Why did Japan attack the USA?

Question

Is the North Korea situation a possible replay of history ?

Answer 1

Japan attacked the US because Roosevelt cut off their oil. This was in the days before the great Texas oilfields hit peak and crashed; back then, we were not only self-sufficient in oil, we were Japan's biggest supplier.

While this is controversial, I personally am convinced that Roosevelt deliberately goaded the Japanese to attack so that he would have a "Casus Belli" to get us into the war. I believe he, and more importantly his financial backers, really wanted to fight Hitler for reasons of their own. He had no effective way to provoke Hitler, but Japan was a treaty ally of Germany, and the means existed to economically cripple Japan. Japanese combativeness being what it was, their response was very predictable....

I do not say any of this to excuse Nazi or Japanese atrocities during the war; there were no excuses for their behaviour but by the same token Nazi barbarism did not justify what Roosevelt seems to have done to get us into the war.

Addendum: "Could the world push North Korea into doing what the Japanese were forced to do when the USA cut off oil supplies to Japan all those years ago."

I tend to doubt it. I think there are two reasons why the NKs are doing this. One is purely that of prestige while the other is anticipation of economic benefit. They no doubt expect to collect a lot of aid benefits in return for their promise to give up the Bomb, plus they also hope to be able to sell nuclear weapons and weapons tech to others. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive ambitions since they've successfully conned the developed world several times before on this issue.

PS: Clive, Yahoo says you need to "confirm your email" whatever that means....

Answer 2

because Japan wanted to form an empire of its own, having started late in the empire building game it had to achieve this by attacking the exisiting empire builders in the area, primarily the British, the Dutch, the French, and of course the Amercians)

effectively Japan recognised that the only serious military threat to its ambitions was the Americans, as everyone else was involved in World War 2.

it had been building up its empire by occupying Korea & parts of China, however it needed oil in particular whcuh wasnt availble anywhere else except by invading Dutch & British colonial outposts.

So its has little resonance with North Korea, although Im not certain the North Korea has ever truly given up on its ambition to 'reunite' Korea ander the flag of communism, and the caring control of the "dear leader". It is not, as far as I'm aware, showing any signs of wanting to invade other countries to expropriate resources. If it goes North it will get a sever kicking from China

I suspect that North Koreas move to develop nuclear weapons is to counter a perceived threat that they feel under form invasion from anyone else (eg America, South Korea or even Japan or China). Thye nuclear development program has been a successfull money earner for North Korea, it has taken cash from Japn, South Korea, Canada & the USA not to develop a nuclear program, and then gone and done that. So it wouldnt surprise me if North Korea effectivedly is putting out the begging bowl again (give me even more cash and I wlill stop producing nuclear weapons)

North Korea is also desparately keen to be seen as a major / significant country, it want bilateral talks with the US, not multilateral talks (including South Korea, Japan and others)

Its a dictatorship, possibly far removed from reality, who see things in a different light to the west.

Answer 3

Japan was short on resources and wanted to capture islands in the Pacific to increase supply. However, being aware that any such move would bring a response from the United States, they attacked Pearl Harbor specifically to cripple the Pacific fleet. This is an over simplified answer as there were occurrences on the diplomatic front which also contributed to it. It should be noted that Admiral Yamamoto felt this was a very bad idea and he predicted that the eventual outcome would not be good for Japan.

Answer 4

What did Pat Buchanan miss when he wrote, "Why Did Japan Attack Us"

published 12/11/01, when he said, "Were they insane? No, the Japanese were desperate."



by Jodey Bateman




One of the factors Buchanan does not mention is Nazi Germany. If Japan
had not made an alliance with Germany in 1936, there probably would not
have been a Japanese attack on China in 1937.

For that matter, without this alliance with Germany, Japan would not have
attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. While Japan had only a tenth of American industrial production, Germany's industrial power was added to Japan's.
By the time of Pearl Harbor, German troops had already over run most of Europe and Britain was in an isolated position, dependent on American aid.

As soon as Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Germany, as part of its alliance
with Japan, declared war on the USA.

Pat Buchanan is the political heir of the forces who believed before World
War II that it would be more desirable to have Nazi Germany defeat the
Soviet Union, also Japan take over China than to have increased Communist power in Europe and China.

On the other hand, most of the people demonstrating against the war in
Iraq are the political heirs of the people who picketed American ships full
of scrap iron that was being shipped to Japan, because it was being used
to slaughter Chinese, before Roosevelt banned the scrap iron shipments
in 1940.

Answer 5

Japan was probably sick of and at least a bit anxious about the continued US expansion in the Pacific. The US used places like Hawaii and the Phillipines as bases to spread its corupting capitalism toward Asia. Not that Japan did not have their own imperialist designs on the world, but both Hawaii and the Phillipines are closer to Japan. If one were to deny the Hawaiians and Filipinos self-determination then the US had no more right to set up shop there than the Japanese. Japan was only beginning to spread their terror; the US had a long history of it.
Someone had to fire a shot across the US bow. Sixty years after the Second World War and we are STILL trying to rule the world. Shame on US.

Answer 6

Japan attacked the usa only to cripple the big dog in the back yard as it wanted to steal the assets of asia and the pacific rim i.e. oil from indonesia rubber from malaya etc .The problem was they forgot that to kick a rottweiller in the *** you better have made plans to deal with its teeth.

Answer 7

1. Japan attacked the US first as a pre-emptive bid; the US was finally coming to the realisation it could not keep out of WW2 much longer (it had left Britain to fight alone for 26 months). Japan's main aim was to get its hands on the British possessions in the East (Malaya, Hong Kong etc.); Japan knew that when this happened the US would be obliged to join in. So why not take out a soft target first?

2. No similarity to Korea.

Answer 8

I saw a report once that the Japanese attacked pearl harbor in retaliation for a US attack that had occurred against them earlier I can't remember the specific details but it the information should be available at the library or perhaps on a website dedicated to military action.

Answer 9

Not at all. In WWII Japan was promised Korea and China if it attacked the US.

Answer 10

They knew the US would get involved at some point being like they are, an opportunity presented itself at Pearl Harbour to take out the Pacific fleet and hopefully keep them out of the War for a while longer with one decisive strike