Japan Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo (1854–1936) dramatically reflated the economy to increase employment, in an effort to also steer Japan toward becoming a command economy, one geared for eventual total war In fact, the zaibatsu still conducted themselves as almost sovereign entities, refusing to bend to a total war concept of the state: economic unity and rational planning remained mostly illusory A “February Rising” in 1936—essentially a coup attempt by the Kodo-ha clique—was put down with Hirohito’s (the Sho ˉwa Emperor) decisive, even angry assistance However, mutiny by junior officers fatally weakened civilian authority, giving license to imperial ambitions of other military and ultranationalist elites, especially as represented in the so-called Tosei-ha faction Even after Kodo-ha radicals were executed or banished, Japan had a fundamental problem of disobedience within its officer corps and overall military rejection of civilian authority After the February Rising, Japan was a military dictatorship in all but name, without real restraint exercised by civilians or the Chrysanthemum Throne Policy increasingly reflected the military’s belief in Tosui-ken, or complete strategic independence Japan hence launched a propaganda policy of “Asia for Asians” and a newly territorial definition of the old economic dream of autarky under proposals for a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere More controversially, Japan also adhered to the AntiComintern Pact Not wanting to be left out of the new militarism, the Navy insisted on abrogation of the Washington Treaty system as of January 1, 1937, so that it was no longer bound by warship building limitations Under Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, Japan next stepped into the “China quagmire,” at one and the same time willingly and unintentionally: it embarked on the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) Starting with the Marco Polo Bridge incident, arrogant officers in the Guandong Army drew Japan into war deeper in China They did so despite a consensus among their superiors that the ultimate enemy was the Soviet Union, and the fact that the IJN was mostly uninterested in Manchuria or northern China The Japanese took heavy casualties from the start and lost enormous international prestige when news broke of the Rape of Nanjing The die was cast: Japan was pulled ever deeper into China in a war it could not win but also could not leave, which soured its relations with the Western powers and opened new vulnerabilities along the Manchurian–Mongolian–Soviet border The Guandong Army was then humbled by the Red Army in a bloody, undeclared border war along the Amur River in 1938 and at Nomonhan in July–August 1939 Even as that fight was underway, the shock of the Nazi–Soviet Pact—announced one day after a ceasefire was agreed at Nomonhan—left Japanese leaders feeling betrayed by their principal ally, strategically confused and even frightened, and extremely cautious about any new war with the Soviet Union Fearing that Adolf Hitler had left Joseph Stalin free to attack Japan in the east, and hamstrung by crop and economic failures from Taiwan and Korea to Manchukuo, even core Army militarists became less provocative When war broke out in Europe a week later, Japan was gravely damaged economically Overnight, it was mostly cut off from traditional continental markets and found itself more dependent than before on the United States This shift occurred even as the administration of Franklin D Roosevelt moved toward a view 599