I've just finished Masuji Ibuse's 1969 novel Black Rain. It is an excellent novel. It presents the story of a small family from a village near to Hiroshima a few years after the atomic bomb was dropped on the city. The tone is - as in several the works of many Japanese writers - very matter of fact, and giving a good feel of the character of the storyteller, Shigematsu Shizuma. Despite the sometimes dry tone in which what was seen is recounted, Shigematsu's genuine concern for friends and family shines true at the important points. Ibuse's book offers some very dramatic turns which can be felt in full force. It is emotionally moving, and tragic.
It mainly deals with how radiation effect crept up years after the bombing on many of those who thought they would be fine, they would survive. It was interesting to read the book in the same year as Svetlana Alexievich's Chernobyl Prayer. Both books tell stories of loss, of patriotic or nationalistic feeling that motivated people to help and work among the debris of nuclear catastrophes, and the tragedy of not knowing what they were dealing with. At the time the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima the Japanese - including doctors - had no idea about the effects of radiation, and at the time of the Chernobyl catastrophe the masses of people living in the regions affected, as well as those who were sent there for relief work were kept in the dark about those effects. Both books tell about much suffering, but also about remarkable cases of community spirit and a feeling of belonging to the places, even after they have been affected by catastrophes. Of course the Japanese - with the help of the U.S. - dealt with Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the war was very different from the way in which Moscov - and Belarus and the Ukraine - handled the consequences of Chernobyl.
Ibuse's book mentions criticisms of the Japanese Imperial government, army, and navy only in a very subdued way. It is hard to guess today whether this is a literary tool employed by the writer to express that people were genuinely afraid to criticise the leadership and the army, even at the end of the war, or simply a reluctance to engage in such criticism when he wrote the book. What makes the former interpretation more likely is that in some places in the novel there is a marked contrast of descriptions of malpractice, mistreatment of civilians and soldiers by the military, still people who are obviously aware of the ridiculousness of what was going on are silent. The horrible plans of the army to arm all civilians to defend Japan against the invasion of the U.S. forces is mentioned in several places - in no way favourably -, also showing that there were people who genuinely believed - or at least talked as if they would believe - in such policies.
The book is another great argument for never again wanting a war and strictly keeping away from using nuclear weapons ever, in any situation. This makes it an especially relevant book to debates today, when the Russian military publicized in the last years that it carried out practices for scenarios of nuclear strikes against European targets, and where the false rumour was spread that the U.S. was threatening Russia with a nuclear war (this is supposed to have been averted by the election of Trump).
Russia is obviously at a point where it is under huge international pressure, and it Putin, his government, and his generals are willing to go to great lengths. Novels like Ibuse's and Alexievich's can help people understand in Russia, the U.S. and everywhere else, that threatening with nuclear strikes is a horrible thing to do, and any use of atomic bombs that affects civilians is a terrible crime. Tension and Russian propaganda need to be defused. Merkel and Obama have gone to great lengths to achieve this. However, Putin is willing to risk much, and Trump is fool enough - so it seems at the moment - to go along with his games.
You can read a review of Black Rain from The Japan Times here.
Showing posts with label WWII. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WWII. Show all posts
Sunday, 13 November 2016
Saturday, 22 October 2016
On Akiko Hashimoto's 'The Long Defeat'
Akiko Hashimoto's book offers a very good overview of Japanese attempts both of politicians and civilians to understand their role in the second world war, and since then.
Hashimoto covers the main political debates between pacifists, nationalists, and reconciliationists, as she divides the calls her groupings of the main approaches. These distinctions are someties oversimplified, but there are plenty of details and careful references, so anyone can strike out and make up their own mind about the issues discussed.
The last 30 pages of the book are in many respects the most interesting since Hashimoto reflects briefly on the post 2000 events up to 2014. It is too bad that she doesn't deal on more pages with the effects of Chinese and South-Korean nationalism, and the hatred against Japan stoked by Chinese and Korean (both North and South) governments. This is a phenomenon we have seen more of recently, and is used as a tool by the Chinese and Koreans to direct away attention from internal politics and economic problems, and their own issues with authoritarianism and human rights issues; and of course China uses this as an excuse for its own aggressive military expansion. These factors are becoming more and more important as China and both Koreas grow stronger, and turn many of the earlier fears of nationalist Japanese politicians into actual threats that Japan has to take seriously.
