To what extent was the United States’ foreign policy the key factor in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour?

This investigation's main question is "to what extent was US foreign policy the primary cause of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour?" To balance the opposing elements of the Pearl Harbor attack, this inquiry will look into US-Japanese ties prior to World War Two (WWII). The Daily Mail's December 9, 1941, political cartoon, which alludes to the modern view that the attack on Pearl Harbor was largely the result of Japan's aggressive foreign policy, is pertinent to this research. A passage from Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, which contends that US foreign policy was the primary factor in the Pearl Harbor attack, is pertinent to contrast this viewpoint.

Cartoon ‘Death Takes a Holiday,’ published in the Daily Mail, December 9^th, 1941

The Daily Mail, a British newspaper, is where Source A comes from. It was first published in December 1941, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Its main goals were to demonize the Japanese people and, more broadly, to win support for the American war against Japan. The content of the source demonizes the Japanese, which is helpful to this research since it sheds light on the reasons behind the American involvement in World War II in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbour. The information is also relevant since it reveals that American public opinion saw Japanese imperialism as the primary cause of the Pearl Harbor attack. The source's material is constrained, nevertheless, because it exaggerates the Japanese attack's evil aim by depicting a Japanese soldier allying with a physical skeleton and emphasizing how ferocious and devastating it was. Additionally, because the cartoon's content solely discusses Western viewpoints that opposed Japanese expansionism, it lacks a thorough historical understanding of the causes of the Pearl Harbor attack, which limits the authenticity of the animation.

How American Policy Towards Japan Contributed to the Pacific War by W. Neumann, 1953, in H. Barnes (ed. ), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Caxton Printers, Ltd., Caldwell, Idaho.

Source B is an excerpt from a 1953 book by William L. Neumann, a professor of history at Goucher College in Maryland, titled "How American Policy Towards Japan Contributed to War in the Pacific." Since Neumann is a skilled historian who weighed opinions from multiple primary and secondary sources to present an alternative perspective on the Pearl Harbor attack, the origin of this material is significant to the study. This excerpt argues that the US oil embargo on Japan, which prevented "any change, of course, could be expected" from Japan, was a major driving force behind the attack on Pearl Harbor. The substance of the source concentrates on how severely the oil embargo affected Japanese prospects for war and how it left Japan with few options for further development. Because it focuses primarily on the influence of US foreign policy, the information fits with the investigation's goal. A revisionist historian's goal is to present opposing arguments to conventional historical interpretations; however, Pearl Harbour revisionists' methodology has come under fire for glossing over the complexities of the broader motivations surrounding Pearl Harbour, such as Japanese imperialism. As a result, the source's content is limited.

A surprise military attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service on the US Naval Base in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, on December 7^th, 1941, led to the US and Japan declaring war on each other. The historical debate surrounding the reasons for the Japanese attack is broad and complex: traditionally, Western historians espoused the view that the attack was primarily motivated by the militaristic ambitions of an imperialist Japan. However, a revisionist school of thinking that emphasizes the role of US foreign policy in the attack's inspiration has developed over time. By emphasizing the impact of US policy in conjunction with the part played by Japanese imperialism in the Pearl Harbor attack, this inquiry will attempt to bring these two schools of thought into harmony.

One could claim that the impact of US foreign policy was the primary cause of the attack on Pearl Harbor. As a result of the US's "blatantly anti-Japanese immigration policies" in the early 1900s, trade restrictions, and refusal to "allow the Japanese the same kind of [expansionist] freedom" that the US had experienced, Japan had legitimate complaints against the US, according to historian Richard J. Smethurst. This supports the theory that the US's discriminatory foreign policy encouraged Japan's justified aggressiveness, which was then further stoked by the US's oil embargo on August 1, 1941. In 1938, the US supplied more than 90% of Japan's scrap iron, steel, and copper, as well as more than 65% of its oil. As a result, Japan was heavily dependent on the US for its war resources.  Since Japan had enough fuel to last for about 18 months before the oil embargo, obtaining Dutch East Indies oil was necessary to support the war effort. This would guarantee US reprisal, but the US only proposed to ease the oil embargo in exchange for Japan withdrawing fully from China. William L. Neumann, a historian, summed up the predicament the Japanese were in by saying that after July 1941, they could only choose between "bow[ing] to American demands or fight[ing]."  In order to further develop this viewpoint, historian Jeffrey Record claims that giving up on expansion was simply a decision that "no self-respecting Japanese leader could accept."  Neumann asserts that "no change, of course, could be expected" from Japan following the oil embargo because the Japanese would probably choose war over submission. Due to US foreign policy, they were firmly put on a course toward conflict with the US.

However, it's possible that the idea that US foreign policy played a major role in Pearl Harbor understates the influence of other causes. For starters, the oil embargo imposed on Japan was in no way unwarranted. Japan performed unquestionable crimes during its period of expansion, including the "Rape of Nanjing," which was characterized by rape and ruthless mass death.  Furthermore, even if Japan's growth throughout the early 1940s was restricted to Asia, it nevertheless posed a real threat to the Western World. According to J. Record, a Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia would "threaten Great Britain's ability to withstand Nazi aggression in Europe, " proving the need for US foreign policy to discourage Japan. J. Record, who claimed that Japan's imperialistic foreign policy was "the core cause of the Pacific War," acknowledged this fact. War became imminent when the belligerent General Tojo became prime minister, according to historian Norman Lowe. This alludes to the role of nationalism in the Pearl Harbor attack; because imperialist military leaders had come to dominate Japanese politics, they sought to retaliate violently against any threat to their expansionist goals. The national identity of the 1930s was heavily influenced by military bravado; in a 1934 interview, General Araki Sadao claimed that "three million Japanese armed with bamboo spears can defend Japan against any attack." As a result of these nationalistic impulses, modern sources like the Daily Mail cartoon "Death Takes A Holiday", which portrays the Japanese as the only aggressor in the fight, are able to advance their notions. Therefore, it is plausible that Japanese imperialism, rather than US foreign policy, played a major role in the Pearl Harbor attack.

