Abstract

How Our Enemies Fight

Japanese policy has a resemblance to that of Britain before the latter in 1585 abandoned its attempts to dominate Europe and adopted the theory of Continental balance of power and an overseas empire. The opening of the Sino-Japanese conflict in 1937 marked Japan's first large-scale bid for world power. Far too little attention was paid to the purely military aspects of this campaign; if one had followed it more closely, some of the surprises which Japan had in store for one might not have been so shocking. The third phase of Japanese operations, that against the American-British-Dutch possessions, was a masterpiece of campaigning by air, sea, and land. Japan moved an estimated 300,000 combat troops formed into task forces over millions of square miles of land and sea, everywhere with complete success.