What are some reasons Pearl Harbor was attacked?

Answer 1

There is basically only one reason. Japanese Imperialism. They wanted to own the Pacific Ocean and viewed Hawaii as rightfully theirs.

Even more deeply rooted contributor other than the Japanese imperialistic deeds, the Japanese wanted to become a powerful industrial nation. Up to this point most of the world, including America, had gone through the 1920's sort of economic boom because of the development of new technology. The development of the steam engine and electricity we large parts of this. Also, Japan had already formed the alliance with Germany and Italy by now and highly nationalistic and imperialistic ideas had become widely accepted in Japan. They needed, like all industrialized nations, lots of resources to become a dominating power and also felt they needed more breathing room. So they became interested in the Philippines which was under the US control. Japan started expanding in that direction but knew the only way to get it was by force. America got ticked and said leave China and the Philippines and the pacific alone or else. Japan didn't want to so launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor to knock out the large pacific fleet stationed their. Their main targets were the US aircraft carriers, which were sent out to look for Japanese ships earlier and it was a miracle that they weren't or we wouldn't have been able to retaliate. And that is why the attacked and what happened. Sorry for the long response, just wanted to give you all the information.