Remembering the 7th: Causes of the Surprise Attack at Pearl Harbor
Last year wrote about how events during and right after World War I led to World War II in Europe. Understanding How World War I Caused World War II On December 8, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt stood before Congress and a shocked and outraged American populace declaring that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor occurred on a date that “will live in infamy.” The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor came about through a gradual series of events arising out of colonialism and nationalism that both created and empire and led to its downfall.
In 1853 US Commodore Matthew Perry arrived at a nation that had isolated itself from the world for 200 years. Japan was a medieval society controlled by a decentralized shogunate based on localized control by feudal lords. Perry demanded that the Japanese government receive a letter he carried from US President Franklin Pierce requesting a trade treaty. The Japanese politely refused and asked Perry to leave. The commodore insisted, threatening to deliver the letter by force. After a few days, the Japanese agreed. They had no choice. Though meagre, Perry’s flotilla was too technologically advanced to challenge. The Japanese signed treaties with the US and other European nations soon after.
European colonialists had forced other Asian nations to open their ports but these nations often clung tenaciously to their cultural roots. The Japanese took a different approach. Recognizing a modernized army and navy were essential to protecting their home islands, the Japanese resolved to become an industrialized nation in the mold of Europe and America. They scrapped the shogunate in favor of a national government headed by the restored emperor. The Japanese enthusiastically embraced railroads, telegraph wires, firearms. and other modern technological innovations of the day These badges of modernity, all non-existent before Perry’s arrival, became omnipresent. The desire to modernize soon created an urge to look outward.
Influenced by the West, the Japanese also founded a strong, modern military. The Home Islands were small and devoid of many of the raw materials necessary to build and operate factories. Like European powers, the Japanese began launching armed expeditions on the Asian mainland seeking raw materials and markets to grow an industrial base. First, they attacked China in 1894 where the Imperial Japanese Army quickly and decisively defeated the Chinese. Japan annexed Taiwan and a number of islands, forcing the Chinese to surrender control of part of the Korean Peninsula.
With the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1904, the Russians emerged as a rival occupying Manchuria (northern China) and northern Korea. The Japanese launched a surprise attack on the Russian Navy at Port Arthur in 1904 initiating the Russo-Japanese War. The Russian fleet was decimated and the loss of their Asiatic fleet severely limited Russian capabilities and options. The Japanese army inflicted heavy losses on the Russians forcing a humiliating peace treaty mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt. The Russians agreed to evacuate Manchuria and Korea. Unbeknownst to the world, Roosevelt made a secret agreement with Japan granting them hegemony over Korea and Manchuria. In exchange, the Japanese agreed to recognize US claims on the Philippines. In 1910, the Japanese quietly annexed Korea with America’s unspoken consent
The wars with China and Russia established Japan as the pre-eminent power in Asia. At the end of World War I, the Japanese received a windfall by virtue of a recently formed alliance with the British. In spite playing no part in the war, the Japanese received former German territories in China and the Marshall, Marianas, and Caroline Islands. Japan was now an empire with territory from China, Taiwan, and Korea stretching halfway across the Pacific Ocean through an unbroken string of military and diplomatic successes.
Emboldened, the Japanese became increasingly nationalistic and aggressive. The Great Depression in 1929 hit Japan hard. Having to import raw materials to fuel an industrialized society created much higher costs that crippled an already struggling economy. In 1931, the Japanese invaded Manchuria imposing a puppet regime to ensure a flow of cheap natural resources. Japan’s brutal war caused widespread international condemnation but no consequences.
By the 1930s China had collapsed fracturing into localized warlord dominated territories. Recognizing an opportunity, the Japanese attacked China in 1937. The US felt a special kinship with China and opposed the invasion. The Chinese suffered but did not fold. In 1941, Nazi puppet Vichy France allowed Japan to occupy French Indochina (Vietnam today) representing a new threat to China from the south. President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to do something but was limited by an isolationist Congress and US population mired in the Great Depression and unwilling to get involved in a distant, expensive foreign war.
Roosevelt did what he could, banning exports to Japan in July, 1941 which included 90% of Japan’s supply of oil. Facing fuel shortages necessary to prosecute the war in China and maintain its economy, Japan attempted to negotiate but when those efforts stalled, the Japanese decided to attack the United States. Planners had no illusions that they could conquer America, they hoped a quick strike would cripple the US Navy forcing America to sue for peace a winning strategy employed against Russia in 1904.
Senior Japanese Navy commander Isoroku Yamamoto opposed attacking America. He had attended Harvard in the 1920s later working in the Japanese Embassy. He admired the US and was well aware of American industrial might. He warned that any attack would only give Japan six months before the US recovered. When his arguments against attacking the US failed, Yamamoto acquiesced to the quick victory strategy. Yamamoto planned a surprise attack on the primary US naval installation at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii following the successful strategy that crippled the Russian Navy at Port Arthur.
Yamamoto was a forward thinker recognizing in the 1930s the importance of aircraft carriers in the vast Pacific Ocean. With battles to be fought almost exclusively on islands, the rapidly improving range and firepower of aircraft required air superiority to maintain supply lines. If one force could isolate another on an island, the enemy could be starved into submission. Accordingly, Yamamoto’s primary objective was to sink US carriers. Unfortunately for the Japanese, US carriers left Pearl Harbor days before the attack to deliver warplanes to American island bases in the Pacific. Additionally, most US carriers were in the Atlantic.
On December 7, 1941, Yamamoto launched two waves totaling 353 Zeroes, Kate dive bombers and Val torpedo planes. The Japanese achieved total surprise and sank or crippled 18 US warships including four battleships. Yamamoto significantly weakened the US Navy such that it could not prevent Japanese invasions of the oil rich Dutch East Indies, Malaya, Philippines and New Guinea. However, when he learned that the US carriers had escaped, Yamamoto tempered the enthusiasm of his officers’ celebrations prophetically saying: “ I fear all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant.” 
Yamamoto’s predictions turned out to be correct. The surprise attack outraged Americans who never contemplated surrender or negotiation. The next day President Roosevelt delivered a fiery and defiant speech promising revenge. America entered the war turning its industrial might to building a massive army and navy. The Japanese were able to capture the Philippines and other Allied territories in the opening months. However, almost exactly six months after Pearl Harbor, the US won a major victory at Midway sinking four Japanese carriers turning the tide of the war. Within four years the US swept across the Pacific destroying the Japanese Navy and bombing Japanese cities to rubble.
Japan may have been forced into the world economy, but they embraced modernity and in seeking to establish themselves as a world power aggressively and ruthlessly prosecuted war after war in building an empire. Ultimately, they flew too close to the sun and like Icarus came crashing back to earth in the flames of atomic destruction.
For an article on the causes of the Second World War in Europe, please see: Understanding How World War I Caused World War II