(US intervention in the Middle East and its plans on the Indo-Pacific might have something to learn from Mao’s strategy about Japan in 1937. Eventually, Japan was defeated, and Mao took power in China.)
In the spring of 1938, 88 years ago, Mao Zedong gave a set of three talks titled On Protracted War. It was almost a year after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (July 7, 1937), which marked the start of the Japanese military expansion into north China from its base in Manchuria (occupied since Sept 1931). Before 1937 the Nationalist-Communist civil war was center stage thus facilitating Japan’s developing occupation. The new phase of the Japanese invasion however compelled the Nationalists to put their conflict with the Communists on hold and (reluctantly) form a joint or united front of resistance against Japan.
Mao saw those opposed to resistance as “subjugationists,” overlooking China’s many strengths – the Nationalist tendency – and those expecting a quick Chinese victory as naive optimists for underestimating the power of Japan and overlooking China’s many weaknesses. The brief excerpts from On Protracted War are offered as a way to look at the current US + Israel-Iran War; it is for the reader to judge their applicability to the war and also to US policy in the “Indo-Pacific.”
The strategic urgency on the Japanese side is expressed in the slogan tanki kessen / short term decisive battle. Military leaders feared that Japan did not have the human or material resources for a protracted war in China, and thus hoped that the late 1937 sacking of Nanjing, China’s capital, would lead to a swift surrender by the Nationalists. But the Nationalists retreated to Chongqing and, in the context of the united front, continued resisting the invaders as Washington gradually tightened its grip on fuel and arms for Japan. The bombing of Pearl Harbor was the last major instance of tanki kessen.
“It will soon be July 7, the first anniversary of the Great War of Resistance Against Japan. Rallying in unity, persevering in resistance and persevering in the united front, the forces of the whole nation have been valiantly fighting the enemy for almost a year. The people of the whole world are attentively following this war, which has no precedent in the history of the East, and which will go down as a great war in world history too. . . .
The question now is: Will China be subjugated? The answer is, No, she will not be subjugated, but will win final victory. Can China win quickly? The answer is, No, she cannot win quickly, and the War of Resistance will be a protracted war. . . .
Japan wants to occupy the Philippines, Siam, Indo-China, the Malay Peninsula and the Dutch East Indies in order to cut off other countries from China and monopolize the southwestern Pacific. This is Japan’s maritime policy. In such a period, China will undoubtedly be in an extremely difficult position. But the majority of the Chinese people believe that such difficulties can be overcome; only the rich in the big port cities are defeatists because they are afraid of losing their property. Many people think it would be impossible for China to continue the war, once her coastline is blockaded by Japan. This is nonsense. . . .
For example, to sever Shanghai from the rest of China would definitely not be as disastrous to China as would be the severance of New York from the rest of the United States. Even if Japan blockades the Chinese coastline, it is impossible for her to blockade China’s Northwest, Southwest and West. Thus, once more the central point of the problem is the unity of the entire Chinese people and the building up of a nation-wide anti-Japanese front. . . .
If the war drags on for a long time and Japan is not completely defeated, would the Communist Party agree to the negotiation of a peace with Japan and recognize her rule in northeastern China? Answer: No. Like the people of the whole country, the Chinese Communist Party will not allow Japan to retain an inch of Chinese territory. Question: What, in your opinion, should be the main strategy and tactics to be followed in this “war of liberation”? Answer: Our strategy should be to employ our main forces to operate over an extended and fluid front. To achieve success, the Chinese troops must conduct their warfare with a high degree of mobility on extensive battlefields, making swift advances and withdrawals, swift concentrations and dispersals. This means largescale mobile warfare, and not positional warfare . . .
Geographically the theatre of the war is so vast that it is possible for us to conduct mobile warfare most effectively. In the face of the vigorous actions of our forces, the Japanese army will have to be cautious. Its war-machine is ponderous and slow-moving, with limited efficiency. If we concentrate our forces on a narrow front for a defensive war of attrition, we would be throwing away the advantages of our geography and economic organization . . .
The key to victory in the war now lies in developing the resistance that has already begun into a war of total resistance by the whole nation. Only through such a war of total resistance can final victory be won. . . .
The inevitability of the war and the impossibility of quick victory for China are due to Japan’s imperialist system and her great military, economic and political-organizational power. Secondly, however, the imperialist character of Japan’s social economy determines the imperialist character of her war, a war that is retrogressive and barbarous. In the Nineteen Thirties, the internal and external contradictions of Japanese imperialism have driven her not only to embark on an adventurist war unparalleled in scale but also to approach her final collapse. . . .
Japan can get international support from the fascist countries, the international opposition she is bound to encounter will be greater than her international support. This opposition will gradually grow and eventually not only cancel out the support but even bear down upon Japan herself. . . .
