymie the UK’s
position in North Africa and the oil-rich Middle East and to take control of the IndianOcean. While the US sent war material to the UK and later to the USSR via the ArcticOcean route and over the northern Pacific Ocean to Vladivostok, the US also utilized thesouthern Pacific to reach the Indian Ocean to supply the UK and its colonial holdings andthe USSR. Had Japan focused on controlling the Indian Ocean, supplies from the US toher allies would have been effectively cut. In fact, Moteki points out that Prime Minister
Churchill’s expressed his concern to President Roosevelt on April 15, 1942 that should
Japan control the Western Indian Ocean the British position in the Middle East would
collapse and supplies to Russia would be cut. With the UK in a weakened position,according to the “Draft Proposal,” the US would “lose the will to continue hostilities
against Japan.” A number of other goals were spelled out in the “Draft Proposal,” such as
inviting the USSR join with the Axis and allow it to move south into British possessions
such as Persia and India, to remove Western bases in Asia and the Pacific and to attainself-sufficiency of needed resources.
Ultimately, the “Draft Proposal” sketched a concrete plan for national survival, given
Japan’s industrial output and lack of access to resources as defined by the Army War
Economy Group, rather than pie-in-the-sky world domination. The economists stated thatthat Japan did not have a lot of time, in that the US would soon be able to increase
production to supply the UK and that Japan cannot afford to get bogged down into a warof attrition.

2The key question for readers becomes why was the “Draft Proposal” not followed aswritten, as Imperial General Headquarters and both the Army and Navy agreed? Indeed,
modern Japanese historians have either ignored or downplayed the importance of the“Draft Proposal”. At the lowest level, one can shrug and blurt that Allied victory was“inevitable” and “irresistible”. However, as Moteki shows, history is made by men who
are all-too-human.
One example of Japanese tactical consideration based the strengths of the US and UK
was the “Draft Proposal’s” suggestion to move Japan’s Navy to the south, thereby
securing its sea lanes, and to allow the US Navy to move into the western Pacific, and, at
a time of Japan’s choosing, attack and destroy the US fleet. Instead, Japan chased after
the US Navy, attacking Pearl Harbor and later attacking the US Pacific Fleet at Midway.
Behind both disasters, and later battles, such as Battle of Guadalcanal, was Supreme
Commander Yamamoto Isoroku. With the glamorous success of the Pearl Harbor attack,Moteki suggests that Yamamoto pretty much got a free hand running the war in thePacific, with disastrous results. The Army, which had fewer spectacular successes thanthe Navy, kept quiet and went along with the Navy—the Japanese military fell victim to“victory disease”. Victory disease, rather than prudence, dictated Japanese militarystrategy.
The current book could have mentioned another all-too-human personality: Foreign
Minister Matsuoka Yōsuke. While he was keen on signing an alliance with Germany andItaly, the Emperor Showa was not. Nonetheless, the pact was signed on September 1940.
Matsuoka thought that such an alliance would “force the United States to act more
prudently in carrying out here plans against Japan.”2 The US responded by expanding herlist of embargoed goods. Matsuoka also stated that should conflict arise with Germany,
Japan was not obligated to join on the side of Germany. In April 1941, ignoring German
Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop’s words of prudence as well as ignoring awarning from the Japanese ambassador to Germany, Oshima Hiroshi, Matsuoka signed a
non-aggression pact with the USSR, and hoped to get the Soviets to later join an alliance
between Germany, Italy and Japan. In June, the Germans invaded the USSR and theSoviets moved military units from Siberia to defend Moscow. With the USSR in a lifeand-death struggle with Germany, the Japanese strenuously refrained from assisting theGermans, including attacking commercial supply ships from the US headed for the USSR.
At the same tine, forgetting the neutrality pact he signed with Stalin, Matsuoka“recommended an immediate attack on Siberia.” On reading one of Matsuoka’sintercepted cables, President Roosevelt stated that the message was “a product of a mind
which is deeply disturbed and unable to think quietly or logically.”
Moteki has done a great service by getting the “Draft Proposal for Hastening the End ofWar Against the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Chiang Kaishek,” into the light of day and bringing it to the attention of Western historians. Hepoints out that Japanese historians have dismissed any importance of the “DraftProposal”—even two of those related to the preparation of the studies that underlie the“Draft Proposal” denounced it after the end of the war. It is hoped that more primary
2Toland, J. The Rising Sun. NY, NY: Modern Library3

source documents of the Greater East Asia War be released by Japanese scholars. Thewar ended over 75 years ago, and the only survivors of that war who can speak to us in a
detached, unflinching manner are documents of the time.

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