Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan | Tsuyoshi Hasegawa

Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan | Tsuyoshi Hasegawa | Racing the allies

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Racing the Enemy: ...

	Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan Tsuyoshi Hasegawa Belknap Press, 2005 - 382 pages average customer review:based on 18 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

With startling revelations, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa rewrites the standard history of the end of World War II in the Pacific. By fully integrating the three key actors in the story--the United States, the Soviet Union, and Japan--Hasegawa for the first time puts the last months of the war into international perspective.

From April 1945, when Stalin broke the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact and Harry Truman assumed the presidency, to the final Soviet military actions against Japan, Hasegawa brings to light the real reasons Japan surrendered. From Washington to Moscow to Tokyo and back again, he shows us a high-stakes diplomatic game as Truman and Stalin sought to outmaneuver each other in forcing Japan's surrender; as Stalin dangled mediation offers to Japan while secretly preparing to fight in the Pacific; as Tokyo peace advocates desperately tried to stave off a war party determined to mount a last-ditch defense; and as the Americans struggled to balance their competing interests of ending the war with Japan and preventing the Soviets from expanding into the Pacific.

Authoritative and engrossing, Racing the Enemy puts the final days of World War II into a whole new light.

(20050515)

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Good Cop / Bad Cop

First, let me emphasize the distinction, as the author does, between defeat and surrender. By the summer of 1945, Japan had certainly been defeated. And there is no doubt that America's Army and Navy (including the Marines and the Air Corps) can take the lion's share of the credit for that defeat. But Japan's fanatical leadership would not surrender.

Would a clarification of the Emperor's position in the Potsdam Proclamation have helped? Perhaps not. The Japanese might have simply continued negotiating. They wanted the Emperor's sovereignty guaranteed, they wanted to conduct their own war trials, they wanted no foreign troops occupying their soil, etc, etc.

Was it the atomic bombs that shook up Japan's leadership and made them face reality? American air power had already destroyed more than 60 of their cities. The population was starving. These men believed in the samurai tradition of fighting to the bitterest of ends. It is difficult to believe they cared about the civilian populations of the cities one way or another. An American POW "confessed" that the U.S. had a hundred atom bombs ready to be dropped, but the Army Minister who reported this recommended continuing the fight anyway.

No, only when Soviet Russia attacked and it seemed likely that a Communist occupation was a real possibility did the Japanese leadership accept their fate. Only then did they hurry to accept the American offer of surrender, with an American occupation, knowing that it was bound to be more respectful of their institutions than anything Stalin would ever arrange.

Does the author contend, or do I, that the Soviet and American allies, working together, cleverly conceived this good cop/bad cop ruse to bring about a timely surrender? Hardly. No allies have ever worked more at cross purposes. Truman wanted to end the war, Stalin to prolong it so that Russia could have a chance to conquer some territory. But in attempting to end the war by dropping the atomic bombs, the Americans may have only prolonged Japan's decision. And, in finally entering the war against an already defeated foe, the Russians ended it.

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Racing the allies

By 1945 Japan seemed well and truly beaten. Its navy and merchant fleet were on the bottom of the pacific. Its air force lacked fuel and was limited in what operations it could launch and its cities were being destroyed by Curtin LeMay's fire raids. One would have thought the unconditional surrender in 1945 unremarkable. The story was however more complex. Japan had only committed a small fragment of its army to the South East Asian and Pacific theatre. Most of its troops were in China and Manchuria. Even in 1945 it controlled a considerable empire including Malaya, Vietnam, what was to become Indonesia, Korea and a good deal of China. The Japanese Army had been transferring its army to the homeland. In addition it had some 9,000 aircraft which could be used as Kamikaze bombers. What the army hoped to do was to inflict a defeat on the American force that would invade Japan in 1945 and then obtain a favourable peace.

In August the Japanese government tried to manoeuvrer the Soviets into acting as intermediaries in a negotiated peace. The Soviets however had other intentions. Stalin wanted to grab large parts of what had been the Japanese Empire. He was keen to intervene in the war so that he could extend his empire. He however kept these aims from the Japanese till he was ready to move.

The strength of this book is that it shows that rather than the surrender of Japan resulting from one cause such as the dropping of the Atom bomb it was a combination of that and the Soviet attacks. The Soviets attacked the Japanese army in Manchuria with one and a half million men thousands of tanks and aircraft. The Japanese forces collapsed with the Soviets talking over Manchuria and North Korea.

