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Security, Middle East
The lessons of the run-up to World War II provide a cautionary example.
Here's What You Need to Remember: If there is one lesson to be learned from the sanctions on Japan, it is that it is dangerous to force another nation into a binary choice between two bad options. If given the choice between a political settlement regarded as a humiliating submission to foreign demands, or else a doomed and possibly suicidal war, some nations will choose the war.
Why did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor?
Most Americans don’t remember. Those who do probably recall the explanation taught in high school: the militaristic Japanese government planned to take over the Pacific, realized that the fleet at Pearl Harbor represented a major obstacle to that goal, and incorrectly predicted that the United States would not have the stomach to fight a protracted conflict. This mistaken assumption led to a four-year war in which two million Japanese lost their lives and much of the country was reduced to rubble.
This summary is basically correct. What is less well known, however, is that America’s economic policy towards Japan played a crucial role in the decisions that led to the attack. In the years before Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull became increasingly concerned with Japan’s aggressive expansion in Asia and the Pacific. To combat it, the U.S. government pursued a strategy of trade restrictions and sanctions on Japan, hoping that the economic pressure would force it to halt its conquests without directly involving America in a war.
The U.S. sanctions against Japan achieved its economic goal by causing resource shortages in vital areas and would have curtailed Japan’s ability to wage war in the medium- to long-term. However, on a strategic level, the sanctions were not successful. Roosevelt and Hull had hoped that they could pressure Japan into accepting a diplomatic solution to the embargo. Instead, Japan found a military solution: they knocked out the American fleet at Pearl Harbor and went on a mad dash across the Pacific Ocean, quickly making up for lost U.S. imports with captured British and Dutch raw materials. Seventy-nine years after the attack, as successive administrations pile economic sanctions on America’s adversaries in the hope that doing so can correct their malign behavior, the lessons from the lead-up to Pearl Harbor are worth remembering.
Origins
After its founding in 1868, the modern state of Japan underwent a massive program of industrialization and modernization in all aspects of the state. Over the next generation, Japan became a first-rate military power. In short order, it defeated China, Russia, and Germany in three back-to-back wars, gaining control of Formosa (Taiwan), Korea, the Liaodong Peninsula in China, and hundreds of Pacific Islands.
Japan’s program of industrialization was profoundly different from the West’s program of industrialization. Western powers such as Britain, Germany and the United States had abundant domestic natural resources to fuel industrialization. By contrast, Japan had virtually no mineral wealth of its own. Consequently, it fueled its industries using imported raw materials from the United States, making it heavily reliant on open trade with America. For many years, this was not a problem, as the United States and Japan were on excellent terms. President Teddy Roosevelt had negotiated peace between Japan and Russia in 1905; the nations fought on the same side in World War I; Japan was party to the 1921 Washington Naval Conference and the idealistic 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact “outlawing” war; and throughout the interwar period, the two nations engaged in substantial foreign trade.
However, during the 1930s, as Japan embarked on an increasingly authoritarian and militaristic political course, this relationship began to sour. In 1931, Japan seized Manchuria; by 1937, it had started an all-out war with China, massacred the city of Nanjing, and brazenly attacked a U.S. gunboat evacuating American nationals from that country. Though most Americans still opposed a war with Japan, anti-Japanese sentiment rose steadily throughout the 1930s, and, believing that the security of the United States was tied to peace and democracy abroad, Roosevelt resolved to dissuade Japan from continued aggression.
The Sanctions Regime
Roosevelt’s first act against Japan was rhetorical rather than legal. In 1938, the State Department told American firms that it was “strongly opposed” to Japanese conduct abroad and urged them not to export certain military goods.
This “moral embargo” was soon followed up with a more concrete one. In July 1939, the United States gave Japan six months’ notice of its intention to withdraw from the two nations’ 1911 commercial treaty. After the six-month window passed, Roosevelt signed the Export Control Act, giving him the authority to block the export of basic war materials, and promptly blocked exports of aviation fuel and scrap metal to Japan; this ban was later expanded to all metal.
Most decisively, after Japan occupied French Indochina in July 1941 (with the forced “consent” of the Vichy government), Roosevelt responded by freezing Japan’s assets in the United States and instituting a full embargo, effectively cutting off all trade between the two countries. In its most basic goals, this sanction was devastatingly effective. Britain and the Netherlands soon joined the American embargo, and Japan altogether lost three-fourths of its overseas trade and almost nine-tenths of its oil imports. Although it had enough oil in reserve to continue the war in China, its supply would run out within eighteen months, at which point it would simply have no more fuel for its airplanes and tanks.
However, hopes that Japan would back down and negotiate proved unfounded. As the sanctions regime progressed, Japan drifted further from the orbit of the United States. In August 1940, it proclaimed the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” explicitly promising to expel the Western powers from Asia (America, which controlled the Philippines, took note). One month later, it signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, entering the Axis camp. Finally, in 1941, it signed a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union, freeing its military might for operations in the south. During 1941, attempts at negotiations for the future status of China were made by both sides, but the United States again adopted a maximalist position, refusing to restore the oil flow without a complete Japanese withdrawal from China. Japan flatly refused, and negotiations came to nothing.
