Empire, capital, and Japan’s strategic assumptions

Why did Japanese strategic thinking place such weight on controlling a large share of the world and its resources?

The argument locates Japanese thinking in a territorial, mercantilist model of power that valued direct control of resources more than the later emphasis on capital and investment.

Japanese expansion is interpreted through a mercantilist assumption that direct control of territory and resources produces national wealth. That worldview made a division of the globe into great-power spheres seem plausible to Japanese strategists. A different order allowed capital, investment, and returns to project influence without formal annexation. Britain and the United States had begun that transition during the interwar years, while Japan still pursued a territorial model of power. The discussion of decolonisation adds a warning: rapid withdrawal could leave weak civilian institutions, power vacuums, and competition between American and Soviet-backed strongmen. This is a historian's broad interpretation rather than a complete economic theory, but it clarifies the assumptions behind Japan's maritime expansion.