This idea contrasts sharply with the revisionist assertion that the US instigated the Pearl Harbour attack to support its involvement in World War II. As a result of the US's isolationist foreign policy since the start of World War II in Europe, Roosevelt "had to tread carefully" when it came to going to war. Anti-war organizations with "hundreds of thousands of members," like America First, would thwart any perceived push for war. However, as the threat of fascism increased, the notion of America's "inevitable intervention" in the conflict gained popularity because people thought that the US was in danger from the "evil spreading across Europe." There is proof that the US tried to encourage Japan's first attack in order to legitimize its involvement in World War II. Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of War, detailed how the Cabinet had to decide how to "guide them [the Japanese] into.....firing the first shot" in a diary entry, providing a compelling original source. According to revisionist historians like Neumann, the US gave the Japanese "no alternative" but to either attack or completely evacuate. In fact, the Pearl Harbor attack's surprise factor may have been its most important historical aspect; according to historians like Roberta Wohlstetter, the US government must have known the attack was coming. In light of this, it's possible that the US knew about the attack and permitted it to take place to support its involvement in a worldwide struggle. If so, it obviously succeeded, as historian William E. Shapiro claims that after Pearl Harbor, "the discussion ended" and the majority of Americans turned pro-war.

On closer inspection, however, the revisionist viewpoint does not provide the most convincing explanation for the Pearl Harbor attack. For starters, in the Pearl Harbor discussion, this viewpoint's veracity has come under fire. As they rely on selective, limited data to draw sweeping, unsupported conclusions, historians like R.J.C. Butow assert that their historical methodology "disregard[s] the principles of scholarship." Instead, it may be claimed that Japan's imperialistic desire was the primary driving force behind the Pearl Harbour attack by examining its misjudged character. This is due to the fact that the strongest justification for Japan's involvement in an unwinnable war with the US is the strength of Japanese nationalism. Between 1937 and 1941, the US Gross National Product was five times bigger than Japan's, and their manufacturing production was nine times greater. This stark contrast in power between the two countries is clear.  Even from a modern viewpoint, it was clear that the attack was poorly planned: the day following the Pearl Harbor attack, New York Congressman Hamilton Fish said that the Japanese attack was "military, naval, and national suicide." By the late 1930s, "a catastrophic chasm had developed between Japan's imperial goals and its material capacity to realize them," claims J. Record. Additionally, the Japanese had other options besides aggression and submission. According to historian Robert H. Ferrel, Japan must have had "a respectable alternative," such as restricting their aggressiveness to Northeast Asia. J. Record asserts that Japan could have prevented war with Britain and the US if they had taken this action. Since Japanese imperialism, as claimed by Smethurst, drove Japan into a "vastly destructive war that it was not economically, financially, or technologically" prepared to engage in, it provides a more convincing explanation for how the Pearl Harbour attack might have happened.

In the end, it must be remembered that although US foreign policy was a major factor in the attack on Pearl Harbour, it must also be viewed in light of Japan's decade-long history of brazen aggression. Overall, it seems that Japan's imperialistic aspirations were the primary cause of the US-Japan War. This is due to the fact that the Japanese entering such an unnecessary war against an adversary that was more than capable of defeating it could only have been the result of the union of an expansionist drive and an overconfident trust in military competence.

As I used historical methods to research my subject, I became more aware of the difficulties associated with assessing historical data as a result of this examination. It might be challenging to form a logical viewpoint on an event because historical material is large and of varying quality. Historical interpretations might lose their correctness because, unlike scientists, historians are unable to evaluate their theories through experiments.

In order to successfully dispute the conventional understanding of the Pearl Harbour attack, I set out to explore revisionist opinions on the attack when I first started this examination. However, it seemed that the historians I looked into depended mainly on rhetoric and the selective use of light sources of evidence and that their viewpoints lacked factual backing. For instance, Source B insists vehemently that the US oil embargo forced Japan to attack the US, ignoring the impact of other causes. As I conducted further research, I became aware that I was favouring the data that confirmed my initial hypothesis that US foreign policy contributed more to the assault than was generally believed over other evidence. This proved to me how crucial it is for a historian to stick to their mission: to find the most convincing explanation for events by weighing a great amount of information about them, rather than to develop a theory and confirm it in the absence of contradictory evidence.

I encountered challenges in my inquiry when attempting to analyze the past using historians' methodology. At first, I thought books would be the most valuable source for my issue, but I discovered that my topic was too specialized for my local libraries to have much valuable material. The majority of my history data had to be located online, which provided its own difficulties for me. The method I used to look for historical information limited each search I made; for instance, I discovered that Google Books was considerably better at giving me recent papers on my issue than present viewpoints. However, generally, I was successful in locating a variety of sources to back up a compelling thesis.