Why did Japan shift from being a status quo power in the 1920s to a revisionist power in the 1930s? This chapter argues that Japan’s rejection of the international order was hastened by changes in strategic thought reaching back to World War I. The rise of total war during World War I led military strategists to view self-sufficiency in resources and production as the prerequisite to success in modern warfare. This understanding of the importance of self-sufficiency did not influence national policy until the liberal order of the 1920s began to break down. Once the old order began to collapse, desires for autarky served as the backdrop behind a series of natural security solutions that gravitated toward war and establishing a new order in the region. The total war of World War II, in turn, shaped the entirety of Japan’s new order, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.