Of course these factors also complicate the picture of how Japan should relate to its own WWII role and validate that it should simply move on. Enough apologies have been offered, restitutions have been paid, and since WWII Japan is more peaceful and democratic than the large majority of its vocal critics, including China, the Koreas, and the US. Chinese and South-Korean politicians are utterly reluctant to admit the strenght of the Japanese peace-movements, the fact that their militaries are stronger or as strong as the Japanese, or that they are employing authoritarian, dictatoric means against their own citizens, as well as that they also have a violent history going back millenias. Until they use the conflicts with Japan for domestic political purposes in this way, the apology-politics should stop, the topic should be dropped, and a more forward looking vision crafted for Japan. Of course the horrible war crimes perpetrated by Japanese soldiers, leaders and sometimes even civilians have to be openly remembered. But they do not constitute the whole history of Japan, nor are they the only and main thing about the country around which its identity should be constructed.
This is perhaps my biggest point of disagreement with Hashimoto, who never challenges whether the relationship to Japan to its WWII role should be a central topic these days, and whether it should really be so important to the nation's identity (if there is such a thing at all). Surely there is more to Japan's history the tragic and guilty war years between, say roughly 1929-1945, and there is definitely more to it more than 70 years down the line. Since then Japan has been supporting other countries in their economic build-up, been a peaceful country, and evolved into a major welfare state conscious of the rights, interests, and wellbeing of its citizens. This cannot be said of the US which waged many wars and where the social network - which was always weak - hasn't developed properly, or China where an authoritarian regime is keeping its people cut off from the internet, occupied tibet, the north-eastern territories, and is punishing by torture, prisoning and force any serious organized dissent. The maniac focus on the issue of Japan's WWII role just seems to serve political interests of nationalist politicians in Japan, and the Chinese, Korean, Russian, and US military and political dilpomacy.
Akiko Hashimoto, The Long Defeat. 2015. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hashimoto covers the main political debates between pacifists, nationalists, and reconciliationists, as she divides the calls her groupings of the main approaches. These distinctions are someties oversimplified, but there are plenty of details and careful references, so anyone can strike out and make up their own mind about the issues discussed.
The last 30 pages of the book are in many respects the most interesting since Hashimoto reflects briefly on the post 2000 events up to 2014. It is too bad that she doesn't deal on more pages with the effects of Chinese and South-Korean nationalism, and the hatred against Japan stoked by Chinese and Korean (both North and South) governments. This is a phenomenon we have seen more of recently, and is used as a tool by the Chinese and Koreans to direct away attention from internal politics and economic problems, and their own issues with authoritarianism and human rights issues; and of course China uses this as an excuse for its own aggressive military expansion. These factors are becoming more and more important as China and both Koreas grow stronger, and turn many of the earlier fears of nationalist Japanese politicians into actual threats that Japan has to take seriously.
Of course these factors also complicate the picture of how Japan should relate to its own WWII role and validate that it should simply move on. Enough apologies have been offered, restitutions have been paid, and since WWII Japan is more peaceful and democratic than the large majority of its vocal critics, including China, the Koreas, and the US. Chinese and South-Korean politicians are utterly reluctant to admit the strenght of the Japanese peace-movements, the fact that their militaries are stronger or as strong as the Japanese, or that they are employing authoritarian, dictatoric means against their own citizens, as well as that they also have a violent history going back millenias. Until they use the conflicts with Japan for domestic political purposes in this way, the apology-politics should stop, the topic should be dropped, and a more forward looking vision crafted for Japan. Of course the horrible war crimes perpetrated by Japanese soldiers, leaders and sometimes even civilians have to be openly remembered. But they do not constitute the whole history of Japan, nor are they the only and main thing about the country around which its identity should be constructed.
This is perhaps my biggest point of disagreement with Hashimoto, who never challenges whether the relationship to Japan to its WWII role should be a central topic these days, and whether it should really be so important to the nation's identity (if there is such a thing at all). Surely there is more to Japan's history the tragic and guilty war years between, say roughly 1929-1945, and there is definitely more to it more than 70 years down the line. Since then Japan has been supporting other countries in their economic build-up, been a peaceful country, and evolved into a major welfare state conscious of the rights, interests, and wellbeing of its citizens. This cannot be said of the US which waged many wars and where the social network - which was always weak - hasn't developed properly, or China where an authoritarian regime is keeping its people cut off from the internet, occupied tibet, the north-eastern territories, and is punishing by torture, prisoning and force any serious organized dissent. The maniac focus on the issue of Japan's WWII role just seems to serve political interests of nationalist politicians in Japan, and the Chinese, Korean, Russian, and US military and political dilpomacy.
