Hey fellas I was watching The World at War the other day and i didnt catch why the japanese actually attacked the U.S. in the first place. Was it because we stopped trading them oil? Why?
Well a simplified reason that is widely held is, because the U.S. imposed a trade embargo on Japan and froze all their overseas assets, halting the flow of oil and all other resources that powered the Japanese military. The reason for this being that Japan was expanding their empire militarily especially after their aggressions in China, which was a valuable trade partner for the U.S. in Asia. The U.S. and soon G.B imposed the embargo on Japan as an effort to halt the Japanese aggression in hopes that they would withdraw from China and their current military activities. Japan, being faced with this coercive diplomacy found itself in limbo, either withdraw from China and its other military related activities in Asia thus losing face to the U.S., or take the risk of waging war against the U.S. in an effort to dislodge them from the Pacific. Supposedly the U.S. did not perceive that Japan would actually attack them, which they were soon to find out on Dec. 7 of 1941.
My understanding, is that the attack was part, of a coordinated plan, to destroy US military capability, in the Pacific. The US was building up forces, in the Philippines, that could attack Japanese, shipping, or military operations, or even Japan itself. By taking out Pearl Harbor, which was a base that supplied the Philippines and other US Pacific bases (Guam & Wake Island), near Japan, it would then be easier, for the Japanese to invade and capture those bases. Eliminating the threat they posed to Japan. By the US cutting off oil exports to Japan, the island nation would have to find another source. The nearest source of oil to Japan was the Dutch East Indies. The US Philipine base, was in a perfect location to block, shipments of oil, for the Dutch East Indies, back to Japan. With either B17s bombing, or subs using torpedos, etc. So, from the Japanese point of view, this was a preemptive strike. So, they could continue their war on China and increase their empire. This only worked for about six months. However, had they also destroyed US Pacific Fleet carriers (US carriers were out to sea during attack), like they did the battleships, they attack would have been much more sucessful, and the Pacific War would probably have lasted longer. Most, but not all military and civilian leaders at the time, underestimated Jap capability and did not think the Japs could pull off such a large strike that far from their homeland. Most thought Japan would just attack the Philippines, as a stategy to obtain oil and other natural resources.
The complete answer to you question is complicated and goes back to events in 1940, but the simple answer is no, the American oil embargo (and freezing of Japanese assets) was not the primary reason the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. To understand why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, you have to go back to 1940, and realize that the Japanese, always aggressive expansionists, had made some decisions that would inevitably lead to war with the US. The first decision was to pursue "autarky". Autarky is a term denoting economic self-sufficiency, that is a condition where a country does not rely on any other countries for it's vital resources or markets. Supposedly this was desirable because then Japan could not be affected by economic sanctions by other powers with more powerful economies. To achieve this state, the Japanese realized they needed to politically and militarily control regions rich with vital raw materials; mainly petroleum, rice, iron, bauxite, tin, nickle, chromium, and other ores. They had already secured some of these materials by annexing Korea, and seizing the Chinese province of Manchuria, but the known sites in Asia of the other resources, oil in particular, lay to the South in the colonies of European countries like Britain, France, and The Netherlands. The Japanese then, in 1940, decided to seize the colonies of Borneo (British and Dutch) and the Indies, Sumatra and Java (Dutch). In order to secure the sea routes between these islands and Japan, it was also necessary to seize the Philippines, then an American protectorate. Japan realized that this would involve them in a war with Britain, The Netherlands, and the US. See; http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/monos/ But at that time, Britain was involved in an all out war with Germany and appeared to be losing, Holland had been overrun, and occupied by the Germans, and the United States' attention was focused on helping Britain in the Atlantic. Japan calculated that with these potential enemies' navies diverted to the European war, it would have a window of opportunity for a free hand in the Pacific, so it began to plan for the "drive to the South", the campaign to capture what it called the "Southern Resources Area" (SRA). However, there soon developed complicating factors. When France fell to the German attack in June, 1940, the United States realized that Britain might also fall, and that would mean that the United States would be facing not only the Japanese in the Pacific (who in September, 1940, formally allied themselves with Germany and Italy), but the Axis powers in the Atlantic. In order to prepare for this eventuality, the Roosevelt administration asked Congress for funds to increase the size and equipment of the US Army and US Army Air Force, as well as to build what was referred to as a "Two-Ocean Navy". The scale of this navy was to be so huge that Japan could not hope to prevail against it, even if only half of it was deployed to the Pacific. See; THE DECLINE AND RENAISSANCE OF THE NAVY, 1922-1944 Nevertheless, the Japanese were determined to go ahead with their plan to seize the islands of the SRA. They reasoned that the US Navy was still weaker in the Pacific than the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), and it would take at least three years for the ships of the "Two Ocean Navy, to be built, redressing the balance. That meant the Japanese still had their "window of opportunity", but it was a narrow one and was closing fast. The IJN reported that it would take them about a year to seize the Southern Resources Area (SRA), and consolidate a defensive perimeter to protect it from any American attempts to recapture the former colonies. That meant that any war with the US and Britain had to commence by the end of 1941, to be have any chance of success. So the Japanese navy began to mobilize for war against the US and Britain in the fall