Why did the authors compare the Zero Fighter to the samurai sword? Much of it has to do with fact that they are built in the same spirit. Samurai swords are beautiful, deadly, yet very brittle, like the Zero Fighter. This Japanese fighter was once the most advanced aircraft in the Second World War. It was fast and maneuverable, but was known to be highly vulnerable. Even a single round from an enemy's aircraft could destroy it. This is unlike the American fighters which were generally robust but were either less agile or less quick. The authors argued that this is exactly aligned to the Japanese psyche: Japan doesn't have the concept of a shield, they only have the concept of a spear (pg. 13), this is almost unique in the world. As a result, they could sacrifice protection for their pilots in order to improve the speed and maneuverability of their planes.That is as far as the discussion on the Zero Fighter went. The rest of the book uncovers the attitudes of the authors towards Japan's participation in the Second World War.
The authors were critical of the Japanese military in the Second World War - not because they perpetuated a war that was unjust, but because they were incompetent, lacked efficiency and strategic vision thereby leaving Japan to the ultimate defeat (pg. 138). Their basic assumption is that Japan's invasion of grabbing of others' resources is totally within reason and they presented four arguments to support that position.
Japan had no choice
The nature of the Pacific War (in Southeast Asia) is to gain resources denied to Japan by the USA (pg. 47). Japan had to find a way to accommodate their growing population, they needed space and resources and China looked like the natural place to get it, especially when there was a total breakdown of governance. So their entry into China was not unlawful and seriously, it was no different from the pseudo-colonisation imposed on China by the West. But the Americans would not play ball, and started tightening the economic noose around Japan. What else could Japan do? So they had to strikes first in Southeast Asia to ensure that the West could not deny them of the resources (pg. 111) and they had to strike at Pearl Harbor in order to get the Pacific Fleet out of the way so that the Japanese Navy could secure the oil resources in the East Indies failing which, the Japanese Navy would not be able to move their ships, it's now or never (pg. 123).
It's other people's fault
Of course Japan would not have come to this had it not been for China's refusal to just accept Japan's annexation of Manchuria. This eventually led to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, an escalation that Japan was determined to avoid (pg. 170). The Chinese's refusal to back down meant that Japan had to try and destroy the Chinese army which in turn caused international opinion to turn against them.
The locals in Southeast Asia welcomed the Japanese anyway
Although the current history textbooks in Japan said that Japan invaded the Southeast Asian countries, but seriously, Japan was not fighting the indigenous people of these countries, they were fighting their colonial masters, like the Dutch, French, Americans, and the British. These were the real invaders (pg. 201). To support this, the authors cited the example of the Indonesians who were asked by their colonial masters, the Dutch, to destroy the refinery facilities. But they hated the Dutch who had exploited them for more than 300 years and so had this notion that a 'yellow-face' God would come and save them. So when the Japanese paratroopers (were there?) came, the Indonesians thought that the God had come. As a result, none of them obeyed the Dutch and so the Japanese came as liberators instead of invaders (pg. 53).
Japan was the victim
Either way in the end, isn't Japan still the only country to suffer the atomic bomb - twice? And once Japan was defeated, the allies put together a show called the Tokyo Tribunal, which was actually just a farce. Beyond the documents at the tribunal, there were no other documents criticising the Japanese. Even McArthur said that Japan fought a defensive war(?) (pg. 180).
The authors even went as far as to consider the counter-factual of Japan prevailing in the Pacific against the Americans, or invading Russia during Operation Barbarossa which could result in the Americans suing for peace. The outcome would have been very different.
I personally found the arguments unpersuasive but I cannot say that they are totally without merits. However, I need to first state my position. I do not think that any country who faced a lack of resource has the right to build an army and go and grab the resources of another country. My own country has zero natural resources and is equally starved of land, that does not give us an excuse to eye other people's resources. So Japan's basic assumption that they could just go across to China and make demands is not acceptable to me.
Unfortunately, China was easy meat then. Fat with resources but in the era of the warlords, was devoid of a central government. Japan, like the other 8 nations, could easily walk all over China with impunity. Japan almost got a way with it, if one were to look at the annexation of Manchuria and the Chinese's response to it (I have reviewed books on this, see here and here).
As to the locals welcoming the Japanese as liberators, there were actually examples of this. A good number in India had looked upon Japan as the Asian country to liberate them from the British. Some of the indigenous people in Southeast Asia felt the same, except the Chinese immigrants to Southeast Asia who were the target of vengeance of the Japanese. But once the Japanese revealed themselves to be even more brutal than the western colonial masters, their attitudes changed.
This is a short and easy book to read. It being the first book I come across as told from the right-wing perspective is educational and interesting. But I also happen to know that the authors are Nanking Massacre deniers. This has severely coloured my perception of the book, for it is one thing to disagree on the interpretation of facts, it is another thing to deny facts. Those who are looking for a book on the Zero Fighter would be disappointed, but if the reader is willing to entertain a different perspective of the Second World War, this book is an interesting one.
(Find this book at Goodreads)