Akiko Hashimoto, The Long Defeat. 2015. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sunday, 9 October 2016
On hating other nations
Politicans talk of 'people' and 'nations' often. They do this to achieve an effect. They are talking rubbish. No nation is unified in the sense in which they say it is. No country, not even a village!, has only people who think in the same way, who live in the same way. No country or nation is 'good' or 'bad'. Governments, leaders, individuals, organizations are eveil, bad, heroic, good, decent, average. But countries?
Talk of nations usually engeders an artifical 'them and us' way of thinking. The army and politicians use it to awaken hate and alienation in people towards others living in different countries. They use this hatred when they are justifying wars and other horrors they inflict on others in the name of their countries.
The truth is that people are the same everywhere. Sure, cultures, habits, efficiency, cleanliness, clothes, etc. differ. What does not differ is that there are good and bad and average people everywhere. That the average Jane, or Cuicui, or Sakura, or Johanna does not want war and does not care about other countries. The average John, or Jose, or Maua, or Xun wants to get on with his job, be safe, and have a healthy family. This is what is universal and what would serve as a perfect platform for peaceful global growth. All war and conflict is about the power-games of leaderships who have interests in gaining more money and power. Be that Russia, China, the US, or the European countries, Japan or African or South-American countries, it is always about the might of the elites. Wars are not for and in the interest of the people.
The section quoted below illustrates eminently well how people find out that other countries have normal folks living in them too.
"Yes, I remember that being at war with the Italians was taken as a licence for Americans to defecate all over them. Even though most of us in the base section at Naples had never closed with an Italian in combat. Our argument was that we should treat the Neapolitans as the Neapolitans would have treated our cities presumably if they'd won the war. I watched old ladies of Naples pushed off the sidewalks by drunken GIs and officers. Every Italian girl was fair pray to propositions we wouldn't have made to a streetwalker back home. Those who spoke Italian used the tu on everyone they met. And I remember seeing American MPs beating the driver of a horse and wagon because they were obstructing traffic on Via Roma. I don't think the Germans could have done any better in their concentration camps. I thought that all humanity had gone from the world, and that this war had smothered decency forever.
- These Eyeties, the mess sergeant said, ain't human beins. They're just Gooks, that's all.
- All I know, the corporal said doggedly and worriedly, is that they ain't Americans...They don't see things the way we do.
- They'd steal anything, the mess sergeant said, stuffing a turkey, his mouth crammed with giblet leavings.
I remember that other arguments against the Neapolitans, besides the cardinal one, that they'd declared war on us, were that they stole and were filthy-dirty. I only know that no Neapolitan ever stole anything from me, for I took pains to see that no temptation was put in their way. Though once my wallet was lifted in a New York subway. And for those Neapolitans to whom I sometimes gave an extra bar of soap, I noticed that they used this soap joyfully on themselves, their children, their clothes. I've buried my face in the hair of Neapolitan girls. It was just as sweet as an American girl's if the Napoletana had the wherewithal to wash it.
I remember that in Naples after my heart broke I decided that a stricly American point of view in itself offered no peace or solution for the world. So I began to make friends with the Neapolitans. And it didn't surprise me to find that, like everyone else in the world, they had their good and their bad and their admixtures of both. To know them, I'd been working on my Italian. That lovely supple language was kind to my tongue. The Neapolitans were gracious in helping me with it.
(...)
This forced me to the not original conclusion that the Neapolitans were like everybody else in the world, and in an infinite variety. Because I was an americano the Neapolitans treated me with a strange pudding of respect, dismay, and bewilderment. A few loathed me. But from most Italians I got a decency and kindness that they'd have showered on any other American in Naples who'd made up his mind to treat them like human beings. I'm not bragging. I'm not unique."
From John Horn Burns's The Gallery, in the section appearing as 'My Heart Finally Broke in Naples' in War Stories (eds. Sebastian Faulks and Jörg Hensgen), 2014, London: Vintage, pp. 274-5.
