Japan's fear of losing independence in the road to war

Alex relates an interpretation he developed while visiting Japan: fear of becoming subordinate to foreign powers shaped how some Japanese decision-makers viewed their choices. In that account, avoiding war did not seem to guarantee cultural or political independence. A faction could therefore expect defeat and still favor war because it saw a small chance of escaping an outcome it already feared. This describes the reasoning he attributes to those decision-makers, rather than establishing that their feared alternatives were inevitable.