Today marks #VJDay75. As I tweet time to time, my research is on the IJN (and Classical Athens). I look at the relationship between the IJN and political system. Although everyone is tweeting about the formal end of the WW II. (1/)

This thread, I will be talking about the process in which the Imperial Japan went down the road of what is often known as the 'Showa Militarism', so yes way before 15.08.1945 or the Attack of Pearl Harbor.(2/)

Why do I look at this in my research? The political and strategical processes which Imperial Japan had gone has a significant impact on the Japanese leadership to declare war on the Allies in 1941 and the IJA's atrocious activities on the continent/Pacific since the 30s.(3/)

My PhD thesis, which I will be submitting by latest December, compares the political processes of Imperial Japan and Classical Athens, how two different political systems from different period of history end in utter destruction.(4/)

It all comes down to the prematureness of the political system that Imperial Japan had (tried to adopt). Despite having a Diet (parliament equiv.), Imperial Japanese politics were ran by elders who founded the Meiji Government, known as genrō. (5/)

The genrō held the reigns of Imperial politics, from diplomacy to Grand Strategy and it was all power competition among them. It all boiled down to Satsuma (IJN) and Choshū (IJA) faction competition. (6/)

Why does this matter to the outbreak of the Pacific War and the eventual destruction of Imperial Japan? Many historians focus on the Manchurian Incident, Japan's departure from the League of Nations, to the U.S. oil embargo, Japan's south/northward advance etc. (7/)

The key and the real reason behind to all of the actions Imperial Japan had took in the 30s and 40s, had been present since 1868. The competition between the clans who overthrew the Tokugawa Shōgunate and created 'modernised' Japan. (8/).

The two factions, who also dominated Imperial Japan's military services had always competed with each other over military appropriations. The IJN tend to get the label of 'apolitical navy', they were willing to adapt to the arrival of Taishō democracy movement. (9/)

While the IJA leaders backed by Yamagata Aritomo, genrō and the father of the IJA were unwilling to work with the Diet or with the Public. The military appropriation debate was always the reason why cabinets collapsed in the late Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa periods.(10/)

It did not matter whether which faction or institution the Prime Ministers had support from. The Meiji Constitution on the appointment of the military service minister was one of the primary reasons for why the cabinets kept collapsing. (11/)

In addition to this, combined factional and institutional rivalries were fuelled by the genrōs and the Peers who did not believe in party politics. The groundwork of Japanese 'militarism' was in fact, laid during the WW I. (12/)

This was another yet a period of political competition. the oligarchic circle’s attempt to regain power and those party politicians who saw themselves as guarding the national interests by means of popular politics and the rule of civilian government. (13/)

there was Yamagata faction and the army, whose conception of the state vision included an expansion of empire, supported by military expansion, led by a “hegemonic military and bureaucratic elite”. (14/)

On the other hand, there were those who opposed the oligarchic rule, the political parties whose conception of state was a party cabinet led decision making and greater civilian control of national budget. (15/)

What more during this period, it particularly highlighted the prematureness of the Cabinet politics. For the first time, a Foreign Minister, Katō Takaaki took the control and joined Britain on the declaration of war. (16/)

Yamagata Aritomo and Tanaka Giichi (Vice Chief of Army General staff) in this period, consolidated Japan's expansionist policy in China during WWI. Whilst they saw the influence of U.S. power in the Far East as a threat, Japan’s continental interest. (17/)

Instead of reconciling such threat, Tanaka viewed the Great war as an opportunity not only to establish military dominance on the continent and to challenge Washington. (18/)

The view shared by the IJN was not drastically different to the views shared by the Meiji Oligarchs and the Army at the outbreak of the war. (19/) they, too saw the U.S. as a potential threat, but they were interested in Southward advance (19/)

Both political and military leaders shared an unified aim of territorial expansion and to extend its interests on the continent and in the Pacific. (20/)

it became a renewed opportunity for the genrō to assert their own political agenda to protect the hanbatsu politics which had been challenged by the party politicians since the Taishō political crisis of 1912. (21/)

The WWI was not a simply a diplomatic event for Japan, but a major domestic political event that determined the path to the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War in the 1930s. (22/)