However, because it still controlled Japan’s access to oil, the United States had Japan in a corner. As the months drew on, and the island nation’s supply of oil dwindled, the Japanese leadership was faced with a critical choice: end the war in China and return to commerce with the United States, or else gamble for all-out domination of the Pacific region. History records their decision.
Fundamentally, Roosevelt and Hull’s reasoning was correct—they knew that America controlled Japan’s access to vital raw materials, and embargoing Japan would cripple its economy and ultimately make it unable to continue the war in China. However, the corollary to this line of thinking—that the embargo would force Japan to negotiate an end to the war—was inaccurate. American strategic planners knew that, without oil, Japan would be forced to change its strategy, but they incorrectly gauged the extent and direction of that change.
Lessons to Be Learned
Revisionist American historians and far-right Japanese groups contend that the United States left Japan with no choice but to take action. This is not exactly accurate, but it contains a kernel of truth. The choice that Roosevelt offered Japan was binary: either it could accede to American demands, or it could launch a full-scale war. American strategists, including several admirals and America’s ambassador in Tokyo, Joseph Grew, warned that Japan might try the latter. However, given America’s vast advantages in population and economic power, they knew that this would likely end in suicide—and were therefore caught off-guard when Japan chose suicide.
America has come a long way since 1941. A Pearl Harbor-type attack that could cripple U.S. military operations for months on end is exceptionally unlikely to occur. Moreover, nuclear weapons have made another total war between great powers unthinkable. However, analogies to the pre-war U.S.-Japan dynamic exist. Modern Iran has undeniable similarities with Imperial Japan—it, too, is a former U.S. ally taken over by zealous militarists who are attempting to expand beyond their borders.
Thus, the lessons of the run-up to World War II provide a cautionary example. The United States is dealing with Iran in much the same way as it tried to deal with Japan by piling on sanctions and restricting the nation’s imports. As with Japan, this strategy seems to be achieving its most basic goals; Iran’s economy has contracted, and its payments to its foreign proxies have sharply decreased. However, as sanctions have increased, the ruling regime has grown steadily more fanatical, more bellicose, and less willing to seek compromise. This is not good. A war with Iran, which is a distinctly possible outcome of the sanctions regime, would result in an American victory, but it would come at a massive cost. The United States won the Pacific War but hundreds of thousands of American lives were lost in the process.
This is not to suggest that the United States should leave Iran alone to pursue regional mayhem. However, if there is one lesson to be learned from the sanctions on Japan, it is that it is dangerous to force another nation into a binary choice between two bad options. If given the choice between a political settlement regarded as a humiliating submission to foreign demands, or else a doomed and possibly suicidal war, some nations will choose the war.
For this reason, the United States must display political flexibility in its negotiations with the Islamic Republic. Rather than present the country with an ultimatum, America must seek to offer a range of possible outcomes. Sanctions, properly applied, can be used to provide motivation, but America’s end goal must be a grand bargain that restricts Iran’s ability to antagonize its neighbors yet still grants it some concessions and allows the regime to save face.
Striking this delicate balance will not be easy. But it will be easier than going to war.
Trevor Filseth is an editorial intern for the National Interest. This article was first published last year.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
Heritage Visiting Fellow Mark Morgan joined Newsmax, Saturday, March 27, to talk about the latest on the border crisis, the Biden administration's lies this week about the crisis, and why the crisis is getting worse.
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Issues in the News moderator Kim Lewis talks with VOA congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson and VOA White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara about the migrant crisis at the US southern border, prospects for gun safety legislation in the wake of another mass shooting, a rise in hate crimes against Asian-Americans and the state of US-China relations.
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The post Voice of America – English: Biden Appoints Harris on Border Crisis first appeared on Russia News Review.
The post China, Russia, Saudi Arabia Make Foreign Policy a Sordid Business – Bloomberg first appeared on The Brooklyn News.
“It’s the hottest market I’ve ever seen.” Pandemic home sales are at levels not seen since before the last housing crash, but this time nearly everything is different. on.wsj.com/3cH6aAy
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- President Joe Biden said the Justice Department is looking at new voting laws in Georgia.
- The bill restricts voting access, and have been compared to racist Jim Crow laws.
- The bill faces legal challenges, with civil rights groups saying it violates the Constitution.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
President Joe Biden said that the Justice Department is "taking a look at" a sweeping new bill in Georgia restricting voting rights he described as an "atrocity."
The new law was signed by Republican governor Brian Kemp on Thursday, and places stricter requirements on providing identification for voters casting absentee ballots, limits the number of drop boxes for ballots, gives state officials more power over how elections are run, and bans giving food and drink to people waiting in line to vote.
In remarks to reporters, Biden called the move an "atrocity" and "Jim Crow for the 21st Century."
When a reporter asked how the White House would respond, Biden replied: "We're working on that right now."
"We don't know quite exactly what we can do at this point. The Justice Department's taking a look as well," Biden said.
