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日本为何输掉二战（以及一位历史学家如何认为他们可能获胜）
2019 年 8 月 6 日 主题： 安全博客 Brand： The Buzz Tags： 日本二战军事科技历史
所有原因
作者：詹姆斯-霍姆斯
令人费解的是，日本海军在 "战列舰之列"（Battleship Row）仍然火热的时候，却忽略了美国太平洋舰队已经启动的行动：释放其潜艇部队，击沉任何悬挂敌军旗帜的船只，无论是海军还是商船。
让我们面对现实吧。 日本帝国几乎没有机会在与美国的决战中获胜。 决心和资源说明了原因。 只要美国人保持冷静，要求他们的领导人坚持到底，华盛顿就有责任将共和国巨大的工业潜力转化为几乎不可阻挡的舰船、飞机和军备舰队。 对于经济规模仅为美国十分之一的岛国日本来说，这样的实力差距根本无法逾越。
编者注：请参阅我们的其他 "五种方式 "文章，包括 D日可能成为灾难的五种方式》和《核战争仍可能发生的五种方式》。
量变产生质变。 再强的意志力或再高超的武艺也无法弥补数量上的巨大差距。 珍珠港事件后，东京面临着这种困境。
(本文首发于几年前）。
因此，日本不可能击溃美国在太平洋的海上力量，也不可能向华盛顿强加条件。 但这并不意味着它不可能赢得第二次世界大战。 听起来有悖常理，不是吗？ 但弱者有时也会获胜。 正如战略先贤卡尔-冯-克劳塞维茨（Carl von Clausewitz）所言，历史上弱者得逞的例子不胜枚举。 事实上，克劳塞维茨指出，有时较弱的竞争者挑起战争是有道理的。 如果其领导层认为武力是唯一的手段，如果趋势线看起来不利--换句话说，如果现在是最好的时机--那么为什么不采取行动呢？
伟大的卡尔认为，赢得战争有三种基本方法。
第一，你可以击败敌人的武装力量，并随心所欲地提出任何条件。 除此以外，
第二，你可以向敌人征收比他为达到目的所愿意付出的更高的代价。 交战方赋予其政治目标的价值决定了他准备为这些目标耗费多少资源，以及耗费多长时间。 采取措施迫使对手消耗更多的生命、军备或财宝是提高代价的一种方式。 拖延时间，让对手长期付出沉重代价是另一种方法。
第三，你可以让他心灰意冷，说服他不可能实现战争目标。
一个沮丧的对手，或者一个对战争成本望而却步的对手，是一个顺从的对手。 他尽可能达成最好的协议，以摆脱困境。
如果东京无法在军事上取得胜利，那么在太平洋地区，后两种方法仍然可用。 日本指挥官本可以节约资源，缩小交战双方的兵力差距。 他们本可以让美国在冲突中付出更大的代价，承受更多的痛苦，延长冲突的时间，从而削弱美国的决心。 或者，他们本来可以避免激起美国的怒火，一开始就发动全面战争。 通过放弃对夏威夷的攻击，他们本可以削弱对手的决心，或许还可以让对手完全靠边站。
一句话，没有任何可能的绝招--没有任何单一的计谋或致命一击--能打败美国。 相反，日本指挥官本应减少战术上的思考和行动，而更多地从战略角度出发。 这样，他们就能提高日本的胜算。
这就是日本可能获胜的五种方式。 现在，下面列出的项目远非相互排斥。 如果日本领导层将所有这些措施都付诸实施，那么日本的前景将会更加光明。 当然，其中一些措施的实施需要领导层具有超凡的远见卓识。 而日本摇摆不定的天皇和争吵不休的军事统治者却严重缺乏远见卓识。 他们是否有可能采取明智的行动还有待商榷。 说完这些注意事项，我们继续！
- 一次发动一场战争。
即使是最强大的作战者也必须保护敌人。 对于胸怀大志的小国来说，必须避免与眼前的所有人开战。 对日本来说，严明战争纪律尤为困难，因为日本的政治体制是以德意志帝国为蓝本的，日本帝国陆军和海军（IJA 和 IJN）之间各自为政，没有任何有意义的文官政治监督。 由于没有一个强大的天皇，陆海军可以自由地在军种间单打独斗，争夺影响力和威望。 日本陆军将目光投向了亚洲大陆，在那里，满洲，然后是中国本土的陆地战役正在向他们招手。 日本海军则力图在东南亚开展以资源为目标的海上战役。 1931 年至 1941 年间，日本屈服于这些相反的冲动，实际上是主动与敌人为敌--先入侵满洲和中国，再向东南亚的帝国主义列强发动进攻，最终偷袭珍珠港。 任何有价值的战术家都会告诉你，360 度的威胁轴线--四周都是威胁--会让人感到危险。 东京本应确定优先事项。 如果它能按顺序行事，或许就能实现一些目标。
