PeterRS Posted April 18 Posted April 18 3 hours ago, macaroni21 said: I don't intend to sound alarmist, but let's not forget that World War II might not have flared up in East Asia in December 1941 (more than two years after Hitler invaded Poland) if not for the US trade embargo on Japan. Japan (which many people have forgotten was on the side of US-Britain-France in the First World War) felt in the late 1930s that it was being deprived of access to oil and other raw materials because of the embargo imposed by the US and its West European allies (then fighting Hitler), and so it sought to carve out its own bloc in East Asia. I agree with much of @macaroni21's analysis and thoughts. I would only question whether or not the US oil embargo forced the Japanese into the Pacific war. No doubt it was a major blow, but we also know that the Japanese had been waging war in China for years. The 1930s were a time of extreme militarism and planned expansion in Japan. Its 1931 occupation of Manchuria to gain that large part of China's raw materials was merely an event based on a totally fake narrative not unlike many before and after - including the Tonkin Gulf incident after which Congress quickly enabled President Johnson significantly to escalate the Vietnam War. The Japanese then started a full scale war in China 1937, quickly occupying much of East China. Although that war was to result in a form of stalemate, Japan then invaded Indo-China in 1940. That year it also joined the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. Plans for a full-scale military assault on much of East Asia were by then well under way, long before Pearl Harbour. Its war machine needed vital raw materials and eyed especially Malaya for its rubber and the Dutch East Indies for its oil. It's hard not to underestimate the US decision to close the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping. This had a huge effect on Japan and must certainly have quickened its planning to attack several Asian countries. From what I have read, the decision to attack Pearl Harbour was to a certain extent an afterthought. It always knew its attacks on Asian countries would bring international condemnation, but given that Europe was engulfed in a War that looked as though it might soon escalate and the USA was neutral, it was assumed that European colonial nations would have little to spare to protect their Asian colonies. America was a different matter altogether but if secrecy to attack South-East Asia could be maintained, the US would not have time to mobilise its forces on the west coast in time to have much effect. Towards the end of 1940 Roosevelt then moved the US Pacific fleet to Pearl Harbour with the hope of restraining further Japanese aggression. To the Japanese that transfer to Hawaii was unexpected and must in some senses have seemed a major bonus. Knock out that fleet and there would be zero opposition to its East-Asian attacks. But they failed by not ensuring the US aircraft carriers were in port. splinter1949 and bkkmfj2648 2 Quote
