War, Peace, and International Relations. An Introduction to Strategic History

Questions

1. What were Japan’s foreign policy objectives?


2. How did the events of 1939–41 in Europe influence Japanese policy and
   strategy?


3. Explain the significance of China as the principal cause of US–Japanese
   antagonism.


4. Why did Japan decide to fight in 1941?

Further reading

M. A. Barnhart Japan Prepares for Total War: The Search for Economic Security, 1919–1941
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987).
J. W. Dower War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War(New York: Pantheon
Books, 1986).
H. Feis The Road to Pearl Harbor: The Coming of the War between the United States and Japan
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971).
A. Iriye The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific(London: Longman, 1987).
R. H. Spector Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan(New York: Free Press,
1985).
J. Toland The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945(New York:
Random House, 1970).
J. G. Utley Going to War with Japan, 1937–1941(Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press,
1985).
H. P. Willmott The Second World War in the Far East(London: Cassell, 1999).

World War II in Asia–Pacific, I 167

Key points

1. World War II in Europe appeared to provide Japan with the permissive strategic
   context it needed in order to solve its economic and strategic problems.


2. The decline of China, and the chaos there that succeeded the 1911 Revolution,
   created the opportunity for Japan to seek a great continental empire.


3. US–Japanese antagonism pre-dated Pearl Harbor by nearly forty years. It was
   fed by racial and cultural disdain, but above all else it centred upon Japanese
   policy towards China.


4. In 1941, Japan’s decision not to join Germany in the war against the Soviet
   Union was probably a strategic error.


5. US-led efforts to deter Japan from further aggression in 1940–1 had the reverse
   effect from the one intended. Economic sanctions drove Japan to war.


6. Japan and the United States did not wish to fight each other, but their poli-
   cies towards China were comprehensively irreconcilable. Compromise was
   impossible.