Stuck.

My International Relations in Northeast Asia essay is due in 2 weeks and despite having composed an outline, I feel stuck. The question:

"Why did Meiji Japan pursue to become an empire and what alternative choices were available for Japan between 1868 and 1912?"

As this is a international relations course, I'm supposed to approach this question from an international relations/foreign policy perspective. Or at least that's what my lecturer says. However, I understand that domestic issues and policies do contribute to the formation of foreign policies. On that note, I've broken the essay into 3 main parts - domestic issues, foreign influences and alternatives. One of my concern lies in allocating 1/3 of the essay to domestic issues. Would she think that's unnecessary for an international relations essay? But you don't need to be a fulbright scholar to know that one of the reasons that propelled Japan to expand was it's lack and need of natural resources at home. We all learnt that in our history textbooks didn't we? I guess all I have to do is to relate how domestic issues can contribute to the formulation foreign policies and my ass should be covered.

Then comes the "alternatives" section of the essay. The logical permutations are usually, +1, 0 and -1 which is usually represented as yes, status quo and no. In this case, to be an empire, not to be an empire/nation-state and the alliance of Japan and China. Does that make sense? A Sino-Japanese alliance as the direct opposite of an empire, whereby one works bilaterally while the other works unilaterally. Hmmm... Ok, seems logical to me...

I'm just rambling here to straighten out my thoughts. Now it's done, it's time to GET BACK TO RESEARCH/WRITING!