the United States now would be so acutely worried about developments in Europe that it
would have no appetite for a firm policy in Asia–Pacific. As a result, Japan seized the
strategic moment and in July 1941 moved its forces into the south of Indo-China. This
aggressive forward move, one long anticipated by friend and foe alike, set in train the
events that produced the Pearl Harbor attack of 7 December. Far from bowing to the
inevitable, and acquiescing with a poor grace to this latest Japanese outrage, the United
States took the second of its major strategic decisions: it froze all Japanese funds and
assets in the United States and, in effect, imposed a total embargo on oil and other
strategic materials. Economic sanctions have a notably mixed record of success and
failure in strategic history, but this time the American economic sanctions were probably
too effective. They created a policy crisis for Japan. No oil was received from the United
States or the Dutch East Indies after 5 August 1941, and the Imperial Japanese Navy had
reserves that would last only two years, at most.
Conclusion
Japan had a clear choice. On the one hand, it could agree to be coerced and bow to
American pressure. This would mean meeting at least the minimum slate of American
demands, the centrepiece of which was the abandonment of the war in China. On the
other, it could reject the US insistence that it forswear its long-standing China policy,
indeed its policy of imperial expansion altogether, and instead fight to secure the raw
material resources that it needed to sustain and expand the imperium. Japanese opinion
was divided, but not over the most essential of matters. The commitment to continental
empire in China was uncontroversial, while the strategic implications of the total oil
embargo were stark and undeniable. The only issue for debate was whether it was worth
pursuing a diplomatic solution. It is clear enough in retrospect, as it was to many at the
time, that while Japan insisted upon a forward policy in China, a compromise solution
was not available. Since the Japanese vision of a Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere
- Japanese regional hegemony – required the domination of China, there simply was no
diplomatic solution.
Given their ambitions and assumptions, Japanese leaders were in an unenviable
position in late 1941. They could not abandon the war in China. They could not endure
the oil embargo, because it must have the consequence that the armed forces, especially
the Imperial Navy, would grow progressively weaker, to the point where they would
be unable to move and fight. Furthermore, Japan was well aware that the United States
was in mid-course of a programme of headlong rearmament. As a military adversary,
it would be far more formidable in 1943 and after than it had been in 1941 and would
be in 1942. Predictably – dare one say inevitably? – diplomacy failed to produce an
acceptable compromise. Japan decided to strike and to attempt to fight its way out of its
strategic dilemma. But where to strike? What would be the objectives? How would the
new acquisitions be defended? And, given the inherent strength of the United States, how
could Japan avoid eventual defeat?
166 War, peace and international relations