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<blockquote data-quote="TheHumanHydra" data-source="post: 9623795" data-attributes="member: 6791899"><p>The Japanese army and society in the ~1930s provides an amazing example of interesting real-life factions. Democracy vs. conservative/militarist, army vs. navy (budget priorities and direction of expansion), then within the army, the Kosei (&quot;control&quot;) faction of military-industrial planners vs. the Kodo (Imperial Way) faction of jingoistic &quot;spirit first&quot; folks, then there were various army extremists who assassinated their superiors (in 1936 the &quot;Young Officers,&quot; militaristic, emperor-obsessed, and outraged at the plight of farmers, took over downtown Tokyo) and field armies that thumbed their noses at Tokyo to launch offensives of their own (e.g. the Kwantung Army conquering Manchuria in 1931). Then you have a maverick like Ishiwara Kanji, critical to the Kwantung Army's Manchurian conspiracy, sympathetic to major elements of both the Koseiha and the Young Officers' ideologies, who respected other Asian peoples far more than his peers, and who by-the-way partook of an unusual apocalyptic Buddhist ideology that centred all his life on preparing for a Final War with the United States (and who became a pacifist after World War II).</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="TheHumanHydra, post: 9623795, member: 6791899"] The Japanese army and society in the ~1930s provides an amazing example of interesting real-life factions. Democracy vs. conservative/militarist, army vs. navy (budget priorities and direction of expansion), then within the army, the Kosei ("control") faction of military-industrial planners vs. the Kodo (Imperial Way) faction of jingoistic "spirit first" folks, then there were various army extremists who assassinated their superiors (in 1936 the "Young Officers," militaristic, emperor-obsessed, and outraged at the plight of farmers, took over downtown Tokyo) and field armies that thumbed their noses at Tokyo to launch offensives of their own (e.g. the Kwantung Army conquering Manchuria in 1931). Then you have a maverick like Ishiwara Kanji, critical to the Kwantung Army's Manchurian conspiracy, sympathetic to major elements of both the Koseiha and the Young Officers' ideologies, who respected other Asian peoples far more than his peers, and who by-the-way partook of an unusual apocalyptic Buddhist ideology that centred all his life on preparing for a Final War with the United States (and who became a pacifist after World War II). [/QUOTE]

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