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Static Universe
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To the Japanese it was justified, and yes, war was inevitable. Something I wrote once:
quote:
The conflict really began brewing in the early twenties, possibly earlier, when it was realized that Japanese were a growing power in the region that might one day be a powerful threat to U.S. interests in the region.
With the annexation of Hawaii in 1898, and the capture of the Philippines and Guam during the Spanish-American war (same year), U.S. military and economic interests had been firmly established in the Pacific region. By the twenties, this presence had grown considerably, and began to turn its eyes to the Chinese mainland as a possible source of new markets.
Meanwhile, Japan had played a vital role in securing the Pacific and Indian Oceans for the Allied powers. However, the Western powers weren't exactly pleased with the brutal way the Japanese dealt with their "inferiors". They had also taken some notice of the Japanese conquest and ongoing occupation of Korea, so the Rape of Nanking years later probably didn't come as a big surprise to them. They'd already seen it happen.
Japan, on the other hand, wasn't too happy with the fact that their valuable help had been so quickly forgotten. Although the Treaty of Versailles had given the Japanese control over the German Pacific Islands and the German colonies in Shantung province on the Chinese mainland, the Japanese were quickly compelled by the West to give control of Shantung back to the Chinese and return home in 1922.
The true start of WW2 in the Pacific theater was the U.S Immigration Act of 1924, which specifically precluded Japanese emigration into the United States. This was a notable period of racist activity in the U.S, and the Immigration Act was largely intended to keep out "undesirables", such Catholics, Jews, Italians and particularly Asians. (This time period was also the peak of power of the Ku Klux Klan, who were more powerful in these years than most Americans like to remember.)
This act was a huge slap in the face to the Japanese, because it undid Teddy Roosevelt's Gentleman's Agreement of 1907, in which the Japanese agreed not to allow farm laborers to emigrate to the U.S. and the U.S. agreed that it would not completely bar Japanese immigration and that it would work to end anti-Japanese descrimination in the U.S.
The Japanese faithfully upheld their end of the Agreement. The U.S. did not. This only fueled the Japanese miltarists anti-American propoganda. The Japanese ambassador of the time warned of "grave consequences."
The flames only grew higher when the U.S. and other Western nations placed high tariffs on goods imported from Japan. The Japanese were left with only one option: expansion.
The period between 1924 and Roosevelt's outright embargoes of 1941 were marked by considerable manuevering on the part of both countries, as they jostled for position. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria is at least partly a reaction to the growing U.S. influence on the Chinese mainland, as they were one of the principal backers of Chiang Kai-shek and Kuomintang in the Chinese civil war against the Communists.
There were minor incidents between the two power, such as the Japanese sinking of the U.S.S Panay on the Yangtze River and the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and her Itaska (they had suspicions), both in 1937, but the U.S. was not prepared to engage the Japanese militarily. It's army had grown soft in the years following WW1 and it's industrial base had been to weakened by the Great Depression to leap into war.
But the U.S. knew that war was inevitable by the early thirties. By the mid thirties, they'd even guessed the most likely target: Pearl Harbor.
You all know the rest on that subject.
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C0ckney
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Big Up The Macedonian Massive
Apr 2000
time: 05:27
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they did plan for one, but they decided that it would be too difficult to hold and supply the islands and that the shock of the air attacks would be enough to hold the US at bay until japan had built its defensive 'ring'.
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C0ckney
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Big Up The Macedonian Massive
Apr 2000
time: 05:27
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well that's what japan decided, their plan was to fight to get the territories required to provide them with war resources and then go on the defensive.
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DinoDoc
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AECCP loves Democracy
Sep 1999
time: 23:27
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Iraq wasn't pre-emptive in any sense of the word. Neither was Pearl Harbor.
Last edited by DinoDoc on 20-04-2003 at 21:15
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Dr Strangelove
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A war can be just only if it has a chance of succeeeding, but the Japanese had no chance of winning a Pacific war against the US. Even when they did achieve thweir objective, seizing the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies they lacked the means of exploiting their gains. They were never able to pump, transport and refine enough oil to meet even a fraction of their needs.
Also expecting the Iraqi army to collapse with just a little shove was realistic, it had happened before after all. Expecting the US to collapse after minor setbacks in the Pacific was unreasonable, and in fact was based upon Japanese bigotry. They expected the Americans to be about as competent as the Tzarist Russians.
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
If the attack had gotten the carriers, or even if the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbour another time, they would have enough time to build defenses to stall the US for a very long time. |
Actually they didn't have the capacity to build their defences up much more than they managed. Furthermore the US had an enormous number of carriers in various stages of planning or construction. At best the Japs might have been able to complete their conquest of the Solomon Islands, but it wouldn't have done them any good because they simply didn't have the resources to complete the blockade or invasion of Australia. Fortifying the islands further would have delayed the US advance very little actually, since the build up of American naval forces proceeded at an almost geometric rate. By late 1944 the US had carriers, planes, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, transports and submarines coming out the wazoo. They didn't even really need the bombing campaign to cripple Japan's economy, the horde of American submarines was doing a fine job of that. Perhaps if the Japanese had managed to destroy the two extra carriers at Pearl Harbor Fat Man and Little Boy would have been dropped from planes based on Midway or mainland China. Would it have mattered? The primary effect of having the war drag on further would have been more Japanese deaths.
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Dr Strangelove
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The attack on Pearl Harbor was unjustified. Japan had begun a war of purely imperial agression against China in the 1930s. Japan didn't even really need to expand into China, its economy was doing relatively well without the war, but conservative, pro-military factions felt they needed a war to maintain their grip on Japanese society. This portion of Japanese society, while enthusiastically embracing western technology dreaded the social changes gradually eroding traditional culture, and felt that war and conquest was the only way tomaintain the "purity" of Japanese society. During their military campaigns in China the Japanese military allowed themselves a wide variety of utterly unnecessary depradations against the natives of the country. FDR tried in vain to talk the Japanese into relinquishing their criminal campaigns of conquest, and when words failed he resorted to an embargo of essential resources against the Japanese empire. The embargo was completely legal, the goods were ours to sell or not as we chose to. The Japanese attacked not because they wanted to force open the doors of American commerce, but instead they feared to leave a potential adversary intact along their planned invasion of the East Indies. They reasoned that so long as the Phillipines remained in American hands the US would have a base with which to cut them off from lands gained in southern asia. The Japanese attack on Hawaii was unjustified because it was used as a means to support another unjust war, Japan's war on the innocent people of China.
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20-04-2003 13:37
. Even an anti-Saddam guy like myself can admit that. But enough about that war. It has been done to death. 
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