http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Bankrupting-the-Enemy/Edward-Stokes-...
Bankrupting the Enemy-
This book is a truly intriguing study. *I had long been interested in
the diplomacy and pressures in advance of the U.S. war with Japan, and
I had heard varying estimates of how severe an economic squeeze U.S.
economic measures put on Japan before Tokyo decided to lash out
against the western powers in 1941. I had typically heard that U.S.
economic measures (the oil embargo and asset freeze) were going to
lead to a stoppage of the Japanese economy and starvation in Japan in
a matter of months. *However, I also had heard a counterargument that
drastically downplays the significance of the oil embargo altogether,
that Japan's civilian economy was powered by coal and would be unhurt
by the U.S. oil embargo, which would mainly have the effect of running
down Japan's naval fuel reserve and crippling Japan's naval options.
(for example of this discussion on usenet, look here:
http://www.historykb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/what-if/10938/Japan-says-no-o...)
The analysis presented in chapter 18 of "Bankrupting the Enemy",
especially the section beginning on page 233, "A Probable Scenario,
1942-1943," does the best job I've seen describing what Japan would
have faced if it had stood pat in the face of the U.S. economic siege
instead of either retreating in compliance with U.S. political demands
or lashing out by occupying Southeast Asia and the western Pacific.
The scenario sketched out falls between the two extremes I outlined in
the paragraph above.
The book's discussion of a probable scenario did leave one important
loose end however, a comparison with the standard of living in Japan
in the actual history of 1942-1945, where Japan moved to seize its
empire in Greater East Asia and was exerting itself in a shooting war
with the U.S. and other western powers.
It seems to me that the data would be readily available to make an
educated comparison between Japan's real wartime economy of 1942-1945
and the hypothetical Japanese economy under a peacetime economic
(financial and trade) siege by the U.S. during the same years.
>From that comparison, we could determine whether Japan's conquests in
Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific did indeed pay off in the short
or medium term, of if in fact Tokyo's quest for autarchy never paid
off at all.
The "probable scenario, 1942-1943," limits Japanese trade to its
pre-1931 empire, plus Manchukuo, occupied China, Indochina and
Thailand. *The Japanese are only fighting a hot war on one frontier,
with the Chinese, which, though costly, is not as intensive in its
consumption of capital, fuel and metals as a war against fully
industrialized powers would be.
Real wartime Japan on the other hand, had the advantage of
*theoretically* getting to place Burma, the Philippines, *Malaya,
Singapore, the East Indies and portions of New Guinea *Oceania into
its trading bloc. *I say theoretically, because that is the data I am
unsure of and which I am trying to get: in the face of sabotage,
dislocation and later interdiction, how much of the desired raw
materials were Japan able to import? On the other hand, in the real
world Japan had the disadvantage of having to sustain high-intensity
military operations against industrialized naval opponents.
The broadened empire should have provided Japan with a lot more oil,
iron, tin and rice. *The Japanese also seized enemy merchant ships and
other loot. *However, I had heard somewhere that damage to Dutch East
Indies oil infrastructure, and Japanese shipping shortages, were such
that the Japanese did not get much oil out of the Indies for two years
after the conquest, and they fought with their prewar stockpiled fuel
reserves during that time. *Is that correct, to your knowledge? By the
time the Indies oil would have come back on-line, the flow was
beginning to be heavily attrited by U.S. submarine warfare.
This all would suggest that Japan was not really able to exploit its
conquests to support production or its standard of living, except
perhaps for a few months in the second and third quarters of 1944.
One could conclude from that, that Japan, under conditions of a
peaceful dollar freeze, would actually have been able to sustain about
the same level of production and living standards, or slightly better,
than real wartime Japan for 1942 and 1943, and for much of 1945. *So
then the question becomes did Japan actually suffer shortages of
fertilizer, clothing and deep seafood and other items contributing to
its standard of living in wartime?
If the post Pearl Harbor conquests made Japan no better off than they
would have been under a peaceful economic siege, it suggests that
although US economic warfare gave Japan a severe "itch", Japan was
incapable of using conquest to "scratch" that itch, even if you leave
out such unanticipated disasters as the US naval counteroffensive to
the Pacific Rim, the massive conventional bombing, the atomic bombs
and the Soviet attack.
Or does the analysis above, seriously underestimate the loot Japan
obtained from its post Pearl Harbor conquests? *I suppose that perhaps
launching the war might have improved Japan's food situation in at
least one respect. *Other than the initial rations they carried with
them, Japanese forces *which were transferred from the inner empire to
Southeast Asia probably lived off of local food supplies, somewhat
lightening the inner empire's food import requirements. *To the extent
that the southern occupation forces were drawn from occupied China,
they lightened the impact on that area as well. *Also, despite
apparent troubles with exploiting East Indies oil, I do not know if
the Japanese inner empire was a net importer of food from the post-
Pearl Harbor conquests. *If it was a net food importer, then conquest
of those areas was a nontrivial bonus from the food perspective.
So, my question fundamentally is this. *Based on what you know, did
Japan earn any net improvement in Japan's economic position by
launching its 1941-1942 offensive and occupying Southeast Asia and the
Western Pacific, or did it merely stay in place or fall behind at high
cost?