Japan’s decision to attack the United States in 1941 is widely regarded as irrational to the point of suicidal. How could Japan hope to survive a war with, much less defeat, an enemy possessing an invulnerable homeland and an industrial base 10 times that of Japan? The Pacific War was one that Japan was always going to lose, so how does one explain Tokyo’s decision? Did the Japanese recognize the odds against them? Did they have a concept of victory, or at least of avoiding defeat? Or did the Japanese prefer a lost war to an unacceptable peace? Dr. Jeffrey Record takes a fresh look at Japan’s decision for war, and concludes that it was dictated by Japanese pride and the threatened economic destruction of Japan by the United States. He believes that Japanese aggression in East Asia was the root cause of the Pacific War, but argues that the road to war in 1941 was built on American as well as Japanese miscalculations and that both sides suffered from cultural ignorance and racial arrogance. Record finds that the Americans underestimated the role of fear and honor in Japanese calculations and overestimated the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a deterrent to war, whereas the Japanese underestimated the cohesion and resolve of an aroused American society and overestimated their own martial prowess as a means of defeating U.S. material superiority. He believes that the failure of deterrence was mutual, and that the descent of the United States and Japan into war contains lessons of great and continuing relevance to American foreign policy and defense decision-makers.

Modern Diplomacy of Capitalist Powers details the problems in bourgeois diplomacy. The book is comprised of 11 chapters that cover the international relation policy of a great power. The text first discusses the characteristics and distinctive features of imperialist foreign policy in the 70s and early 80s. The next chapters deal with the diplomacy of major world powers, which include U.S., France, Federal Republic of Germany, Great Britain, and Italy. The next two chapters cover eastern powers, namely, China and Japan. Chapter 9 tackles the diplomacy of capitalist countries and the disarmament problem. The 10th chapter discusses the diplomacy of the western powers and European security, while the last chapter details the diplomacy of the developed capitalist countries and the United Nations organization. The book will be of great use to individuals who have a keen interest in international diplomacy, particular the diplomatic pattern of the global superpowers.

An easily accessible resource that showcases the links between using documented primary sources and gaining a more nuanced understanding of military history. Primary source analysis is a valuable tool that teaches students how historians utilize documents and interpret evidence from the past. This four-volume reference traces key decisions in U.S. military history—from the Revolutionary War through the 21st-century conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq—by examining documents relating to military strategy and national policy judgments by U.S. military and political leaders. A comprehensive introductory essay provides readers with the context necessary to understand the relationship between diplomatic documents, military correspondence, and other documentation related to events that shaped warfare, diplomacy, and military strategy. Once the stage is set, the work covers 14 conflicts that are significant to U.S. history. Treatment of each of the conflicts begins with a historical overview followed by a chronology and approximately 30 primary source documents presented in chronological order. Each document is accompanied by a description and annotations and by an analysis that highlights its importance to the event or topic under discussion. Designed for secondary school and college students, the work will be exceptionally valuable to teachers who will appreciate the ready-made lessons that fit directly into core curriculum standards.

Contending perspectives on the future of US grand strategy. More than a decade has passed since the end of the Cold War, but the United States has yet to reach a consensus on a coherent approach to the international use of American power. The essays in this volume present contending perspectives on the future of U.S. grand strategy. U.S. policy options include primacy, cooperative security, selective engagement, and retrenchment. This revised edition includes additional and more recent analysis and advocacy of these options. The volume includes the Clinton administration's National Security Strategy for a New Century, the most recent official statement of American grand strategy, so readers can compare proposed strategies with the official U.S. government position.

Throughout its modern history, China has suffered from immense destruction and loss of life from warfare. During its worst period of warfare, the eight years of the Anti-Japanese War (1937-45), millions of civilians lost their lives. For China, the story of modern war-related death and suffering has remained hidden. Hundreds of massacres are still unrecognized by the outside world and even by China itself. The focus of this original hisotry is on the social and psychological, not the economic, costs of war on the country.