The Imperial Japanese Army and Politics

Abstract

Much available literature on the military and politics in the imperial Japanese army has explained the various motives that led to the military's intervention in politics. The primary assumption of these previous analyses is that the soldiers were very conscious of their intervention. On the contrary, this article contends that the soldiers of the imperial Japanese army did not realize that their activities constituted intervention in politics, per se. They regarded only those activities that were specifically prohibited by their code as political. This is an alternative view of the imperial army and politics; it might help non-Japanese readers to understand the extremely apolitical attitude of present-day Japanese Self-Defense Force officers.