- 听听山本的意见。
据说山本五十六海军大将曾告诫他的上司，日本必须迅速取得决定性的胜利，以免唤醒美国这个 "沉睡的巨人"，给日本带来致命的后果。 山本预言，在美国集结全部力量作战之前，日本海军可能会肆虐六个月，甚至一年。 在此期间，日本需要让美国社会目瞪口呆，以达成妥协和平--实际上是瓜分太平洋--同时巩固岛屿防线，将日本武装赢得的亚太领土围起来。 如果日本的努力失败了呢？ 美国工业将大量生产武器装备，而根据1940年《两洋海军法案》建造的新舰艇--实际上是第二支庞大的美国海军--将开始抵达战场。 平衡将发生不可逆转的变化。 简而言之，山本五十六警告军事领导人不要 "照本宣科"，也不要假定敌人会像他们预见的那样行事。 这位海军将领对美国有一定的了解，也明白美国人倾向于打破先入为主的观念。
不要听山本的。
如果说山本五十六海军大将在战略层面上提出了明智的建议，那么在作战层面上却令人怀疑。 他解决美国潜在物质优势问题的办法是打击海军学家眼中的敌方力量中枢--对手的战斗舰队。 几十年来，日本海军的计划人员一直设想发动 "拦截行动"，在美国太平洋舰队向西航行时拖慢并削弱其实力，大概是为了救援菲律宾群岛。 一旦部署在离岛的飞机和潜艇将太平洋舰队的规模削减到一定程度，日本战斗舰队就会发动一场决战。 然而，山本说服了日本海军指挥官，放弃了拦截行动，转而在珍珠港实施突然打击。 但实际上，驻扎在夏威夷的战列线并不是美国海军力量的核心。 新生的两洋海军法案舰队才是。 因此，山本五十六的计划所能达到的最大效果就是将美国的反攻推迟到 1943 年。 东京最好还是坚持战时计划，因为这会增加美国的成本，延长作战时间，并有可能削弱美国的毅力。
- 集中而非分散资源。
正如日本官员似乎无法将自己限制在一次战争中，他们似乎也无法限制积极行动和战区的数量。 看看日本 1942 年的行动就知道了。 日本海军特混舰队出击印度洋，在锡兰岛附近给英国东方舰队造成了珍珠港事件。 他们认为有必要在中途岛海战中通过攻击偏远的阿留申群岛来巩固北翼。 他们通过在所罗门群岛开辟第二战场，扩大了帝国的外围防御范围，并承担了巨大的新水域防御任务，妄图阻断连接北美与澳大利亚的海上航线。 战斗力较弱的国家在进行新的冒险之前，有责任扪心自问，从二级战区获得的利益是否特殊，以及在最重要的战区面临的风险是什么。 日本可动用的资源较少，但由于其战略上的不守纪律，其付出的代价比美国更高。
- 发动无限制潜艇战。
令人费解的是，日本海军忽视了美国太平洋舰队在战列舰船队还在火热进行时就已经开始的行动：释放潜艇部队，击沉任何悬挂敌军旗帜的船只，无论是海军还是商船。 到 1945 年，美国潜艇切断了连接岛国各部分的航道，肢解了岛国帝国。 日本潜艇与美国海军潜艇不相上下。 日本海军指挥官本应查看航海图，了解美国海军必须穿越数千英里的海域才能抵达西太平洋这一事实，并指示潜艇艇长将跨太平洋海道设为美国航运的禁区。 很难想象还有比这更直接、更符合成本效益的计划，日本海军可以借此让对手付出惨重的代价。 忽视水下作战是一种严重的作战过失。
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August 6, 2019 Topic: Security Blog Brand: The Buzz Tags: JapanWorld War IIMilitaryTechnologyHistory
All of the reasons.
by James Holmes
Inexplicably, the IJN neglected to do what the U.S. Pacific Fleet set in motion while Battleship Row was still afire: unleash its submarine force to sink any ship, naval or merchant, that flew an enemy flag.
