Psychological Warfare

The only aspect of psychological warfare that does not show on the chart is the Japanese political warfare system—by the test of success, the best developed by any belligerent during World War II. The Japanese very early learned the simple rule: Political warfare cannot convert a sub-subsistence economy and government into a satisfactory system, but political warfare can convert a subsisting area into one that has the illusions of prosperity and national freedom. To succeed in the face of economic difficulty, political warfare must be shrewd, simple, insistent, and backed up with a touch of terror. The Japanese moved into the Western colonial areas of the Far East between 1940 and 1942 (Indo-China, Malaya, Indonesia, the Philippines, parts of China, Burma, and areas inhabited by substantial Indian minorities). They organized the following "independent" governments:

Azad Hind (Free Indian government-in-exile) and the Azad Hind Fauj (quisling Indian National Army, which put large forces into the field against British-controlled Indian troops and helped to neutralize the entire military potential of India);

These Japanese-sponsored governments flew their own flags, had enough troops to help Japan police their home areas, developed psychological warfare facilities with intensive Japanese assistance, and went through all the motions of independence. In 1944, some of them even held an international conference at Tokyo, thanking Japan for liberating all the non-White States and adopting high-sounding resolutions. (The Siamese puppet ambassador to this meeting had the unforgettable name of His Excellency, the Honorable Witchit Witchit Watakan!)

Behind the pageantries of Japanese political warfare, economic and social realities were horrid. The Japanese printed money which had far less backing than cigar store coupons. They bankrupted all non-Japanese business so that Japanese carpetbaggers could buy their way in cheap; businesses owned by white foreigners were expropriated out of hand. They cut off communications, spread terror, raised the price of food, put hospitals out of business, degraded schools—and received the devoted loyalty of large parts of the cheated populations. It did not matter to millions of Burmese whether they had lived well under British rule or not; the British did not let them have their own flag, did not let them send ministers and ambassadors, did not let them run a scow up and down the river with a mortar on it, calling it a navy. The miranda, the pageantry of politics, was what mattered—not law-and-order, democracy, security, education, health.38

The same story might have been repeated on a larger scale throughout the Far East, perhaps ultimately leading to something like Lothrop Stoddard's old nightmare, The Rising Tide of Color. Countervening factors included the presence of Chinese agitation both Kuomintang and Communist in leadership, guerrilla operations throughout Southeast Asia, and the ruinous economic effects of American submarine and Fourteenth Air Force anti-shipping operations. Shipping losses drove the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere below subsistence level and created a condition where even the most fanatic patriot realized the disadvantages of the situation.

The Japanese put all the captured radios to work. They had traitors of all kinds on their side—including, it is shameful to admit, Americans, Russians, British, Australians, and French. (Despite the fact they occupied all of Guam, they never used a single Guamanian traitor—testimony to the simple loyalty to the U.S. of the Chamorro people and to the popularity of the long-established U.S. naval government on the island.)

Japanese psychological warfare failed because the real warfare behind it failed. The Japanese could not whip their over-docile troops into a fighting frenzy without allowing those troops to behave in a way which made deadly enemies for Japan among the peoples she came to "liberate." The Japanese did not have sense enough to be satisfied with 100% return per year on their money, but wrecked the conquered economic systems with inflation, poor management, and excess exploitation. Even the quislings became restless under the poor occupation policies of the Japanese, and before the war was over a considerable number of the Japanese quislings re-quislinged back to the United Nations side.