Swamprat
Posts: 129
Joined: 8/30/2005
From: Shrewsbury UK
Status: offline
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Japanese atrocities appear to us as quite medieval. Slaughtering prisoners was normal then, and not that unusual even up the 17th century in places. It's normal in Africa right now.
In the 19th Century Japan was medieval, with a medieval system of feudalism and religion, long since forgotten in the west. It was also isolationist and distrustful of outsiders (the gaijin). It didn't bother anyone and it didn't want to be bothered. It was a pastoral, agricultural economy, deeply infused with tradition. America at the time was a rising capitalist economy. It was making inroads into East Asia, competing against Europe. Competing hard. America was a fast rising nation. Japan wouldn't open it's doors to America's trade. Japan rejected trade deals and expelled missionaries and merchants that the Japanese thought were trying to change japanese life (imagine muslims converting citizens in the US and ushering in Sharia law, for instance).
America wasn't about to leave Japan alone. The economic stakes in the world were too high. The potential market too lucrative. So US gunboats sailed into Tokyo harbour and shelled Tokyo. And the Japanese, having no guns or technology, could do nothing about it. Which of course was the whole point of the exercise, to show the Japanese leaders that the US was too mighty to resist, and it would be better for them if they just quietly open their doors and let the world in; more specifically, American trade. It was a minor incident in the west, but a humiliation to the Japanese.
So the Japanese were dragged into the world. And if they had to surrender to the new ways of the world, then they decided that they must learn to master it. So they sought the assistance of the Prussians in training their army (and not Tom Cruise or the Americans) in modern warfare. And they industrialised. And their economy grew. But Japan has no natural resources. And if they didn't want to be simply exploited by the US and European powers, then they needed access to them. But such access was controlled by the western powers. Japan was now an ascendent nation. And like all ascendent nation, it began extending it's 'spheres of influence'. In other words it started to carve out an empire. It did so in Korea. But it did so especially in China.
China was already the playground of the west. The British had subdued it the way they subdued the zulus, in order to be able to sell opium to the world. The US were in there too and had slaughtered the boxers during their rebellion. All over Asia the western white man was showing that he had the technology and the superior means. And he was importing his superior religion too. And his superior morals - affecting for instance Japanese erotic art and the rights of samurai to wear swords.
So when Japan went into China, the US reacted hard. Here was a real threat to US dominance in the region - the Japanese had learned from the west and had a technological army, modeled on western lines. And they were in a better position to control the vast and politically shattered country of China.
The US responded by cutting off oil supplies to Japan, using it as a lever to force Japan to abandon China. Japan was helpless against this. It's navy badly needed oil. It's industrial economy badly needed it. But if it back down now it could find itself coralled back on it's home island, watching the west take over all of Asia and making a mockery of those 'little yellow johnnies'.
The attack on Pearl Harbour did not come out of the blue. It was not a stab in the back - that's just a politician's phrase. It was a battle for sheer survival. It was David lobbing a stone first at Goliath, hoping to hit the eye because he would not survive Goliath's first telling blow with his club. It was pre-emptive strike, a dreadful gamble. It was a blow to ward off US might while the Imperial navy swept down through Asia, aiming for dutch oil fields. And it was a gamble that failed - in fact was probably doomed from the start.
It wasn't about the Japanese being evil and wanting to rule the world. It was Geopolitics, as practiced by all nations at all times, but without the face-saving pretexts that the west is so obsessed with but which the East (and the middle-east) just sees as ploys to cover up intent.
Pearl Harbour was the rebound from those shells that landed on Tokyo houses some 100 years before. But that's how geopolitics works in history. There are no baddies really, just actions, consequences and people's natural distrust of strange folk.
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Player discomfort? - 
RE: Player discomfort? - 
And this makes me even more driven to explore this aspect of gaming and SPWAW. 
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