Conclusion

The origins of the war that began on 7/8 December 1941 with the Japanese invasion of Malaya and the attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor can be seen from a number of perspectives.

It is also possible, however, to say that the war had long-term roots and that a clash between Japan and the Western democracies was always likely and perhaps increasingly inevitable. The fundamental point is that tectonic forces were at work; that from the turn of the century Japan was a rapidly modernizing power and that this naturally alarmed the West, which feared for its trading interests. This therefore led to Western suspicion of Japan, which in turn engendered feelings of insecurity in the latter.

Debating the intelligence failure at Pearl Harbor

While there are many areas of debate about the origins of the Pacific War, public attention has been concentrated upon one issue above all others - whether President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill had foreknowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but failed to do anything to prevent the assault in order to provide an opportunity for American entry into the Second World War. The controversy about this issue began in the immediate post­war era when a number of books by critics of the late president accused him of deliberate subterfuge over Pearl Harbor. They argued that the intelligence information available to the president, which was revealed by the Congressional investigation into the Pearl Harbor attack in 1945-46, meant that he must have known a Japanese attack was imminent.

However, reminiscences by intelligence officers and confusion about whether the United States and Britain were able to read Japanese naval codes meant that the conspiracy theories have re-emerged with a vengeance over the past decade or so, particularly in the contentious arguments used by James Rusbridger and Eric Nave, Betrayal at Pearl Harbor: How Churchill Lured Roosevelt into War (London, 1991) and Robert Stinnett, Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor (New York, 2000). These books have, however, failed to provide conclusive evidence that any intelligence reports indicating Japan's intentions reached those at the highest level of government; indeed, contemporary diaries and records of meetings suggest that the attention of those in authority was focused on a possible Japanese thrust into South-East Asia rather than an attack on Hawaii. The Pearl Harbor controversy is a classic example of a historical conspiracy that can be neither proved nor disproved and as such invites endless speculation. In doing so, however, it detracts from a true understanding of the origins of the Pacific War to the detriment of real history.

Heightening this atmosphere of mutual unease were a number of phenomena in the inter-war period that exacerbated Japan’s desire for hegemony and security. The most obvious example is the Depression. The severity of the slump between 1929 and 1931 caused a crisis in Japan, which led it to reject the pro-Western orientation of the 1920s in domestic politics and foreign policy and to seek a new

order at home and expansion overseas in order to overcome the problems of modernization.

The other vital factor in the inter-war period was the change in Japan's geopolitical position as a result of the rise of nationalism in China and the growing strength of the Soviet Union. The inter-war period saw a marked shift in China's role in the international system from being little more than a canvas for international competition to becoming a modern nation-state determined to rid itself of all vestiges of foreign imperialism. As such, nationalist China naturally rejected Japan's pretensions to regional leadership. Meanwhile, Japan pursued a policy that brought it into direct conflict with this new nationalist China. Failing to understand both China's pride and its animosity towards Japan, the Japanese authorities sought to force the Nanjing government to accept co-operation. For Japan, this co-operation was essential, for it feared the military and ideological threat posed by Russia, and knew that without China's raw materials, it could not achieve autarky and thus resist the Soviet threat. Reinforcing its concern was the danger that, if Japan left China to itself, the latter might be susceptible to communist influence. Japan was thus determined that China should accept its guidance and the construction of a ‘New Order in East Asia' and believed that, as the Nanjing government was still militarily and politically weak, it could be bent to Tokyo's will. In such circumstances, war between these Asian neighbours was more or less unavoidable and this in turn added further strain to Japan's relations with the West.

Japan's path to war was thus the result of both internal and external forces. It sought expansion in order to overcome the problems engendered by modern­ization and to guarantee its security through the achievement of autarky. However, it never developed any coherent plan of action and found that its striving for hegemony only worsened rather than improved its strategic position. Its activities united China against it, leading to a war that brought Japan no benefits. Then, desperate to find a way out of this quagmire, it sided with Hitler's Germany against the Western democracies and brought destruction upon itself.