The challenge of Japan before World War II and after: A study of national growth and expansion

Abstract

This book explores the sources and consequences of national growth and external expansion for international security, competition, and warfare. Expansion may take on many forms, each with different consequences. Japan since the Meiji restoration offered an important opportunity for analysis. The country’s uneven development – shaped by its population resources, and technology – posed serious challenges leading to conflict and war, followed by periods of peace, and then more war – all over a period of one hundred years or so. A combination of historical narrative and econometric analysis traces the complex challenges before World War I and after, and before World War II and after.

The major strength of the lateral pressure framework lies in its capacity to provide a causal logic for (a) linking the dynamics of (uneven) growth in a state’s core features in terms of people, technology, and resources, (b) demonstrating empirically the relative strength of these variables in overall state capacity, (c) shaping economic, institutional and political factors, and (d) creating defining conditions for policies and decisions.