Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941

Kaigun provides a thorough description and analysis of the strategy, tactics, and technology of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) – Nihon Teikoku Kaigun – from 1887, when it first established itself in conformity with contemporary modern standards of a naval fleet, until the beginning of the Pacific War in 1941. It is a scholarly work based on thirteen years of research by two of the most qualified scholars in their respective fields. However, it is written and presented in a manner accessible to the lay reader who possesses an educated understanding of modern Japanese history in the context of late nineteenth and early twentieth century world history. Kaigun not only describes the strategy, tactics, and technology of the IJN, but also analyzes the evolving interrelationship between the three. It explains the sources of IJN successes during the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, and the causes of its early success followed by disastrous failure during the Pacific War.Kaigun is structured in chronological fashion, with each chapter focusing on a specific span of time divided in accordance with an overall evolutionary development of the IJN. The Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, each of which had an enormous impact on the strategy, tactics, and technology pursued by the IJN prior to the Pacific War, are given special treatment in their own respective chapters. Unfortunately, only one chapter is focused on Japanese naval aviation, but this topic is given sufficient discussion for the overall purposes of this book. For a more in-depth analysis, the sequel to this book, Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, provides a complete assessment of the topic.The focus of Kaigun is on the IJN prior to the engagement of hostilities with the United States in December 1941. However, the final chapter, “Epilogue,” takes the authors’ arguments to their conclusion by analyzing why the evolution of strategy, tactics, technology, and their interrelationship within the IJN resulted in the subsequent disaster and near annihilation of what was once one of the greatest naval forces of all time.Kaigun is encyclopedic in its scope. There are 533 pages of narrative, followed by a 20-page appendix containing brief biographical information of prominent naval officers. The notes (69 pages) and sources cited (25 pages) are substantial. At least half of those sources are Japanese, while the rest are primarily from European or United States origin. Primary sources are abundant, especially first-hand accounts provided by former Japanese naval officers. It is evident from the acknowledgements section that the authors undertook a vigorous process of research and peer review for their work throughout their thirteen years of research and writing.The goal of this book was to “explain…the sources of both the [IJN] navy’s triumphs and its defeat” from the perspectives of “strategy, tactics, and technology” and “the evolving interrelationship of the three.” The authors intended to “explain how the Japanese navy thought about naval war and how to prepare for it.” They are very specific in describing the scope of their work, what it does and does not encompass, in their introduction to the book. The authors also provide a precise working definition for each of the terms: technology, strategy, operations, and tactics. Understanding each one of these terms from the authors’ perspective is key to understanding the arguments made throughout the book. However, the authors do not discuss the concept of grand strategy until near the final chapter, and there is good reason for this. According to Evans and Peattie, “from the Russo-Japanese War onward, Japan never had a grand strategy. It possessed instead a set of perceived threats, nebulous ambitions, and a keen ability to exploit a strategic opening.” The reader comes away from this book realizing that for all the remarkable achievements, and stunning early successes winning regional contests and battles, it was ultimately a failure of strategy – or more specifically, grand strategy – that doomed both the IJN and Japan as a whole.While fascinating in themselves, each of the chapters describing the evolutionary development of strategy, tactics, and technology within the IJN demonstrate a compelling continuity towards the disaster that ensued. The remarkable successes, such as the Battle of Tsushima, only reinforced the decisive battle doctrine that became orthodoxy within the IJN. This flawed Mahanian doctrine, combined with fanciful assumptions about the nature of a naval war with the largest naval and industrial power in history, ultimately led not only to IJN’s defeat, but to its virtual annihilation. While the tactics and technology of the IJN were superb, often superior to their enemies, it is their failure in strategy that doomed them to destruction. The authors quote Allan Millett and Williamson Murray, “Mistakes in operations and tactics can be corrected, but political and strategic mistakes live forever.”In both its depth of description and breadth of coverage, Kaigun is exhaustive, but not exhausting to the reader. The authors did an outstanding job presenting the information factually without making sensationalist claims, while at the same time keeping the interest of the reader throughout. At no place does the narrative drag or become bogged down in minutiae or trivial details irrelevant to the themes or arguments made by the authors. Every fact and detail supports an argument, and every argument is supported by sufficient evidence derived from well documented and reliable sources. If any evidence is missing relating to the argument, the authors are careful to note that as well. The authors did a remarkable job of maintaining clarity and an overall focus on the central topics of strategy, tactics, and technology – and the evolving interrelationship of the three – in the historical context of the times without losing reader interest. Overall, Kaigun serves as a model of scholarship and professional writing suitable for both the scholar and layman alike.

