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LTC S -> Strategy, Operational Art, Tactics and Politics (2/27/2001 12:30:00 AM)
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The Great Pacific War was a direct result of a clash between Japanese and everyone else's political objectives.
Japan sought resources to maintain and expand its economy. This was Japan's primary political objective and, eventually, became sacrosanct as did the national strategy to achieve the objective. The Japanese went to war to keep their gains in China.
Japan expanded into East Asia, through the Koreas into Manchuria and then to China. It was her expansion into China that brought on the war. No Japanese government would draw forces from China unless China was completely pacified and open to exploitation or a "friendly" Chinese regime was in power and accepted Japanese infiltration of its government and control over its policies. As long as China, the KMT and the Communists resisted their incorporation into the "Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere", the Japanes would maintain troops in China. The U.S. would not accept a Japanese dominated China, not in 1916 nor in 1940. This is a non-negotiable political impact on strategy, operational art and tactics. Japanes forces committed to operations in China are just not available to other theaters until Japan itself is threatened. The same for the Kwantung Army in Manchuria. The Japanese did not began to raid their forces opposite Siberia for reinforcements for other sectors until 1942 and even then replaced those forces with newly raised units. This was a political decision to maintain strength against the day Japan could exploit the U.S.S.R.'s troubles in the West or shield Japan from a renewed Soviet threat. The primary political option here is to attack Siberia instead of S.E. Asia. The Japanese player can rotate veteran forces south and replenish the K.A. with "rookie" units.
Since Japan refused to withdraw from China, she had to face the prospect of war with the U.S. (and possibly other Western nations). The need for victory in China is what drew her south, into French Indo-China and then to Burma and India, seeking to isolate China from her Western supporters. Another military action as a result of political objectives. The political ramifications of her military actions in support of her political objective resulted in her move on the Dutch East Indies. This finally lead her to Pearl Harbor, because she saw no other way to neutralize the U.S. Her original strategy and operational plan was to destroy the U.S.N. as the most powerful force able to disrupt the national strategy. To do this meant drawing it into the "Decisive Battle". Bypassing the Philippines might have allowed the US to avoid committing its fleet to a offensive through the Mandates. The Japanese saw the attack on the Philippines as an end to a means, not an end in itself. When the IJN decided on Pearl Harbor, it would seem it could have by-passed the Philippines. But technology had moved on, and Japan did not have the resources (as the U.S. did from 1943 on) to undertake a siege or by-pass a Philippines that could be reinforced with air combat units. Finally, the Japanese knew the impact of the "Two Ocean Navy" act as much as we did. She had a limited window of opportunity during which her strategic and operational plan could be successfully executed.
Once the war started, the Japanese national strategy (and political objective) was to hang on to the resources she had grabbed between 1932 and 1942. Her military strategy came down to attriting the U.S. until the U.S. gave up. A limited war strategy against a total war opponent. This was because Japan, even with the resources she was plundering, couldn't fight a total war on multiple fronts. She didn't have enough army, air force, navy, merchant marine or national economy to support all her options, and probably couldn't have supported even one, whether a drive through Burma into India, or an invasion of Australia or Hawaii. Any military action that furthers this strategy is permissible, within the context of the political imperatives discussed above. In other words, the Japanese player will be severely constrained by his attempt to isolate and subdue the Chinese, bluff the Soviets, attrite the Americans and exploit his new resource base. This is not just "historical" but the "logical" impact of internal Japanese politics on her national strategy. Add in the other impact of Japanese internal politics, the constant struggle between the IJA, the IJN and the civil government. It may be more realistic to have three Japanese players, each with their own victory conditions, rather than one. You cannot seperate the political decisions that created the war and shaped it. The Japanese wanted more resources, they had to take it from someone and the impact was that they generated a war they couldn't win, even with 100% efficiency in utilizing the resources they had conquered. The plain truth is that Japan's victory in the Pacific was doomed when she went to war. Her victory depended on political factors that impacted her opponents, which she could not control. Japan's victory in the Pacific could only come with a German victory in Europe. The only other strategic "might-have beens" were an Allied concentration on Europe to the exclusion of the Pacific, with the counter-offensive beginning in 1943 or 1944, instead of 1942, giving Japan more time to dig-in or a German victory in Russia, allowing her to redeploy resources from Manchuria. But keep in mind that Japan could have sunk the entire pre-war U.S. Navy and still have faced an unstoppable jugernaut in 1945. That's historical reality. What the game should challenge the Japanese player with is will he do better than the Japanese did historically as far deflecting and delaying the tempo of Allied successes. The game would challenge the Allied players (again, the game would be better played with multiple Allied players, each with their own victory conditions, which would help replicate some of the political impacts on Allied Pacific strategy) to do better with their resources than the Allies did from 1941 to 45. Or as pointed out above, Allied resources could be constrained due to ahistorical events in the European theater.
As far as Allied strategy and operational plans, the US spent a lot of energy between 1905 and 1941 developing a plan for war with Japan. Despite occassional aberrations, it basically came down to this - give up the Philippines as undefendable (with the resources the US was willing to apply. The interesting point is that a better operational plan on MacArthur's part and a bit more combat power might have pushed US resistence out to a year, rather than the quite creditable six months that was achieved); the Fleet would began the counter-offensive when it was ready, it would proceed through the Mandates (as it was, the multi-polarity of WW2 vs. Plan Orange allowed a secondary approach route and some flexibility in applying it while also creating additional drains on Japanese resources) using airpower as a key ingredient in capturing or neutralizing Japanese bases; it would seek to defeat the Japanese Main Body somewhere between the Mandates and the Philippines in a "Decisive Battle" and then use the Fleet to blockade Japan and acquire bases with bomber range to conduct a strategic air campaign against Japanese industry (this part was developed as early as 1921). The USN was built, equipped and trained with this operational concept as its central tenet. To change this would require changing US defense policy from 1905 to 1941, as changing the historical political context of the game would require changing world and Asian history from 1895, if not earlier. As I pointed out, the best you can do is to simulate the situation and challenge the players to do better than the historical flow, since the outcome is fixed by the political context.
Anyway, as I pointed out above, you can change world history if you like to change the context (this happens if you do Plan Orange)or you can simulate some of the political impacts and constraints through a judicious use of VPs and through multi-player environments where players have different VP objectives, which would then introduce the tension and compromise that marked the war itself.
Finally, please design the game with an open architecture. Such a game would lend itself to both historical and ahistorical sims of the Sino-Japanese of 1895 or Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 or any number of possible conflicts between 1870 and 1945.
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