Talk of nations usually engeders an artifical 'them and us' way of thinking. The army and politicians use it to awaken hate and alienation in people towards others living in different countries. They use this hatred when they are justifying wars and other horrors they inflict on others in the name of their countries.
The truth is that people are the same everywhere. Sure, cultures, habits, efficiency, cleanliness, clothes, etc. differ. What does not differ is that there are good and bad and average people everywhere. That the average Jane, or Cuicui, or Sakura, or Johanna does not want war and does not care about other countries. The average John, or Jose, or Maua, or Xun wants to get on with his job, be safe, and have a healthy family. This is what is universal and what would serve as a perfect platform for peaceful global growth. All war and conflict is about the power-games of leaderships who have interests in gaining more money and power. Be that Russia, China, the US, or the European countries, Japan or African or South-American countries, it is always about the might of the elites. Wars are not for and in the interest of the people.
The section quoted below illustrates eminently well how people find out that other countries have normal folks living in them too.
"Yes, I remember that being at war with the Italians was taken as a licence for Americans to defecate all over them. Even though most of us in the base section at Naples had never closed with an Italian in combat. Our argument was that we should treat the Neapolitans as the Neapolitans would have treated our cities presumably if they'd won the war. I watched old ladies of Naples pushed off the sidewalks by drunken GIs and officers. Every Italian girl was fair pray to propositions we wouldn't have made to a streetwalker back home. Those who spoke Italian used the tu on everyone they met. And I remember seeing American MPs beating the driver of a horse and wagon because they were obstructing traffic on Via Roma. I don't think the Germans could have done any better in their concentration camps. I thought that all humanity had gone from the world, and that this war had smothered decency forever.
- These Eyeties, the mess sergeant said, ain't human beins. They're just Gooks, that's all.
- All I know, the corporal said doggedly and worriedly, is that they ain't Americans...They don't see things the way we do.
- They'd steal anything, the mess sergeant said, stuffing a turkey, his mouth crammed with giblet leavings.
I remember that other arguments against the Neapolitans, besides the cardinal one, that they'd declared war on us, were that they stole and were filthy-dirty. I only know that no Neapolitan ever stole anything from me, for I took pains to see that no temptation was put in their way. Though once my wallet was lifted in a New York subway. And for those Neapolitans to whom I sometimes gave an extra bar of soap, I noticed that they used this soap joyfully on themselves, their children, their clothes. I've buried my face in the hair of Neapolitan girls. It was just as sweet as an American girl's if the Napoletana had the wherewithal to wash it.
I remember that in Naples after my heart broke I decided that a stricly American point of view in itself offered no peace or solution for the world. So I began to make friends with the Neapolitans. And it didn't surprise me to find that, like everyone else in the world, they had their good and their bad and their admixtures of both. To know them, I'd been working on my Italian. That lovely supple language was kind to my tongue. The Neapolitans were gracious in helping me with it.
(...)
This forced me to the not original conclusion that the Neapolitans were like everybody else in the world, and in an infinite variety. Because I was an americano the Neapolitans treated me with a strange pudding of respect, dismay, and bewilderment. A few loathed me. But from most Italians I got a decency and kindness that they'd have showered on any other American in Naples who'd made up his mind to treat them like human beings. I'm not bragging. I'm not unique."
From John Horn Burns's The Gallery, in the section appearing as 'My Heart Finally Broke in Naples' in War Stories (eds. Sebastian Faulks and Jörg Hensgen), 2014, London: Vintage, pp. 274-5.
Sunday, 15 May 2016
Some misunderstandings around war, WWII, and using nuclear bombs
The Onion ran a short piece on Obama's visit to Hiroshima.
Some not too smart US citizens took it seriously. I tried to comment - and might have been too sarcastic - to shed some light of their confusions.
One of them lectured me in a very misguided way then. Obviously, he hasn't read anything about history, about war, military strategy, economy, diplomacy, or politics. This is not a problem: most people don't have time and energy to do that. They work, care for their family, spend time with their friends, and are good people.