Kaigun Strategy is a book that I had a lot of trouble putting down. This is perhaps strange for a book which discusses things such as the development of dry steam as a more efficient mode of propulsion, change in the composition of steel as it related to battleship construction and other very technical subjects. In a way the book said a lot about the Pacific War that had been said before. Yet in a way it was as startling revelation of the development of Japanese Society from the Meiji Restoration to the end of the second World War. The book is a discussion about the development of Japans Navy. Until 1945 the Japanese spent the staggering amount of 27% of their national budget on the navy. The reason for this lies with the now forgotten writings of Admiral Mahon.Mahon was an American who in his day was as famous as Marx and Lenin. He wrote a history of sea power a book that argued that the reason for the wealth of great nations was the control of an empire through control of the sea. The Japanese were converts to his doctrines and being an island power thought that the key to the national destiny was the acquisition of empire. Kaigun Strategy is a study of how the Japanese Navy tried to develop a navy that would give them preponderance over that of the much stronger American Navy. The book goes into great detail about how the Japanese studied the most modern technology to develop a numerically inferior but well trained modern Navy. The belief in empire and the need to ensure oil supplies put Japan on a collision course with the United States of America.The end of the war has led to Japan sheathing the sword and seeking to build up a strong economy. This has led to Japan becoming one of the richest and strongest countries in the world. How more productive that has been rather than putting most of the national wealth into a Navy which ended up on the bottom of the sea.The book is fascinating at showing that whilst a large amount of Japans planning and development showed tremendous skill and intellect, at the same time ridiculous errors were made. Thus whilst Japan build up a modern fleet and air wing it failed to: · Adopt a convoy system during the war or to arm enough destroyers with sonar equipment to protect its merchant marine. · Did not realise till after the war started that there were not enough tankers in the possession of Japan to move enough oil from its new possessions to keep both the navy and industry going. · Made no attempts to develop code breaking in the way that its Axis Partner Germany and the Allies did. · Were not able to adopt the strategy once it became obvious that the war was evolving into one of attrition rather than a single decisive battle.The book is a fascinating one and shows how the history of nations can be molded by the history of ideas.

While being readable and informative, I also found this to be an entertaining volume; a strange description for a history book, but I found that I could just pick it up and start reading from wherever I had paused, and was immediately immersed in the subject.I have read a few volumes on the battles and campaigns covered in this book, but found the in-depth and authoritative study of the background to the development of the Imperial Japanese navy to be fascinating.One aspect that these authors did not consider though, was our old friend “On the Psychology of Military Incompetence”, which basically boils down to the problem that when people in authority meet a problem they cannot solve, they ‘displace’ themselves and concentrate on a problem that they think they can solve, and focus on that instead.I saw this behaviour in action in my many years in an IT department where the managers were constrained by outside forces from fixing systemic problems, and I wonder whether this might not be partly responsible for the blind-spots in the Japanese navy high command’s decision making processes.

An incredible book that will be a great acquisition for the bookshelf for anyone with an interest in the Imperial Japanese Navy between 1887 and 1941. I felt that this book was very well put together, written in such a way that it made for a very informative read covering enough detail in each chapter to satisfy most enthusiasts of this fascinating subject.To help illustrate the book and to add further interest there are a good number of detailed line drawings of Japanese naval vessels embedded within the text. The amount of research that has gone into this book along with the sensible layout and interesting content is certainly worthy of attention.This review is based on a rare 1st edition hard back copy that I was lucky enough to obtain.I would highly recommended this book.

Explains how in a very short time Japan was able to field such a powerful navy. Despite including technical details was very interesting.

Great book. Looks at the reasons why Japan's approach to war was so contradictory. It's a niche and specialised subject but that's the type of book I'm looking for.

Use for academic research.