Japanese war aims were driven by events, and a theory of war aims was formulated afterwards. Inevitably, it tended to be incomplete and incoherent. This applied to both the NOEA, which was proclaimed in 1938 as a response to a war in China that Japan had not wanted at that particular time; and to the GEACPS, which was proclaimed in 1940 in anticipation of huge gains for Japan in south Asia and the Pacific that the German victories in Europe had made a feasible prospect. The theory of the NOEA-GEACPS amounted to little more than a cloak for an elite that wanted to pursue imperialism in an...

Japanese war aims were driven by events, and a theory of war aims was formulated afterwards. Inevitably, it tended to be incomplete and incoherent. This applied to both the NOEA, which was proclaimed in 1938 as a response to a war in China that Japan had not wanted at that particular time; and to the GEACPS, which was proclaimed in 1940 in anticipation of huge gains for Japan in south Asia and the Pacific that the German victories in Europe had made a feasible prospect. The theory of the NOEA-GEACPS amounted to little more than a cloak for an elite that wanted to pursue imperialism in an anti-imperialist age and to establish right-wing authoritarianism at home. On 18 January 1942, Germany and Japan signed an agreement on global spheres of influence. This chapter ends by looking at Japanese war aims with the Soviet Union.