Translation can obscure Japanese strategic writing, just as it can obscure Clausewitz's arguments in English. Kantai Kessen is often presented as the single organizing doctrine of the Imperial Japanese Navy. During much of the 1930s, however, interception-and-attrition operations formed the broader ascendant approach, with a decisive battle as one element within it. Specialist studies have brought that wider framework back into view. Accounts that use Kantai Kessen as the sole explanation therefore miss distinctions within Japanese planning.
Notable Point · 3:22:41-3:27:23
Japanese doctrine beyond Kantai Kessen
The familiar decisive-battle label obscures a wider Japanese interception-and-attrition system and the problems of reading doctrine through translation.