With this attack the hope that the Japanese had of inflicting a defeat on the Americans and using the Soviets as intermediaries collapsed. While that was happening two bombs were dropped that killed 150,000 or so people. It was this that led to the decision of the Emperor to back those in his cabinet who favoured peace.

The book is one of the fullest outlines of the last days of the Japanese Empire. It also explodes a number of myths. For instance it is clear that Truman did not make a decision to drop the bomb. What he did was not to prevent the military making the decision to drop it. It would appear that he was keen to do so for the reasons of avenging Pearl Harbour and demonstrating to the Soviets the power of the bomb. Truman also had hoped that the existence of the bomb might have led to the end of the war before the Soviets could intervene. Stalin however was keen to get into the action and to grab parts of the far east. Thus it was a race to get into the war before Japanese resistance collapsed.

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A Masterpiece of Historical Reconstruction

"Racing the Enemy" is a meticulous yet gripping reconstruction of the three-sided diplomacy surrounding the surrender of Japan in 1945. The author's basic aim is to recreate the perspectives of policymakers in Tokyo, Washington and Moscow. For the most part he is admirably successful, as he takes the reader on a fascinating day-by-day, memo-by-memo tour of decision-making in the three capitals.

The storyline: By the summer of 1945, Japan was isolated, blockaded, and in ruins. The end was near. However, America was still smarting over Pearl Harbor, and Truman was eager to defeat the Japanese quickly without Russian involvement; as a result, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were incinerated even though Washington knew that Tokyo was looking for ways to exit the war. Meanwhile, Moscow fooled Tokyo into thinking it might broker peace talks with the U.S.; in reality, Stalin was planning to betray Japan and grab territories in Manchuria and the Kuriles. Finally, military and civilian leaders in Tokyo were hopelessly divided about how to save Japan and its monarchy from destruction, even though it was clear (to the civilians, at least) that the war was lost. The upshot was lost diplomatic opportunities, atomic warfare, massacred innocents, and Soviet power grabs. The collapse of the would be "Moscow connection" probably did more to cause the Japanese surrender than the atom bombs did. No one comes off well.

"Racing the Enemy" is clearly written, and informed by the latest archival discoveries. Best of all, the author has a sharp understanding of how decisions are made (or not made) in government bureaucracies. It is truly a tour de force. However, I gave the book only four stars for two reasons: First, it needed more biographic information on the principal decision-makers; unfortunately, most of them come across as names and titles, not as flesh-and-blood historical personalities. Second, the book needed an appendix containing the full text of documents such as the Potsdam Declaration or the Byrnes Note; the absence of these key texts is a bizarre omission in a book that depends so much on the careful reading of memos, cables, and demarches.

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Thought provoking on the interplay of three nations.

There is a lot of meat in this book. The author reviews the documentary evidence on the end of WWII. Japan was still battling the United States, China, and Great Britain. The Soviet Union had just ended its war in Europe and Stalin was interested in spoils in East Asia. The book's title is how America and Russia raced to end the war in East Asia to enlarge and protect their geopolitical interests. The other race was between the peace party and the militarists in Japan. Would Japan fight to the very end, or would they capitulate as Germany did in WWI. Truman used the atomic weapons in the hope they would end the war, but also had other reasons. Truman's use of these weapons was also linked to his revenge streak for Pearl Harbor and as a demonstration of his secret weapon to Stalin. The Japanese were shown as facilating beteen fighting to the end or seeking peace. When the Potsdam accords were published, they chose not to answer and their silence resulted in the atomic bombs.

This is a nice academic read on the end of World War II. The author has done ground breaking research on the principal characters of Japan, USA, and the Soviet Union during July and August of 1945.

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Fairly critical, but a worthwhile read...

I think that this book is certainly researched thoroughly and he takes a great deal of time to step by step cover what many books involving this war only touch upon at this stage: the political chess game leading up to the eventual capitulation of the Japanese.
The only downfall that I find is that it appears from time to time in the text that Hasegawa sometimes falls into the trap of having the luxury of the passage of the last 62 years to judge the actions made by the individuals in power rather than judging it from the perspective of the time.
Still, it is a very interesting and thought provoking read.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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