US Perceptions of Military Culture and the Japanese Army's Performance During the Pacific War

While the Pacific War was a 'race war' to some extent, this description does not adequately describe the ways in which the US military came to understand the Japanese in order to defeat them. Considerable effort was devoted to understanding Japanese military culture and institutions as an aid to intelligence assessments of Japanese military behaviour and likely or possible future actions. This article suggests a refinement of the picture presented by Dower and others in the interests of a more sophisticated understanding of the cultural conflict embedded in the fighting between Americans and Japanese.