ESSAY: Why Did Japan Attack the United States?

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 ESSAY: Why Did Japan Attack the United States?



The reasoning behind Japan’s intention to attack the United States in 1941, and thus start the Pacific War (1941-1945), although still debated, is owed to a lack of resources, a growing population, economic tension. Further, the chaos that was China and the subsequent investment in Manchuria by Japan all coalesced to tilt Japan towards an aggressive and militarist solution to the social, economic, and foreign policy issues of the day.

The decisions that Japan made leading up to December 1941 stemmed from the previous 10 years. The 1930 Naval Disarmament Treaty of London had a most profound and negative impact to a maritime power such as Japan. The militarists in Tokyo were flexing more influence on a weak central government.

The growing population of Japan and the imported food stuffs required necessitated geographical expansion for a) emigration away from the Japanese home islands and b) resources.  Japan had occupied Formosa (Taiwan) in 1895 and Korea in 1910 and would eventually secure resources in China through legitimate means. The ‘Mukden incident,’ in 1931 saw Manchuria invaded, owing to the local Japanese Commanders response to a railway (Japanese owned railway) bombing and from “encouragement of a section of the General Staff in Tokyo,”[1]

The region that was East Asia in 1931 to 1941 was occupied by the Dutch in Indonesia, the British in Singapore, Hong Kong, Ceylon, India, Burma, and Malaya. The United States was in the Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii, and the French were in Indochina (Laos, Vietnam) and New Caledonia among others. Japan, after her involvement in Manchuria, was immediately isolated by the European powers.

The economic pressure Japan experienced in the early 1930’s began with tying the yen to gold, which saw Japanese currency undervalued and “when the gold standard was abandoned in December 1931, the yen fell be about 40 percent.”[2]

As for the United States, Japan could only conclude that she would ally with Great Britain, eventually join in the war and fully support the Europeans across South East Asia. As Japan watched events unfold in Europe, the mood in Tokyo stiffened against unfair tariffs set by European colonies, and saw opportunities as one European nation after another was felled by Nazi Germany. The Japanese ultimately settled on a course that would seize every available resource from rubber and tin in Burma to petroleum in Indonesia. And Japan did so realizing the United States would have to be contended with.

“…It is impossible not to reach the conclusion that the American Government desires to maintain and strengthen, in coalition with Great Britain and other Powers, its dominant position it has hitherto occupied not only in China but in other areas of East Asia.”[3]

As such, Japan set course in December, 1941 with the “Kido Butai,” or 1st Air Fleet towards the American Pacific Fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.


[1] Parker, R.A.C., The Second World War: A Short History, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 74

[2] Ibid., 74

[3] The United States in WWII, ed. Piehler, G. Kurt, (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 42.



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