Let's face it. Imperial Japan stood next to no chance of winning a fight to the finish against the United States. Resolve and resources explain why. So long as Americans kept their dander up, demanding that their leaders press on to complete victory, Washington had a mandate to convert the republic's immense industrial potential into a virtually unstoppable armada of ships, aircraft, and armaments. Such a physical mismatch was simply too much for island state Japan -- with an economy about one-tenth the size of America's -- to surmount.
Editor's Note: Please see our other "Five Ways" articles including: Five Ways D-Day Could Have Been a Disaster and Five Ways a Nuclear War Could Still Happen.
Quantity has a quality all its own. No amount of willpower or martial virtuosity can overcome too lopsided a disparity in numbers. Tokyo stared that plight in the face following Pearl Harbor.
(This first appeared several years ago.)
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So Japan could never have crushed U.S. maritime forces in the Pacific and imposed terms on Washington. That doesn't mean it couldn't have won World War II. Sounds counterintuitive, doesn't it? But the weak sometimes win. As strategic sage Carl von Clausewitz recounts, history furnishes numerous instances when the weak got their way. Indeed, Clausewitz notes that it sometimes makes sense for the lesser contender to start a fight. If its leadership sees force as the only resort, and if the trendlines look unfavorable -- in other words, if right now is as good as it gets -- then why not act?
There are three basic ways to win wars according to the great Carl. One, you can trounce the enemy's armed forces and dictate whatever terms you please. Short of that, two, you can levy a heavier price from the enemy than he's willing to pay to achieve his goals. The value a belligerent assigns his political objectives determines how many resources he's prepared to expend on those objectives' behalf, and for how long. Taking measures that compel an opponent to expend more lives, armaments, or treasure is one way to raise the price. Dragging out the affair so that he pays heavy costs over time is another. And three, you can dishearten him, persuading him he's unlikely to fulfill his war aims.
A disconsolate adversary, or one who balks at the costs of war, is a pliant adversary. He cuts the best deal he can to exit the imbroglio.
If a military triumph lay beyond Tokyo's reach, the second two methods remained available in the Pacific. Japanese commanders could have husbanded resources, narrowing the force mismatch between the warring sides. They could have made the conflict more costly, painful, and prolonged for America, undercutting its resolve. Or, alternatively, they could have avoided rousing American fury to wage total war in the first place. By foregoing a strike at Hawaii, they could have enfeebled the opponent's resolve or, perhaps, sidelined the opponent entirely.
Bottom line, no likely masterstroke -- no single stratagem or killing blow -- would have defeated the United States. Rather, Japanese commanders should have thought and acted less tactically and more strategically. In so doing they would have improved Japan's chances.
Which brings us to Five Ways Japan Could Have Won. Now, the items catalogued below are far from mutually exclusive. The Japanese leadership would have boosted its prospects had it embraced them all. And granted, enacting some of these measures would have demanded preternaturally farseeing leadership. Foresight was a virtue of which Japan's vacillating emperor and squabbling military rulers were woefully short. Whether it was plausible for them to act wisely is open to debate. With these caveats out of the way, onward!
- Wage one war at a time. Conserving enemies is a must even for the strongest combatants. It's imperative for small states with big ambitions to avoid making war against everyone in sight. Imposing discipline on the war was particularly hard for Japan, whose political system -- patterned on Imperial Germany's, alas -- was stovepiped between the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy (IJA and IJN), with no meaningful civilian political oversight. Absent a strong emperor, the army and navy were free to indulge their interservice one-upsmanship, jostling for influence and prestige. The IJA cast its gaze on continental Asia, where a land campaign in Manchuria, then China proper, beckoned. The IJN pushed for a maritime campaign aimed at resources in Southeast Asia. By yielding to these contrary impulses between 1931 and 1941, Japan in effect surrounded itself with enemies of its own accord -- invading Manchuria and China before lashing out at the imperial powers in Southeast Asia and, ultimately, striking at Pearl Harbor. Any tactician worth his salt will tell you a 360-degree threat axis -- threats all around -- makes for perilous times. Tokyo should have set priorities. It might have accomplished some of its goals had it taken things in sequence.
