How Come Japan Attacked Pearl Harbor?

During 1940 Japan signed a three-way pact with Germany and Italy. The United
States didn’t like this because it meant war with Germany would happen after a matter
of time. The reason for which Japan attacked the U.S.was never very clear. At first it
appeared they awoke and attacked a very large and powerful country for almost no
reason at all. Some reasons they may have attacked were the U.S. were stopping
Japan's trade of aircrafts, aircraft parts, and oil. Japan also announced a new order in
eastern Asia, so they needed to gain lots of power. So imperialism was the solution to
that problem. Japan's economy was also hurting and a part of that reason was the U.S.
They were also growing quickly which meant they needed lots of resources and the
U.S. was a good place for that since it is large. Also Japan could have felt threatened
due to the United States mobilization.
In 1939 the United States began to stop trade of aircraft and aircraft parts against
Japan (Doc C). This would lower the amount of imported steel from the United states
from 310 tons to just 32 tons in 1939. In 1940 they imported no steel from the U.S. and
in 1941 they imported 6 tons of steel. Then in 1941 we put a stop to Japanese importing
oil. This was important because Japan had few oil reserves and produced very little of
its own oil (Doc D). With this major decrease in oil their ships wouldn't be able to run in
just a few years. Since they wouldn't be able to live up to their new order in just a few
years, Japan could have attacked Pearl Harbor to try and send a message to the United
States to tell them to stop.
Japan wasn’t very large and powerful at first which is why they changed their
ways to gain power and become a threat. A note from Japan was sent out explaining
the old order is no longer useful and that they now have a new order. They go on to say
they will invade other countries to gain power and influence. To the Japanese citizens
they aren’t told of its imperialism. They are told that other countries just also need their
emperor. Japan takes many smaller islands in the pacific to try and display they are
serious about this. Then maybe they got cocky and in an attempt to up their game and
really show the world their power and they aren’t to be messed with they attack Pearl
Harbor.
Japan was quickly growing in power and in land. Trying to spread out their
influence meant making more ships and aircrafts to not accidentally thin out their
military over a large space. This would be very costly since they imported lots of things
for this. Japan needed natural resources and their economy was starting to fall apart.
The United States freezes all Japanese assets and bank accounts in 1941(Doc C). This
was very hurtful to their already failing economy plus the United States was large and
had many natural resources that could be very useful to Japan. To solve both of these
problems Japan could have launched the attack on Pearl Harbor to try and bring down
an important part of our military, lowering our power. This could lead to them being able
to take control of the United States using our military to add to theirs and use all our
natural resources to attempt to fix their economy and build up their military even more.
Weather Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because the U.S. was stopping Japan's
trade of aircrafts, aircraft parts, and oil. Because Japan also announced a new order in
eastern Asia, so they needed to gain lots of power. So imperialism was the solution to
that problem. Or because Japan's economy was also hurting and a part of that reason
was the U.S. They were also growing quickly which meant they needed lots of
resources and the U.S. was a good place for that since it is large. We may not know
their exact reason as to why they attacked because looking at it from the outside
perspective Japan just looked like a bunch of idiots to attack a large and powerful
country seemingly out of nowhere. The attack on Pearl Harbor would lead to us joining
the war and eventually nuking Japan because we realized that would be the only way to
put a stop to them without killing almost all of them. It ended up not working out in favor
of Japan and their side lost the war.