"Why Did The Japanese Army Carry Out The Pearl Harbor Attack"

 

The paper “Why Did the Japanese Army Carry Out the Pearl Harbor Attack?" is a spectacular example of an annotated bibliography on history. Allison Lassieu with her book "The Attack on Pearl Harbor: An Interactive History Adventure" begins a list of authoritative authors. Lassie is a well known professional freelance author. She had started her career in publishing (as a passionate D&D player) and later had been working as an editor in the publishing arena for 13 years. Some of the magazines she edited included Disney Adventures.

As Lassieur points out, the attack of the Pearl Harbor could be anticipated sometime before being executed. The main reason for the Pearl Harbor attack was to neutralize the U.S. Pacific fleet. This was intended to progress the Japanese mission to advance into Dutch East Indies and Malaya (Lassieur 16). The Japanese wanted to venture in these regions in order to get access to natural resources, which included rubber and oil. In the 1930s, Japan was already expanding into Manchuria, the fact which led to an intensification of tensions.

Being the worlds largest power, America posed a major threat barrier to the Japanese in their efforts. The tension between these two countries intensified during the 1930s; this tension led to the Pearl Harbor attack that marked the beginning of World War II (Lassieur 18). In the year 1940, the Japanese invasion of French Indochina bled the American government to impose strict sanctions against Japan. For instance, the American government stopped the shipment of airplanes, machine tools, parts as well as aviation gasoline.

Later, the American government also threatens to impose more restrictions by prohibiting the sale of scrap metal. Through their ambassador to the US, Japan reacted to these restrictions on the ground that they were unfriendly. However, after the Japanese expansion to Indochina, the U.S. stopped oil exports to Japan in July 1941 (Lassieur 21). Merriam, Ray. Pearl Harbor: "This Is No Drill!" New York: Merriam Press, 1999. Ray Merriam is a renowned author who owns a publishing house - Merriam Press.

As Merriam observes, long before the Japanese attack on the U.S. at the Pearl Harbor the two had been in the continuous rivalry. A few years before the attack, their associations had worsened. The major cause of this contention was the Japanese action of assertively expanding Manchuria and China (Merriam 59). Japan was also progressively becoming more authoritative and influential. Therefore, the U.S. saw it as a great threat to its status. As a result, America was ready to stop midstream any effort made by Japan to enlarge its territory.