- Listen to Yamamoto. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto reputedly cautioned his superiors that Japan must win a quick, decisive victory lest it awaken the American "sleeping giant" with fateful consequences for Japan. The IJN, prophesied Yamamoto, could run wild for six months -- maybe a year -- before the United States mustered its full power for combat. During that interval, Japan needed to stun American society into a compromise peace -- in effect a partition of the Pacific -- while firming up the island defense perimeter enclosing the Asia-Pacific territories won by Japanese arms. What if its efforts fell short? U.S. industry would be turning out armaments in massive quantities, while new vessels laid down under the Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940 -- in effect a second, bulked-up U.S. Navy -- would start arriving in the theater. The balance would shift irretrievably. In short, Yamamoto warned military leaders against "script-writing," or assuming the enemy would do precisely what they foresaw. The admiral knew a thing or two about the United States, and understood the American propensity to defy preconceptions.
- Don't listen to Yamamoto. If Admiral Yamamoto rendered wise counsel on the strategic level, it was suspect on the operational level. His solution to the problem of latent U.S. material superiority was to strike at what navalists saw as the hub of enemy power -- the adversary's battle fleet. For decades IJN planners had envisioned waging "interceptive operations" to slow down and weaken the U.S. Pacific Fleet as it steamed westward, presumably to the relief of the Philippine Islands. Once aircraft and submarines deployed to outlying islands whittled the Pacific Fleet down to size, the IJN battle fleet would force a decisive battle. Yamamoto, however, convinced IJN commanders to jettison interceptive operations in favor of a sudden blow at Pearl Harbor. But in reality, the battle line stationed in Hawaii wasn't the core of American naval strength. The nascent Two-Ocean Navy Act fleet was. The best that Yamamoto's scheme could accomplish, consequently, was to delay an American counteroffensive into 1943. Tokyo may have been better off sticking with the interwar plan, which would have driven up U.S. costs, protracted the endeavor, and potentially sapped U.S. perseverance.
- Concentrate rather than disperse resources. Just as Japanese officials seemed incapable of restricting themselves to one war at a time, they seemed incapable of limiting the number of active operations and combat theaters. Look no further than Japanese actions in 1942. IJN task forces struck into the Indian Ocean, inflicting a Pearl Harbor on the British Eastern Fleet off Ceylon. They saw the need to shore up the northern flank at the Battle of Midway by assaulting the remote Aleutian Islands. And they extended the empire's outer defense perimeter -- and assumed vast new waterspace to defend -- by opening a secondary theater in the Solomon Islands, in a vain effort to interrupt sea routes connecting North America with Australia. It's incumbent on the weaker combatant to ask itself whether the gains from secondary enterprises are exceptional, and what it risks in the most important theaters, before undertaking new adventures. Japan, which had fewer resources to spare, raised the costs to itself -- more than the United States -- through its strategic indiscipline.
- Wage unrestricted submarine warfare. Inexplicably, the IJN neglected to do what the U.S. Pacific Fleet set in motion while Battleship Row was still afire: unleash its submarine force to sink any ship, naval or merchant, that flew an enemy flag. By 1945, American boats dismembered the island empire by severing the shipping lanes connecting its parts. Japanese submarines were the equals of their U.S. Navy counterparts. IJN commanders should have looked at the nautical chart, grasped the fact that U.S. naval forces must operate across thousands of miles of ocean simply to reach the Western Pacific, and directed sub skippers to make the transpacific sea lanes no-go zones for American shipping. It's hard to imagine a more straightforward, cost-effective scheme whereby Japan's navy could exact a heavy toll from its opponent. Neglecting undersea warfare was an operational transgression of the first order.
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