Accession Number:

ADA561362

Title:

Unconscious Provocations - America and Japan Before 1941

Descriptive Note:

Strategy research project

Corporate Author:

ARMY WAR COLL CARLISLE BARRACKS PA

Personal Author(s):

• Martin, Eric D.

Report Date:

2012-03-20

Pagination or Media Count:

30.0

Abstract:

Rising powers, such as China, present a challenge to those powerful nations that are responsible for maintaining the international system of security, law, and commerce. Those rising powers seek a greater influence and authority commensurate with their new found power. Historically, this confrontation between new and old has led to catastrophic wars. Beginning in 1894 and ending in 1945, a rising Japanese empire challenged European and American nations in the Pacific and China and reaped a disastrous war that destroyed their country. This war between Japan and the United States was not inevitable. A series of misunderstandings, misjudgments, brinksmanship, and misguided policy led the two countries to war. Some of these misguided policies taken in the early twentieth century are being employed again by the United States and by China today. As with Japan, war is not inevitable, but a sophisticated foreign policy approach toward China is America s most prudent course.

Descriptors:

• *FOREIGN POLICY
• *INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
• BALANCE OF POWER
• CATASTROPHIC CONDITIONS
• CHINA
• CONFRONTATION
• DETERRENCE
• JAPAN
• UNITED STATES

Subject Categories:

• Government and Political Science

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE