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Japan's Nationalism and Pearl Harbor

Good Essays

Japan dreamed of conquest and expansion, an Empire in Asia with Tokyo as the head. To build this empire required many resources, but America’s resistance to Japan led Japan to make its most important decision to attack the U.S. American military leaders had confidence in its defense and capabilities based in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and were too confident against Japan. This played into Japan’s hands and gave the Japanese the perfect opportunity to strike the U.S. where it hurt the most. The Pearl Harbor attack was a brutal beginning of a horrible war between two powerful nations. The Japanese forces took America by surprise and the American Naval fleet suffered a devastating blow. Japan’s growing nationalism and imperialism scooped the nation up to its feet, In 1931 “Japan launched its first plan by invading Manchuria, Manchuria was the first step in Japan’s imperial expansion” (Work Cited 2). On 1937 Japan launched a full scale war on China. The U.S started transporting resources to China and cutting off export of raw materials and oil to Japan, moves clearly intended to oppose Japan’s expansion. The embargo was seen as a serious threat to Japan’s goals of imperial expansion and to overcome this obstacle Japan began to conquer Asian Pacific territories that were rich in raw materials and oil. “Almost 70 percent of the country’s supply of zinc and tin, 90 percent of its lead, and all of its cotton, wool, aluminum, and rubber had to be imported from other countries” (John F.

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