The Attack on Pearl Harbor

To better understand the attack on Pearl Harbor we must first go to the origin of the problem. Japan had little resources and they depended on trade, trade was the only thing keeping them going as a nation. According to Conroy, author of Pearl Harbor reexamined: Prologue to the Pacific War, “The fundamental causes of the pacific war go back to the turn of the century. International relations were then characterized by politics, aggressive nationalism, and western colonialism. These forces worked to enlarge the empires, glory, and wealth of the individual nation-state.” Japan wanted to expand into Indochina so that they could salvage the oil resources from Southeast Asia and make their nation more powerful. One very important trade resource that Japan relied on was oil. Without oil Japan’s army would be useless. Japan wanted to expand because they wanted a more powerful united Asia. When the U.S. found out Japans plans to expand they wanted to take action and put an end to it, but they didn’t want to start another war. So the U.S. peacefully asked Japan to stop trying to expand themselves into Indochina. But, Japan didn’t want to because they were desperate and needed these resources to make their nation greater. The U.S., Britain, and the Netherlands then took action and restricted Japan from being able to buy oil and other resources which would make Japans army and navy weak and meaningless. Japan was furious about this restriction and so they only saw two options one to try and get the oil restriction lifted and still allow them to take what territory they wanted or two they were going to go to war. Japan knew that if they were to go to war with the United States that they would lose so they made one last attempt with the U.S. Japans Prime Minister, General Tojo Hideki made one last attempt to negotiate a settlement without resorting to war on November 29, 1941, but the U.S. felt that Japans attempt to dominate other territories to make their nation stronger and