The Top 40

Yes, well, all sorts of stupid stuff happens when you don't subordinate the military authorities to the civilian authorities.

The Meiji Constitution of 1890 was modeled on the Imperial German constitution, with the military reporting directly to the Emperor instead of to the Prime Minister. It also didn't help that an Imperial Rescript in 1905 directed that the War and Navy ministers had to be active-duty officers. This essentially gave the military a veto on the formation of a Cabinet by politicians whose policies they didn't like -- what officer would agree to serve as Minister of War or of the Navy when it means that his superiors would cashier him? Or be court-martialed for disobeying an order not to serve?

Once you know that, the reason for the ineffectualness and debility of the Japanese Government in the 1930s becomes perfectly clear.

And yes, I like to pontificate. :-)

Hale Adams
Pikesville, People's still-mostly-Democratic Republic of Maryland

You have to wonder what the Japanese were thinking when they believed that sinking the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor was a brilliant strategy. Pearl Harbor is dredged to about fifty feet so aircraft carriers can enter the harbor. So the Japanese sank all those ships in fifty feet of water and most of them were salvaged and back in action within a year.

Except that (I think) the Japanese military's leadership (the Imperial Japanese Army, mostly -- the IJ Navy was a little more worldly) thought Americans to be weak and ineffectual. After all, we were insisting on fair treatment for China and other "effete" things, while they were going forth and getting things done. They reasoned that just one massive, humiliating blow would sap our will to fight.

They certainly did find out otherwise.