How Japan Plans to Win

How Japan Plans to Win
AuthorKinoaki Matsuo
Original titleThe Three-Power Alliance and the United States-Japanese War
TranslatorKilsoo Haan
LanguageEnglish
PublisherLittle, Brown and Co. (Boston)
George G. Harrap and Co. (London)
Publication placeUnited States
Published in English
1942
Media typePrint
Pages323 (Little, Brown and Co.)
240 (George G. Harrap and Co.)
OCLC4674240
TextHow Japan Plans to Win at Internet Archive

How Japan Plans to Win is the English translation of The Three-Power Alliance and the United States-Japanese War, a work of current events by Kinoaki Matsuo, a Japanese Foreign Affairs Officer, Navy Admiralty Liaison, Navy strategizer, and member of the Black Dragon Society. The English translation was performed by Kilsoo Haan, a Korean anti-Japanese operative living in the United States. It was published in 1942 simultaneously in Boston by Little, Brown and Company (323 pages) and in London by George G. Harrap and Company (240 pages). The book was reviewed in such publications as The New York Times and the Council on Foreign Relations journal, Foreign Affairs.

The book was originally published in Japan by the Foreign Office Press in late 1940.[1] It has been described by some historians as the Japanese counterpart to the United States government contingency plan War Plan Orange.[2]

  1. ^ Woolbert, Robert Gale (Jul. 1942). Review of How Japan Plans to Win, by Kinoaki Matsuo. Foreign Affairs, vol. 20, no. 4, p. 785. Archived from the original.
  2. ^ Koster, John (2012). "War Plan Orange." In: Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in FDR's White House Triggered Pearl Harbor. New York: Regnery, pp. 66–67. ISBN 978-1596983298.
    "A Japanese counterpart to War Plan Orange was set out in The Three-Power Alliance and the United States–Japanese War, published in Japan in late 1940 and said to have been written by a Naval officer named Matsuo Kinoaki [sic], a member of the ultra-nationalist Black Dragon Society. Kinoaki predicted an American attack on Japan, followed by a fight for national survival against an arrogant and racist enemy and overwhelming odds. Kilsoo Haan, a Korean anti-Japanese operative living in the United States, claimed to have stolen a copy of the book from Kinoaki himself. Little, Brown and Co. published Haan’s English translation in 1942 under the title How Japan Plans to Win. Japanese sources suggest that the book was actually written by a Japanese propagandist to reassure the public that Japan would have a chance for a negotiated peace if forced into war with the United States. Kilsoo Haan passed off this morale-building propaganda as inside information."