This doesn't change the fact that someone who does not know even the basics about the topic should not lecture anyone else about it. So: please take the following discussion as an example of what popular misunderstanding not to repeat and believe, and on how to separate issues more finely to understand them better. I'm a pro, I have been trained to do this kind of thinking, this is part of my job, and I'm happy to do it. I don't want to offend you or lecture you, I want to help everyone see clearer.
Here is his message:
"Sorry Steve, but I understand WW2 and firebombing both. The Japanese were Hitlers buddies, along with Russia - going to divide the world between themselves after they killed most of us. Well - too damn bad they got nuked. Haven't you ever studied what the allies found after the war? Americans being experimented on, with body parts removed. The Japanese dissected Americans, while keeping them alive in vats. Almost all were mercy killed by Allied troops. That doesn't even cover what the Germans did. You obviously don't know much about the cultures of the time. Besides, war isn't fair.. It's kill them - before they kill you."
And here are the corrections:
"Hi YY,
You are mixing up a number of issues.
1. You are mixing up a) whether dropping the nukes were justified, and b) whether the firebombing was justified.
2. You also mix up whether a) the nukes were justified, and b) whether Japan had to be defeated,
and
3. You mix up the a) ambitions of Japan, with b) the ambitions of Germany,
and also
4. You mix up a) the goals of a very small number of extreme radical Germans (and maybe Japanese?) with b) the goals of the fairly sane but too ambitious military of b1) Japan, and what is again a separate issue of b2) Germany.
Now first of all:
I) No matter what a country's government does, and no matter what a country's military leadership does, is it justified to drop nuclear bombs.
II) By the time the US leadership decided to drop the nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima the US leadership knew both that a) Japan would not be able to continue the war and would eventually surrender, and b) that most of the casualties would be civilians.
Next: Did either the German, or the Japanese government or military leadership plan to 'kill us all' as you say. The answer is no. The Germans had plans to eradicate masses of Jewish people, homosexual people, people with mental and bodily disabilities, and Slavic people. But that's it.
The Japanese people didn't have any such ambitions. Mixing up the German cause of eliminating Jews with the military-medical experiments that one secret and special Japanese military unit carried out is a big mistake.
Next: You say war isn't fair. Well think of it this way: It is US policy since many years ago that if any of the resource supplies of the US are threatened - meaning also: if any country doesn't want to sell something to the US - then that is to be treated as a threat to national security, and hence as a military issue.
I think that isn't a very good principle, but it is what the US follows.
The Japanese government followed the same principle when it bomber Pearl Harbor. The bombing followed years of strategic manouvering by the US government and military which aimed at cutting off the Japanese from crucial resources and supplies. If you take the US principle as the standard, the Japanese were justified in taking the US to be their enemies and attack them.
You also say the following: The Germans, the Japanese, and the Russians were going to divide the world between themselves. This is wrong again. The Germans and the Japanese were fighting against the Russians.
They both lost in the war. The world hence got divided between the US, Russia (or rather the Soviet Union) and the European powers. I don't necessarily think that this was a very bad consequence overall, although it had some horrible results in Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, etc. I do think on the other hand that what you are saying is that only evil powers divide the world between themselves.
Well, let me tell you something: all powers are trying to dominate, the US included. The US follows a very well and carefully planned policy of keeping its borders safe, and also having allies on the other side of the oceans. Hence its alliance with the EU, and with Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Australia. The US is not a benevolent, kind might. It is a well led huge power. When the interests of the US were threatened it stepped in with its military and didn't shy away from killing in other countries, from waging war, from killing civilians and from using torture to obtain military intelligence. It is not a saintly power, just as Germany and Japan weren't.
Also: You don't understand much about war. No sane politician or military leader aims solely at killing. They aim at winning a war. A war is won when the opponent sees that they can't continue. For this you don't have to kill their entire population. That would be a crime against humanity, no matter which country would do it. You aim at weakening the other country's infrastructure, its production lines, its access to natural resources (iron, oil, etc.), and its military. You don't aim at killing.
You might want to listen to the interview with Robert McNamara 'The Fog of War', you read the book on Japan by Ian Buruma titled 'Inventing Japan', and read in general more about history, politics, economy, and war."
Some not too smart US citizens took it seriously. I tried to comment - and might have been too sarcastic - to shed some light of their confusions.
One of them lectured me in a very misguided way then. Obviously, he hasn't read anything about history, about war, military strategy, economy, diplomacy, or politics. This is not a problem: most people don't have time and energy to do that. They work, care for their family, spend time with their friends, and are good people.
