Blinded by the rising sun: Japanese military intelligence from the first Sino-Japanese War to the end of World War II

摘要

This thesis examines the evolution of Japanese Intelligence following the Meiji Restoration to the end of World War II. In an area of increasing strategic importance, especially so given the influence Japanese Intelligence has had on the region and its own governance throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the thesis examines the danger of politicisation, both in terms of intelligence officers and the intelligence products they produce, and how this can have a detrimental effect on decision-making at the highest echelon. Utilising primary sources from the US and UK, predominantly interrogation reports, as well as translated accounts of key Japanese intelligence figures and US military assessments, the thesis further explores how such a prolific intelligence system spread throughout mainland Asia, yet remained ultimately inefficient and ineffectual. In an area not explored in great depth, and across a period clearly definable as Japan’s period of modernisation, the thesis sheds light on the area in an objective fashion at a time that Japan seeks once more to develop its human intelligence apparatus and structure, of key import to its contemporary strategic partners.