Japan’s Joining the Tripartite Pact: An Elaborate Strategy or an Opportunistic Solution?

The article addresses the motivation of Japan to join the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy in 1940. The internal political struggle in Japan on this issue is analyzed, with special emphasis on the positions of the main political forces and, first of all, the Army and Navy factions. The main point of contradiction between them was the question of whether Japan should conclude a pact with Germany in the context of its interests regarding the relations with the three major powers – Great Britain, the USA, and the USSR.According to the author, with the arrival of the second Konoe cabinet, there was a consensus in the Japanese leadership on joining the German-Italian pact. Against the background of Germany’s military victories in Europe and the alleged unwillingness of the United States to curtail the policy of isolationism, Tokyo hoped that this step would fix the division of the spheres of influence of the three powers, within which Japan would receive extensive colonies of European countries in Asia. Japan miscalculated most of the points that led to its decision to join the pact.Japan failed to use the Axis as a means of “neutralizing” the USSR and the USA. Having found itself on the side of Nazi Germany in the outbreak of the World War, Japan lost any, including diplomatic, opportunities to retreat, opposing itself to a much more powerful coalition in economic and military terms, which ultimately led it to disaster. Japan’s calculation on German mediation in achieving JapaneseChinese peace would also be untenable: Chiang Kai-shek rejected any attempts in this direction, seeing through the strategy of Japan and Germany to Vichy-ize the government of the Republic of China.