The military-political establishment had spent the past decade or more basically purity-spiralling out anyone seen as insufficiently dedicated to the cause of i

The military-political establishment had spent the past decade or more basically purity-spiralling out anyone seen as insufficiently dedicated to the cause of imperial expansion. To me, the most striking example of this is what happened to Ishiwara Kanji[1]. This is the guy who gekokujou'd Manchukuo into existence, so not exactly a cautious humanitarian. Ishiwara later got purged for opposing further expansionism in China: he thought that grabbing Manchukuo had been enough to assure Japan's quest for autarky in vital military materials, and that continued messing around in China would accelerate confrontation with the West and act as a resource drain on Japan's ability to shape itself into a militarily self-sufficient state. He was totally right, of course, but got it in the neck anyway. There's a lot more examples of this, both in the military branches and in elite political circles. I highly recommend the scholarly book Japan Prepares For Total War[2] if you're interested in the details. The result, though, was that many voices of reason were explicitly removed from power for being too reasonable. At this point in the war, the cast of characters running the show weren't able or willing to see sense and had insulated themselves from all advice and criticism. --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_Ishiwara https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_Ishiwara [2] https://books.google.com/books/about/Japan_Prepares_for_Total_War.html?id=zA4eRWKd3DMC https://books.google.com/books/about/Japan_Prepares_for_Tota...