The Eight-Eight Fleet as shield and sledgehammer

Japanese planners were realistic about the debt and industrial limits attached to expanding from a Four-Four to an Eight-Eight Fleet. Against Britain or the United States, the ships were meant to make Japan a costly target. The same force could act as a sledgehammer against a less heavily armed state, and Japan was willing to use that advantage. This dual role grew from Japan's encounter with Western colonial expansion and its fear that older civilizations could be marginalized or dominated.