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first answer:

OIL! The common reason for many wars. The US had placed an oil embargo on Japan because they had invaded Manchuria (and elsewhere if I remember right) to get their oil. The US wanted them to leave China and continue to buy oil from them and other nations. The Japanese wanted not only oil they wanted other Natural Resources and ores their country did not have. They decided they would get oil from the Dutch East Indies. They did not want the USN Fleet to go after them when they did. So they chose to bomb the USN fleet that was in the harbor in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This incited the Congress to declare war on Japan.

my answer:

No, the real reason for Japan's attack (on the US, the British Empire & the Dutch) was the Japanese Army's obsession with their on-going brutal conquest of China. The United States had been taking diplomatic and economic steps against Japan for several years to convince (or force) the Japanese to end their war of conquest in Asia. The Japanese Army actually controlled the Japanese Government since the early 1930's. The Japanese Army refused to end its war of conquest & extreme brutality in China.

Beyond China, the Japanese Army had plans to take advantage of the weakness of the British, French, Dutch & Soviet Union in Asia because of Hitler's conquests in Europe. The Japanese wanted to be free of American interference, and create a vast Asian empire that would have eventually included China, eastern Siberia, Mongolia, Korea, Formosa, Indo-China, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, & New Guinea; and possibly India.

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15y ago

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