일본의 軍事戰略과 ‘國防方針’의 성립

Japan’s Military Strategy and the Formation of ‘the Defense Plan’

After the Russo-Japanese War ended, there began a movement in Japan to unity nation’s external strategy by the army. As a result, the Defense Plan of the Japanese Empire was enacted in April, 1907. It was for the first tirre since the Meiji Restoration that an overall long-term direction in the defense affairs was decided The Defense Plan stipulated such items as the unified political and military strategy, offensive strategy, presumed enemy-nation, the size of military armaments. Although it contained unrealistic items, it is viewed a cornerstone in the establishment of the military circles (‘gunbu’) because it aimed at the military’ s predominance in the military-cabinet relationship. Previous studies on the Defense Plan has focused on the political, military and financial aspects. However, this study focused on the process in which the unified political and military strategy and the principle of offensive strategy developed into the central concept in the military strategy of the Defense Plan. As a result, it reached the following conclusions: the Defense Plan was not a temporary phenomenon resulting from the intoxication of war victory; it came into reality thanks to the continuous demands from the mid-level officers who voiced for offensive strategy since the prewar period; consequently, unlike the political interests of the upper-level officers, the mid-level officers intended to solve the military-strategic problems such as the disagreement of political and military strategies, the absence of unitied operations between the army and the navy, and the delay of Manchurian operations due to defensive strategy through a special remedy, that is, the Defense Plan.