of 1940, a process that would take about a year. It was planned to attack the SRA, including the Philippines, in November, 1941. Initially, there was no plan to attack Pearl Harbor, that came later. But early in 1941, President Roosevelt decided to base the Pacific Fleet out of it's forward base at Pearl Harbor rather than the California Coast as it had been. This was done as a deterrent to the Japanese who appeared to be making preparations for their "drive to the South". Almost immediately, Fleet Admiral Yamamoto realized that this represented a potential threat to the IJN's plans and began planning a counter move; the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Commander in Chief of the Japanese Navy, Nagano Osami, felt the attack was too dangerous and refused, at first, to approve Yamamoto's plan, but Yamamoto continued to plan for, and advocate a strike on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese Navy, however, was extremely nervous about it's ability to defeat the US Navy. Admiral Nagano, in an audience with Emperor Hirohito five days prior to the announcement of the oil embargo, was asked by the Emperor what the IJN's chances were against the USN. He replied that he believed that the odds were acceptable, but only if the Japanese initiated the attack as soon as possible, meaning no later than November, 1941. Admiral Nagano was aware of the plans for the attack on Pearl Harbor, even though they still had not been formally approved. Herbert P. Bix, "Hirohito, And The Making Of Modern Japan", pages 401-02, In the meantime, Japan continued it's plans to seize the SRA. Japan had already occupied the northern portion of the French colony of Indochina shortly after France fell to Germany in 1940. This was to facilitate ongoing military operations against China and to tighten the blockade of that country. Now, in July, 1941, Japan seized air fields around Saigon, in southern Indochina. These airfields were within range of Malaya and Borneo, and put the Japanese in a position from which they could easily attack the British and Dutch. It was obvious form a glance at a map that this was the only possible reason for the Japanese to make such a move; it was clear to everybody involved that a Japanese attack on Britain and The Netherlands was imminent. In response, the US announced a freeze on Japanese assets in the US, and Britain soon followed suit. Since Britain and the US were the main trading partners of Japan, this not only shut down their supply of oil, but also seriously crippled the Japanese economy. The results of the US response to Japanese aggression in Indochina certainly added urgency to Japan's situation, but the fact was that Japan had already made it's decision a year earlier, and planned to attack US interests in the latter half of 1941. At this point, Admiral Nagano reluctantly approved the Pearl Harbor plan when Admiral Yamamoto threatened to resign if it was not included in the overall strategic plan. But, in fact, the Japanese planned to attack the US in 1941, and the Pearl Harbor strike was planned long before the oil embargo became a reality.
I have to disagree with another poster, in that Japan did not particularly want war with the USA but never ruled it out. The Japanese in those days were insular, xenophobic, and out of touch with most of the rest of the world. Having only very recently (mid 19th century) emerged from their self-imposed world exile (the Japanese figured they were the best and sought to keep foreign influences out as long as they could) their technological journey to catch up was complete, but their world view and social attitudes towards the rest of the world had not changed. That is, many of them were rather un-worldly and contemptuous of non-Japanese systems and ideas. Japan's military rulers had basically taken over the government by the 1930's and were calling the show - they had no superior except the Emperor, who seldom interfered unless the matter were of vital importance. The Japanese leadership knew Japan had no resources and needed, well, almost everything: oil, coal, steel and other minerals, food, even timber, since Japan has almost NO natural resources. The leadership could have chosen to get the resources by two ways, trade or war, and the leadership, being military, naturally chose to get them by war. A couple countries stood in the way of Japanese ambitions, the French and Dutch who still claimed their former colonies (Vietnam and Dutch East Indies to name a few) but once the Germans entered the war in 1939 these two countries were marginalized and the Japanese had free hand to plunder Indonesian oil and Vietnamese rice. (The British and Americans were a trickier matter - after Pearl Harbor the Japanese routed British forces at Singapore and Hong Kong and of course, over-ran the Phillipines.) The United States was troublesome since they took issue with Japan's rape of China. For years the US protested this diplomatically but did little else. Among the Japanese warlords, Yamamoto alone seems to have aprreciated what a war with the USA would mean. He had lived and studied in the United States and knew America's immense industrial capacity. He told his masters, who appear to have been more than a little delusional, "If you ask me to attack the United States, for 6 months or a year i will run wild. After that, i can give you no assurance of victory." Roosevelt's decision to cut off Japan's oil was decisive. The Japanese now knew they either had to cave in to American demands to give up China, or attack. They chose to attack, and gambled that the Pacific islands they had occupied and fortified would keep the Americans far enough away from Japan itself that the Americans would someday simply negotiate a peace. They were wrong, dead wrong, but few in Japan would realize it for a long time.
I never said Japan wanted a war with the US; of course, they didn't because they knew they were likely to get their butts kicked, but good, if they went to war with the US. The Japanese would have definitely preferred that the United States stand idly by while Japan took whatever it wanted in the Pacific and Asia, but for some strange reason, the US didn't see things the way the Japanese did, and refused to cooperate. However, the Japanese never tried particularly rigorously to avoid a war with anyone, and continued for several years on a course of action that even the dumbest political leader should have realized was dead on course for war with the United States. It was Japanese arrogance, belief in their own racial superiority, and, in the final analysis, sheer stupidity, that plunged them into a suicidal war
