Reasons For Japan's Attack On Pearl Harbor

On December 7, 1941 came a great shock when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. At first, the United States and Japan were negotiating with each other to avoid going to war with each other. The United States took all possible measures to avoid entering into World War II. However, when planes from six Japanese aircraft carriers launched an attack on the American naval base and airfields located at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii that all ended. This tragic event propelled the United States into World War II, fighting against both Germany on one front and Japan on another. Yet the question still remained, why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor. At the time Japan had only half the population of the United States and its land size was smaller than Sweden, but still they
Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War describes the great economic and resources downfall that took place from the time Japan invaded Manchuria to ultimately their attack on Pearl Harbor. It was written in 1999 in Boston so there is not chance that the information presented is biased, but instead it contains much of the major facts that lead to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. After Japan invaded both Manchuria and China and also declared that they wanted to establish a “new order in East Asia”, the United States decided that they needed to keep an eye on Japan. Thus in response, the US declared a trade embargo, or stopping of trade, of any aircraft parts to Japan. A few years later, in 19441, this escalated to an embargo on oil shipments too (Doc. C). As a country Japan does not have a good access of oil, so they focus on importing oil from other countries, a lot of which comes from the US. Thus, the embargo on oil had a very drastic impact on Japan considering that nearly 80% of their oil came from the United States. In 1937, the same year that Japan attacked China, about 3.8 million tons of Japan’s oil came from the US. However in 1941, the year that US declared an embargo on oil, the amount of imported oil dropped from about 4.8 million tons to only 1.4 million tons (Doc. D). The trade embargo enacted by the US had an enormous effect on Japan’s oil
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because they wanted to become a major world power as seen through document A , obtain more natural resources as seen through document D and C, and acquire more military strength as Hideki Tojo referred to in document E. Although there are other reasons why Japan may have attacked Pearl Harbor, because of the events that occurred before the bombing and also comments made by Japan’s government officials the main reasons are they wanted to become a major world power, gain more natural resources, and acquire more military