This doesn't change the fact that someone who does not know even the basics about the topic should not lecture anyone else about it. So: please take the following discussion as an example of what popular misunderstanding not to repeat and believe, and on how to separate issues more finely to understand them better. I'm a pro, I have been trained to do this kind of thinking, this is part of my job, and I'm happy to do it. I don't want to offend you or lecture you, I want to help everyone see clearer.
Here is his message:
"Sorry Steve, but I understand WW2 and firebombing both. The Japanese were Hitlers buddies, along with Russia - going to divide the world between themselves after they killed most of us. Well - too damn bad they got nuked. Haven't you ever studied what the allies found after the war? Americans being experimented on, with body parts removed. The Japanese dissected Americans, while keeping them alive in vats. Almost all were mercy killed by Allied troops. That doesn't even cover what the Germans did. You obviously don't know much about the cultures of the time. Besides, war isn't fair.. It's kill them - before they kill you."
And here are the corrections:
"Hi YY,
You are mixing up a number of issues.
1. You are mixing up a) whether dropping the nukes were justified, and b) whether the firebombing was justified.
2. You also mix up whether a) the nukes were justified, and b) whether Japan had to be defeated,
and
3. You mix up the a) ambitions of Japan, with b) the ambitions of Germany,
and also
4. You mix up a) the goals of a very small number of extreme radical Germans (and maybe Japanese?) with b) the goals of the fairly sane but too ambitious military of b1) Japan, and what is again a separate issue of b2) Germany.
Now first of all:
I) No matter what a country's government does, and no matter what a country's military leadership does, is it justified to drop nuclear bombs.
II) By the time the US leadership decided to drop the nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima the US leadership knew both that a) Japan would not be able to continue the war and would eventually surrender, and b) that most of the casualties would be civilians.
Next: Did either the German, or the Japanese government or military leadership plan to 'kill us all' as you say. The answer is no. The Germans had plans to eradicate masses of Jewish people, homosexual people, people with mental and bodily disabilities, and Slavic people. But that's it.
The Japanese people didn't have any such ambitions. Mixing up the German cause of eliminating Jews with the military-medical experiments that one secret and special Japanese military unit carried out is a big mistake.
Next: You say war isn't fair. Well think of it this way: It is US policy since many years ago that if any of the resource supplies of the US are threatened - meaning also: if any country doesn't want to sell something to the US - then that is to be treated as a threat to national security, and hence as a military issue.
I think that isn't a very good principle, but it is what the US follows.
The Japanese government followed the same principle when it bomber Pearl Harbor. The bombing followed years of strategic manouvering by the US government and military which aimed at cutting off the Japanese from crucial resources and supplies. If you take the US principle as the standard, the Japanese were justified in taking the US to be their enemies and attack them.
You also say the following: The Germans, the Japanese, and the Russians were going to divide the world between themselves. This is wrong again. The Germans and the Japanese were fighting against the Russians.
They both lost in the war. The world hence got divided between the US, Russia (or rather the Soviet Union) and the European powers. I don't necessarily think that this was a very bad consequence overall, although it had some horrible results in Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, etc. I do think on the other hand that what you are saying is that only evil powers divide the world between themselves.
Well, let me tell you something: all powers are trying to dominate, the US included. The US follows a very well and carefully planned policy of keeping its borders safe, and also having allies on the other side of the oceans. Hence its alliance with the EU, and with Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Australia. The US is not a benevolent, kind might. It is a well led huge power. When the interests of the US were threatened it stepped in with its military and didn't shy away from killing in other countries, from waging war, from killing civilians and from using torture to obtain military intelligence. It is not a saintly power, just as Germany and Japan weren't.
Also: You don't understand much about war. No sane politician or military leader aims solely at killing. They aim at winning a war. A war is won when the opponent sees that they can't continue. For this you don't have to kill their entire population. That would be a crime against humanity, no matter which country would do it. You aim at weakening the other country's infrastructure, its production lines, its access to natural resources (iron, oil, etc.), and its military. You don't aim at killing.
You might want to listen to the interview with Robert McNamara 'The Fog of War', you read the book on Japan by Ian Buruma titled 'Inventing Japan', and read in general more about history, politics, economy, and war."
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