"It has nothing to do with fairness, nothing to do with decency. They passed the law saying you can't provide water for people standing in line while they're waiting to vote? You don't need anything else to know that this is nothing but punitive, designed to keep people from voting. You can't provide water for people about to vote? Give me a break," he said.
Critics have likened the Georgia bill to the "Jim Crow" laws that enforced racial segregation in the South, saying that they will disproportionately impact Black voters who have been pivotal to recent Democratic victories in the state.
Biden became the first Democratic presidential contender to win the state since 1991 last year, and in January's Senate runoff elections in January, both Democratic candidates were victorious.
In a statement Friday, Biden urged Congress to pass a sweeping voting rights bill designed by Democrats to counteract attempts by Republicans to restrict voting.
The bill has passed the House but is unlikely to muster the 60 votes in the Senate required to overcome a potential Republican filibuster.
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The Georgia bill faces several challenges from civil rights groups, who argue that it violates the US Constitution's First and Fourteenth amendments and the 1965 Voting Rights Act forbidding states from passing laws to reduce minority participation in elections.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has denied the Georgia law is a bid to disenfranchise Black voters.
"There is nothing 'Jim Crow' about requiring a photo or state-issued ID to vote by absentee ballot - every Georgia voter must already do so when voting in-person," he said. "President Biden, the left, and the national media are determined to destroy the sanctity and security of the ballot box."
Republicans have long claimed that elections are exposed to widespread fraud, and Donald Trump, after his defeat last year, has pushed the claim, dismissed in a slew of court cases, that his loss resulted from widespread fraud.
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- A judge ordered a UK man to pay $571 million in fines for an allegedly fraudulent bitcoin scheme.
- Benjamin Reynolds allegedly took about 22,000 bitcoin from customers, now worth about $1.2 billion.
- Reynolds didn't appear in court in New York, and is "purportedly" in Manchester, US regulators said.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
A court has ordered a man to pay penalties totalling about $571 million, after finding that he acquired more than 22,000 bitcoin through a fraudulent online scheme.
The fine was announced by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulator on Friday.
The bitcoin handed over by more than 1,000 customers in 2017 as part of the alleged scheme was valued at about $143 million at the time, but would now be worth about $1.22 billion.
The CFTC named Benjamin Reynolds, a British national, as the person behind the alleged scheme. But the CFTC didn't seem to know exactly where Reynolds was, saying in a press statement that he was "purportedly" living in Manchester, England.
Reynolds was ordered on March 2 to pay about $143 million in restitution and $429 million in a civil monetary penalty, according to the CFTC statement.
The judgement was issued by Mary Kay Vyskocil, a judge in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Vyskocil wrote that Reynolds had "failed to appear or answer the Complaint."
The CFTC alleged that Reynolds in 2017 used a website, social networks, and email to solicit about 22,190.542 bitcoin from people around the world.
Conducting business under the name Control-Finance Limited, Reynolds collected bitcoin from more than 1,000 people, including about 169 people living in the US, the CFTC said.
Control-Finance Limited was registered in England in September 2016, with its official address listed in a nondescript office building in the center of Manchester, according to UK government records. Reynolds, who was born in 1983, was listed as the company's sole director.
Under Reynolds, Control-Finance solicited bitcoin from customers who thought they were investing the cryptocurrency, according to the CFTC complaint.
"Among other things, Reynolds falsely represented to customers that Control-Finance traded their bitcoin deposits in virtual currency markets and employed specialized virtual currency traders who generated guaranteed trading profits for all customers," the CFTC said.
Reynolds also allegedly created an "elaborate" affiliate marketing network that promised to pay "outsized referral profits" and other rewards for bringing new bitcoin customers to Control-Finance.
CFTC said: "In fact, Reynolds made no trades on customers' behalf, earned no trading profits for them, and paid them no referral rewards or bonuses."
The regulator said Reynolds said he would return all the deposited bitcoin to customers of Control-Finance by October 2017. He "instead retained the deposits for his own personal use," it said.
UK government records listed Control-Finance Limited as dissolved as of February 2018.
Vyskocil's judgement against Reynolds said the penalties would accrue interest if not paid immediately.
- Democrats assail Georgia law, make case for voting overhaul The Associated Press
- These two photos show who Georgia's new elections law benefits -- and hurts CNN
- See Don Lemon's reaction to Georgia's new voting law CNN
- Georgia’s shameful new voting laws are a product of GOP desperation The Washington Post
- Our View: Marching backward into history Atlanta Journal Constitution
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Plummeting audience numbers fuel calls for government assistance as famed tablaos struggle to survive
A little after 7.30pm on Wednesday night, a small crowd gathered in a dark, brick-lined bar in central Madrid to sit at candlelit, socially-distanced tables and lose themselves for an hour in the sweat, shouts and blurred hands, hems and heels of a flamenco show.
The 16 people in the audience at the Cardamomo tablao, or flamenco venue, were in luck – but then so were the eight performers on stage. Neither flamenco’s iconic place in Spanish culture nor its global status as part of Unesco’s list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity has spared it the pains and penalties of the Covid pandemic.
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China leads the world in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, NGO says
Apparent harder line toward Havana represents shift from Obama years
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