The Price of Peace for Japan

Abstract

THE CLIMAX OF THE WAR in Europe adds a new urgency to our planning for the peace that must be made with a defeated Japan. As the Cairo conference has demonstrated, this is no hypothetical question to be postponed for settlement in toto at some future peace conference. The terms of peace with Japan are already being laid down; as the war continues, they are certain to be further elaborated. There need be no quarrel with this procedure, which can be turned into a useful political adjunct of the military operations. Full correspondence and direct continuity between the political offensive and the final peace terms will contribute materially to the stability of the post-war settlement. As military success becomes assured, the outlines of a peace for the enemy people may be stated in more specific and more convincing terms. In the case of Europe, the political offensive is already passing over into the elaboration of a general program in which the German people can be expected to cooperate in the post-war world. Events have not yet reached this stage in the Far East. Nor will victory in Europe automatically lead to the collapse of Japanese power, for Japan is too well entrenched behind its geographical ramparts on the Asiatic mainland and its oceanic and insular barriers in the Pacific. At the same time, the effects of Germany's defeat should not be discounted; they should rather be appraised at their right value and utilized to the utmost. The end of the war in Europe will have a terrific impact upon Japan. It will erase all prospect of victory, even for the toughest core of Japan's military rulers. For the first time they will be forced to begin reckoning seriously with reactions on the home front. They will be concerned, above all, to prevent the realization of inevitable defeat from sinking deeply into the minds of the Japanese people. At