A careerist officer system could not keep pace with Japanese fleet expansion

The navy's promotion system assumed that a healthy, competent academy graduate should eventually reach captain, so admissions remained deliberately small. That policy suited the stable years after the Russo-Japanese War but failed when treaties lapsed and fleet, aviation, landing-force, yard, and base commitments expanded rapidly. Personnel requirements were calculated only after construction budgets were approved, even though ships could be built much faster than experienced officers could be trained. Kaigun therefore identifies a structural mismatch between a battle-oriented navy's material expansion and the human system required to operate it.