Jeff Gibbons wrote: >It depends on how you read it. The US had imposed a series of economic >sanctions on Japan, limiting its crucial imports (oil, steel) during the >20's and 30's to curb its imperialist expansion (We don't like to share). > > Not quite. The US simply refused to sell oil and other natural resources (scrap steel, eg) to Japan, starting in '38, and IIRC froze at least some bank assets as well. It did so because it was alarmed at the course of Japan's war in China & at Japan's ultimate plans in Asia. It was not really concerned with markets or resources for itself in China. >Japan felt that crippling the bases on Hawaii would prevent the US from >being able to enforce those sanctions, allowing the continued pillaging of >China and Korea, er, I mean the completion of the "Greater East Asia >Co-prosperity Sphere". Certain individuals (including Admiral Yamamoto, the >orchestrate of the Pearl Harbor attack) felt this was a bad idea, but the >culture of the Japanese society left them in a poor position to oppose it. > > Say rather that crippling the US fleet at Pearl & capturing US bases throughout the Pacific would prevent the US from further interference with Japanese plans. Ironically, the fleet was moved to Pearl from the West Coast in '40 or '41, to send a warning to the Japanese not to push any further, which is the only thing that made the attack possible; the Japanese would porbably never have tried to cross the whole Pacific & expose themselves to potential land based or submarine attack. >Now the interesting thing is, there is evidence that some feel that the US >was aware that the Japanese had an attack planned, and allowed it to happen, >thus causing a public outcry that would allow a military response towards >Japan. > > I don't think there is *any* credible evidence that US planners were aware of this. Folks have tried to show this for decades (mostly because they don't like Roosevelt), but I've seen nothing that can even be stretched into such a conclusion. Better just to face it: the IJN got away with a sneaky. It isn't the first time the US military has been caught off guard, and it wasn't the last. >So in actuality, the US was already the attacker, in an economic sense. What >Japan tried to do was make it the attacker in a military sense, then use the >Pacific Islands and their fleet as defense in depth. That would allow them >time to consolidate their holdings in China, Korea, and the Senkaku Islands. >But, they missed the aircraft carriers, and, well, you know the rest of the >story. > > > Certainly, that is how many Japanese like to see it, even to this day. But I know of no law that *requires* a country to sell goods to another if it doesn't feel the sale is in its interest. As for the rest, the Japanese plan required absolute control of air & sea, or its garrisons would simply be defeated in detail or left as self-governing "prison camps". The Japanese, especially the IJN, never really grasped the importance of logistics & never understood how vulnerable their supposed defense in depth would actually be. In the end, most of their defense was just bypassed & final resistance collapsed as much due to starvation (both of people and of industry) as to any other cause (although there were certainly other causes). Snarkhunter