Sarah Paine — Why Japan lost WWII (lecture & interview)

This is the second episode in the trilogy of a lectures by Professor Sarah Paine of the Naval War College.

In this second episode, Prof Paine dissects the ideas and economics behind Japanese imperialism before and during WWII. We get into the oil shortage which caused the war; the unique culture of honor and death; the surprisingly chaotic chain of command. This is followed by a Q&A with me.

Huge thanks to Substack for hosting this event!

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

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Buy Sarah's Books!

I highly, highly recommend both "The Wars for Asia, 1911–1949" and "The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War".

Timestamps

(0:00:00) - Lecture begins

(0:06:58) - The code of the samurai

(0:10:45) - Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism

(0:16:52) - Bushido as bad strategy

(0:23:34) - Military theorists

(0:33:42) - Strategic sins of omission

(0:38:10) - Crippled logistics

(0:40:58) - the Kwantung Army

(0:43:31) - Inter-service communication

(0:51:15) - Shattering Japanese morale

(0:57:35) - Q&A begins

(01:05:02) - Unusual brutality of WWII

(01:11:30) - Embargo caused the war

(01:16:48) - The liberation of China

(01:22:02) - Could US have prevented war?

(01:25:30) - Counterfactuals in history

(01:27:46) - Japanese optimism

(01:30:46) - Tech change and social change

(01:38:22) - Hamming questions

(01:44:31) - Do sanctions work?

(01:50:07) - Backloaded mass death

(01:54:09) - demilitarizing Japan

(01:57:30) - Post-war alliances

(02:03:46) - Inter-service rivalry

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