Pearl Harbor in Context

Abstract

Abstract Why did Japan choose to attack the United States, and why at Pearl Harbor? The story has ancient roots, starting with the parallels and antiparallels in the geostrategic positions and long-run economic development of Britain and Japan. Japan’s recognition of its economic inferiority and strategic vulnerability in the mid-nineteenth century prompted strikingly rapid modernization. The nation quickly became highly competitive at the Western imperialist game but struggled to adapt as the rules changed after 1917, just as China fell into chaos and the Soviet Union began its rapid rise. While profiting greatly from joining the Allies in World War I, Japan was buffeted severely by the economic turmoil of the postwar era. Together with unresolved social and political tensions from rapid modernization, this led to serious unrest. This extended to the military, which had been given disproportionate political power. Army adventurers sought to continue expansionism, ultimately miring Japan in an altogether unwinnable struggle in China and provoking serious tensions with the Soviets. The rise of Nazism in Germany was seen as providential by militarists, who pushed Japan into alliance with the Axis powers. But the alliance made war inevitable with the United States determined to stop Hitler at all cost.