Selling peace as a program of military reconstruction

Japan had lost experienced economic and political leaders to assassination, reducing the pool available to direct reconstruction. In the counterfactual, Yonai uses the army's difficulties against Soviet and Chinese forces to argue for a pause before a larger conflict. That interval would support investment in factories, infrastructure, tanks, artillery, machine guns, and better antiaircraft weapons. Expanded oil storage and synthetic fuel production from coal would form part of the program, although the available coal is described as less than ideal. Presenting withdrawal as time to rebuild military capacity could win enough support to give Yonai room to address the army leadership.