The rise of Hitler and the Nazis has been dissected to its minutest social, economic and political detail. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of books, papers and webpages analysing any and every detail of Germany. And most people interested in the war in Europe has atleast a basic understanding. However, we rarely see discussions on how the Nationalist rose and took power in pre-war Japan. And rise they did because the belief that the actions of the Japanese during the war was indicative of the "national character" is misleading. During WW1 and the early 1920s japan was an ally of Britain. The period bewteen the 1870s and the 1920s was one of great social, economic, and cultural development, moving Japan closer to a European model of that time. However, the Nationalists were able to take power and transform Japanese society into a "warlike" culture, similar but not the same as the Nazi's did. What caused this shift? Was it: - a direct consequence of the US manipulations of the Naval Treatiesof the 1920s creating a rift between Japan and Britain? - cultural envy at the fact that the Europeans had Asian colonies and Japan didn't? - the economic effect of the Great Slump in the late 1920s? - was it actually inevitable that Japan would revert to militarism, and in fact the period of "progress" was an anomoly? What do member's think?
A few things members may like to read to get a handle on my question: Japanese nationalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Explanations of Japan’s Imperialistic Expansion, 1894-1910 Japan, history of: expansion in late 19th and 20th centuries -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia Japan's Economic Expansion into Manchuria and China in World War Two The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and Japanese Expansionism 1902-1923 http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA258516&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
Well things I have read about it seem to have been about oil. It was a war about the Western nations denying Japan the oil and other raw materials that were the subject of embargos. One great enemy of Japan was the Royal Dutch Shell Oil Co in the then Dutch East Indies. Another was Texaco. At the time of the attack on Pearl, evidently Japan had only enough fuel on hand to fight the war for a month.
There is no one direct answer to this. It is combination of events and circumstances that lead to the military taking control and unleashing the japenese war machine. As they extended their reach, the "western" countries imposed embargos, which in turn made the Japanese seek alternative sources including directly seizing the oil fields.
An interesting article: Japan’s Pan-Asianism and the Legitimacy of Imperial World Order, 1931–1945 Japan Focus
