Fleet Faction
The Fleet Faction () was an informal political faction within the Imperial Japanese Navy active in the 1920s and 1930s. The kantai-ha sought to drastically increase the size of the Imperial Japanese Navy in order to reach force parity with the fleets of the United States Navy and Royal Navy in the Western Pacific Ocean. The group advocated for the kantai kessen, a doctrine specifying a need for larger warships and larger-caliber guns. Opposition to the Washington Naval Treaty led to the formation of the Fleet Faction, which was led by Admiral Kato Kanji. The Fleet Faction was formed in reaction to the Treaty Faction, who had successfully negotiated the terms of the treaty. The treaty would lead to increasing militancy and opposition to the established naval staff, who were seen as defeatists and endangering Japanese national security. Further opposition to the Geneva Naval Conference and London Naval Treaty fueled increasingly hawkish demands for naval expansion by the kantai-ha, leading to a split between junior and senior naval officers in the Navy Ministry. During the rise of statism in Shōwa Japan, the Fleet Faction consolidated power in a series of purges and political violence against treaty proponents, eventually resulting in the abrogation and denunciation of the Washington Treaty by Japan in 1934 and Japan's withdrawal from the Second London Naval Treaty conference in 1936. Meiji–Taishō era naval buildup During the Meiji Restoration, the Imperial government undertook a series of modernizations of the officer corps. This included European modernization and education of Japanese naval officers, with the Tracey Mission establishing a naval school for some 100 cadets in 1867. After the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan acquired a significant indemnity, using it to undertake an unprecedented naval buildup. Japan doubled its naval personnel and increased its naval tonnage from 30,000 prewar to 250,000 tons in 1903. Japan's naval buildup elevated it to the fourth largest naval power by the completion of the Six-Six Fleet plan. Rise of the Big Gun factio Following the Russo-Japanese War, the proponents of a larger battle line fleet were vindicated as they saw the Battle of Tsushima as a textbook Mahanian "Decisive Battle". A number of the battles in that war were fought at a greater distance than many had thought possible, showing the advantage in having guns that could fire the maximum distances. Satō Tetsutarō, who would become a future influence on Japanese naval strategy in the interwar period, established the principle of the Big Gun based on his inferences from Tsushima. Tetsutaro's writing would heavily influence Kato Kanji's thinking in regards to a future maritime conflict with the United States, with his postulations on a 70% ratio in total naval strength vis-à-vis the USN influencing later naval opposition to arms control. Further following Mahanian thinking in regards to a "hypothetical enemy", the navy ministry, under Kato Tomosaburo, assigned the United States the designation of a "budgetary enemy" and argued that Japanese naval strength should be expanded and based on the US Pacific Fleet's armament strength.