Why Japan Really Lost the War

[Valin]

Combined Fleet
Jonathan Parshall
6/7/14

Introduction

It's no secret that Japan was, shall we say, 'economically disadvantaged' in her ability to wage war against the Allies. However, the sheer, stunning magnitude of this economic disparity has never ceased to amaze me. So, just go give you an idea of the magnitude of the mismatch here, I decided to compile a few statistics. Most of them are taken from Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" (which, among other things, contains an excellent analysis of the economic forces at work in World War II, and is an all-around great book) and John Ellis' "World War II: A Statistical Survey." In this comparison I will focus primarily on the two chief antagonists in the Pacific War: Japan and the United States. They say that economics is the 'Dismal Science'; you're about to see why....

Overview

By the time World War II began to rear its ugly head (formally in 1939 in Poland, informally in China in 1937), America had been in the grips of the Great Depression for a decade, give or take. The net effect of the Depression was to introduce a lot of 'slack' into the U.S. economy. Many U.S. workers were either unemployed (10 million in 1939) or underemployed, and our industrial base as a whole had far more capacity than was needed at the time. In economic terms, our 'Capacity Utilization' (CapU), was pretty darn low. To an outside culture, particularly a militaristic one such as Japan's, America certainly might have appeared to be 'soft' and unprepared for a major war. Further, Japan's successes in fighting far larger opponents (Russia in the early 1900's, and China in the 1930's) and the fact that Japan's own economy was practically 'superheating' (mostly as the result of unhealthy levels of military spending -- 28% of national income in 1937) probably filled the Japanese with a misplaced sense of economic and military superiority over their large overseas foe. However, a dispassionate observer would also note a few important facts. America, even in the midst of seemingly interminable economic doldrums, still had:

Nearly twice the population of Japan.
Seventeen time's Japan's national income.
Five times more steel production.
Seven times more coal production.
Eighty (80) times the automobile production.

 

Furthermore, America had some hidden advantages that didn't show up directly in production figures. For one, U.S. factories were, on average, more modern and automated than those in Europe or in Japan. Additionally, American managerial practice at that time was the best in the world. Taken in combination, the per capita productivity of the American worker was the highest in the world. Furthermore, the United States was more than willing to utilize American women in the war effort: a tremendous advantage for us, and a concept which the Axis Powers seem not to have grasped until very late in the conflict. The net effect of all these factors meant that even in the depths of the Depression, American war-making potential was still around seven times larger than Japan's, and had the 'slack' been taken out in 1939, it was closer to nine or ten times as great! In fact, accroding to Kennedy, a breakdown of total global warmaking potential in 1937 looks something like this:

 

(Snip)

 

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Home Page

Imperial Japanese Navy Page

 

 

H/T Real Clear History

[Pepper]

Russia declaring war on Japan had a major impact on Japanese forces, too.

 

See

 

https://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/29/the_bomb_didnt_beat_japan_nuclear_world_war_ii

[Valin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WwSN5eFvJo&list=PLauT0j6bFxr5RbLNFYjWAWPmUNG6a66Fa&feature=share&index=15