Japan's Decision to Attack Pearl Harbor

This research paper analyzes the factors which led the Imperial Japanese Government to strike southwards in late 1941 and to launch its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, rather than to attack the Soviet Union to its north.

During the 1930s, expansion-minded militarists and radical civilian ultranationalists came to dominate the Japanese state.

Since the turn of the century, Japanese relations with the Russians were intermittently hostile. Elements in the Japanese Army with considerable domestic political support favored Japan's northward expansion. Border warfare erupted in 1937-1939 which was triggered by officers in Japan's Manchurian (Kwantung) Army which proved to be no match for the Red Army. Meanwhile, Japan's military interventions, first in Manchuria and later in north China, ripened in 1937-1938 into full-scale war with the Chinese Nationalist regime.

Unable or unwilling to extricate itself from the Chinese quagmire, the Japanese government undertook in the years 1937-1941 a major army and naval buildup. In the summer/fall of 1940 Japan committed itself in collaboration with the European Axis powers to the establishment of a New Order in Asia which required access to the oil and other raw materials and resources of Southeast Asia. Japan's dependence on imported oil and the rapid blitzkrieg victories of Nazi Germany in Western Europe which rendered Western colonial possessions in Southeast Asia vulnerable to Japanes

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rn Pact aimed at the Soviet Union in November 1936, but the Navy, fearful of triggering American intervention before its shipbuilding program neared completion, blocked a full-scale alliance with the Axis until September 1940. The Army and Navy agreed on a compromise revised Imperial Defense Policy which was adopted on August 7, 1936. Spector said its essence was "expansion in China, confrontation with Russia, and penetration of the South Seas" (p. 43). During 1937-1938 commanders on the ground drew Japan into a series of clashes with the Chinese which eventually became a major war and by 1939 an indecisive quagmire for Japan. They also instigated in 1937, 1938 and 1939 border disputes with the Soviet Union along the northern Manchurian border. These escalated in the spring and summer of 1939 into a major battle in the vicinity of Nomanhan in which infantry, armored forces and airplanes participated. The Soviets had a technological and manpower edge (nearly two to one, according to Edgerton, 1997, p. 240). The Red Army administered a severe defeat on the Japanese who suffered twice as many casualties as the Soviets (Hane, p. 304). Weinberg (1994) said that the Soviet victory "made some within the Japanese military yearn for reve
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, Japanese Navy, Neutrality Pact, Soviet Russia, Vichy France, Matsuoka Konoe, East Asia, Indies Hoyt, South Seas, soviet union, east asia, army navy, neutrality pact, elements army, strike southwards, pearl harbor, decision strike southwards, japanese army, japanese military, southeast asia, asia co-prosperity sphere, east asia co-prosperity, war soviet union, resources southeast asia,
Approximate Word count = 2492
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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