Historical Background 1853-1941 

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 was the culmination of longstanding rivalry between Japan and the United States of America. In the short term, over the previous decade, relations had worsened significantly as Japan set out on a course of aggressive expansion in Manchuria, China and Indo-China. In the long term, from the mid-nineteenth century, the stunning rise of Japan from feudal state to great power had decisively altered the status quo in the Pacific. 

Like Germany in Europe, Japan emerged late as a modern nation to challenge the established order. However, so rapid was its modernisation that, by 1900, Japan was the major power in east Asia. Largely lacking the raw materials needed to underpin industrial growth and with an increasing population to sustain, the Japanese were compelled to look overseas for land and resources.

By 1910, Japan had defeated China and Russia in battle and gained control of Korea and Manchuria. Japan's new found strength alarmed the Western powers, particularly the USA. 1907 was the first year in which the US foresaw the possibility of war with Japan. The First World War strengthened Japan's position in east Asia. European influence was weakened or eliminated, allowing Japan to consolidate its gains in China. 

In the 1920s, American leadership prevented further Japanese expansion by binding all the leading powers into a new treaty system. However, at home Japanese policymaking was increasingly dominated by a virulent nationalism which saw territorial conquest as Japan's destiny. The onset of the worldwide Depression in 1929, in which Japan suffered severely, triggered a decade of Japanese aggression. The occupation of Manchuria, begun in September 1931, was followed by the annexation of territory in China in 1933 and 1935 before full-scale war between the two countries broke out in July 1937. Japan gradually withdrew from the agreements of the 1920s to sign pacts with the fascist powers Germany and Italy in 1936 and 1940. 

War in Europe gave Japan the opportunity to threaten vulnerable British, French and Dutch possessions in the Far East. However, advances into French Indo-China in 1940 and 1941 provoked intense political hostility from the USA which imposed severe sanctions, on oil in particular. Without oil, the Japanese felt their national survival was threatened and they were, therefore, presented with a stark choice. Either they could, at America's behest, give up the gains of the last ten years and have their supplies of vital raw materials restored or they could go to war with the United States. Believing war would achieve their aims (strategic background), the Japanese attacked the USA on 7 December 1941.

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