What we fight for
Beloved Emperor, honored Generals, fellow Admirals. For about two years now, we are fighting. Mostly in China and sometimes in Manchuria and most recently, in the Pacific. We are fighting on land, at sea and in the air, using both our bodies and our minds to achieve victory in the best traditions of our ancestors. Even when we do not agree upon each decision, once a decision is reached, everybody does his duty and sees these decisions followed through, turning plans into reality. Even when we suffer setbacks, we are not to be deviating from our goal. However, to achieve victory, we must keep in mind these goals.
In China, the goal is pretty clear. Together with our Allies, the Guanxi Clique, we aim to control China. This vast country offers riches we dearly need if we ever hope to achieve a parity with the colonial powers and be one of the big players, being able to defend what is rightfully ours. Though the colonial powers are currently fighting in Europe, we should assume that this focus of their attention will last forever. Once the war in Europe is settled, they will return to Asia and in force, making sure these parts of their empires are firmly in their hands. This forces us to make the decision whether or not we want to use this chance to dispute their rulership in Asia and thus propell ourselves into the ranks of major powers.
However, we do need to take other factors into account as well. The Soviets are also occupied in Europe but their attention will not remain there forever. While we do not have much to gain from them, they have a lot to win if they wage war on us, most prominently China, Manchuko and Korea. A strike at Stalin's Soviet Russia would move the potential from far away from the area we need to protect, making our grip on the continent much firmer.
The most immediate and most dangerous threat to our ambitions, howerver, are the United States of America. Their declaration of war against us, though not totally unexpected, did catch us by surprise. Their immediate actions where uncoordinated, helping us in our retalatory invasion of Guam. This should not lead us to the assumption that the war can be won easily. Quite the contrary. Their political leadership will use every last bit of false information to whip their population into a fury against us. Moreover, their much larger industrial base enables them to build ships a lot faster than we can. How can we win a war against such a nation?
Politically, we are isolated. Our rightful intervention in China has upset the western powers, bringing the USA to wage war against us while simultaneously seeking alliance with the European colonial powers. The Axis powers are waging war against the Communists and Western Allies simultaneously, making it unwise to join them right now. They do not have the means to assist us right now anyway. This leaves us without strong allies, alone against a country which does have a larger population and a much larger industry. Invading the USA is out of the question. Their country is large and far fledged, it'd be like invading China all over again, with a much longer supply line behind it, making any such attempt folly. Beating the Americans decisively by purely military means is not possible for us.
Having ruled out the impossibilites, what can we do? We can inflict losses on them. We can take their Pacific holdings, we can seek and sink their fleets, we may even dare and set foot on their soil in Alaska or the Panama channel. Having inflicted sufficient loss of live and assets, being deprived of their Pacific holdings and facing the blockade of their single most important sea lane might force them to negotiate a peace.
Only then can we dare to turn our eyes on the liberation of further Asian populations, bringing them under the influence of our benevolent Emperor. Only then, without the immediate threat in the east, can we continue with to walk down the road, onwards to our destiny.
If we fail against China, if we fail against the USA, then we will be nothing. Our fleets, armies and our empire would be destroyed. Our culture, our religion, our heritage would be subject to the whims of those who defeated us. We do not fight for land, for riches, for prestige. We fight for the survival of Japan as a nation.