Sarah Paine

They're quite proud of their achievements.

And it vastly increases the prestige of the military, particularly the army.

And this is going to have bad follow-on effects for civil-military relations because it's going to increase military power over civil power.

But it takes a while to...

play out.

Regionally, Japan's replacing China as the dominant power, and Japan's getting the beginnings of its empires, Taiwan and the Pescadores.

Internationally, Japan becomes a recognized great power.

And what's my proof?

It would be the 1902 Anglo-Japanese alliance, which is Britain's only long-term alliance between the Napoleonic Wars and World War I, alliance with Japan.

However, this war gets the eye of Mordor turned on to them because Russia is going, whoa, rising power in Asia, potential two-front war problem for us with Europe in the West and whatever the Japanese think they're doing.

And that triggers a Russo-Japanese arms race and Russia, the eye of Mordor, turns from Europe to Asia.

And that's going to be problematic.

Now my transition sentence, I've done part number one.

Not only did Japan westernize its institutions in order to overturn the balance of power, but it also mastered grand strategy and integrated multiple instruments of national power.

And here we go on that one.

Marshal Yamagata, who was the writer of war plans for the very successful Sino-Japanese War, he predicted another war within the decade.

And the Russo-Japanese War came right on time.

And in the meantime, Japan prepared for war.

And it integrated such instruments of national power as diplomacy, intelligence, military, economics.

I'm going to go through each in turn.