Why did the Japanese attack America in 1941?

Question

The Japanese must of had a reason, more than just that they wanted to go to war. Did it have something to do with oil?

Answer 1

They wanted to expand their interests in the pacific militarily. They never actually wanted to get into a war with the USA, but they also didn't want the USA to oppose them in the pacific.

The idea was to wipe out most of the pacific fleet at Pearl, so we couldn't oppose them, and thus take us out of the picture.

It might have worked too, if our carriers had been at Pearl also.

Answer 2

I am no expert but from what I remember hearing about this, the plan was to destroy the Pacific Fleet and drive our defenses back to the West Coast. Then the Japanese would take all the Islands in the Pacific and sue for peace. They hoped we would be too busy in Europe and be willing to make a treaty with them allowing them to keep most of what they took.

Japan was an imperial country. That means they were in the business of acquiring land through the use of force.

The timing of the Pearl Harbor attack was wrong. The declaration of war from Japan ended up arriving after the attack already happened. That made the attack a sneak attack on a country while not in a state of war. The attack was supposed to happen right after the notice arrived making the attack legal.

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Answer 3

Japan never wanted a full scale war with the United States, they merely wanted to keep us from interfering with their imperialistic goals of controling the entire far east. They figured that if they could knock out the US pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, that it would be years before the US could mount any sort of a military threat to the Japanese Imperial Navy. And by then it would be too late, as their conquest of the far east would have been complete. And attacking Imperial Japan at that point would be futile. What they didn't count on was that our aircraft carriers weren't in port during the attack. Scary to think that for a solid year and a half, the ONLY thing standing between the entire imperial navy and the west coast of the United States was the USS Hornet, USS Enterprise, and the USS Yorktown!

Answer 4

Japan is fairly void of a lot of natural resources, that’s why they were trying to conquer the Pacific. At that time the world was shifting toward very large powers and Japan wanted to compete.

The Japanese had been buying US oil for a long time. The US cut them off when they started invading the Pacific. So, the Japanese saw this as an impingement toward their goals. So they attacked us hoping to paralyze us long enough too find take the resources they needed.

Obviously it didn’t work out for them. They grossly underestimated the force by which we’d be able to fight back. We transitioned to a war economy almost over night and the Japanese were eventually overwhelmed.

Answer 5

It was a deal with Germany. First, to weaken the United States by hitting one of its main ports and destroying over half of our Naval fleet.

The full plan was to weaken the United States and start an attack on South America. The Germans were sending part of the men to northern Canada, and the rest to South America. In the north and south the Germans and Japanese would meet and close in on the United States. The Japanese would get the Western US and Germany was to get the Eastern US.

My personal opinion is that this couldn't work. Hitler wanted WORLD domination. He would only had a little over 3/4 with this plan. But, by doing it this way he would only need to defeat the Japanese for world domination.

Answer 6

We stopped selling oil to Japan because of Japan’s aggression in China and thereby virtually cut off their oil supply. Oil was essential to Japan’s military industrial existence. The Japanese planned to get the needed oil by attacking the Dutch East Indies and Southeast Asia. The US Pacific Fleet represented a threat to those plans. FDR had placed the fleet there as a deterrent to Japanese aggression and we were expecting Japan to attack the East Indies. The Japanese nevertheless attacked Pearl Harbor.

Answer 7

We had embargoed several things they deemed vital, oil was just one of them. There had been a deal struck with Germany and Italy to instigate a second front for the US. We were already very heavily envolved in the Atlantic although not actually at war with Germany or Italy at this point.

It is my contention the outcome would have been the same for WWII even if they had sunk our carriers. But it would have taken longer. The Axis powers under estimated the ability of the US to conduct a two front war. Neither Germany or Japan managed to do it. *LOL* Italy didn't even manage a one front war.

Answer 8

I agree with most. The Japanese wanted control of Southeast Asia, but were being hampered by U.S. sanctions. They thought that if they could destroy the 7th fleet in Hawaii, that it would force the U.S. to the negotiating table and ensure no interference with their plan. Instead, to quote Admiral Yamamoto, "I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant".

Answer 9

Yes we cut off their oil to get them out of Asia We made the mistake of talking to them we should have attack

Answer 10

The Japanese had imperialist ambitions to conquer much of the Southeast Asian countries and they thought that with a weakened navy, the US would not interfere with their goals, however they were wrong in that damaging assumption. Japan also had designs on conquering the US