So this is a question that I am really wondering about. Why was Japan in WW2 and on the side of Germany? I am really just wondering what they were hoping to do and what their plan was. They were not just in it for Germany's goal because they did not surrender when Adolf Hitler died.

The quick answer is that Japan was an emerging power with very little arable land and few natural resources and the Emperor wanted more territory to drop the cost of manufacturing. Free trade wasn't happening and the other colonial powers, like the Dutch, the English, even the Americans, fiercely protected their trade rights and didn't Japan, as an emerging economy, into the picture.

So Japan is coming out of a depression in the early to mid-1930s, they're looking to secure their future and pay for heavy deficit spending on manufacturing and militarization, and they needed to do it without paying other people for oil, rubber, and other needs of heavy industrial production.

Politically, Japan had emerged from the Meiji era and was politically led by militant "elder statesmen" who were hawks regarding politics. They felt strong enough to exploit other nearby countries and regions for those resources and they used a large military to employ young men and get them away from the depression to stop putting drains on social demands. Now, they have a big army and they have to pay for it. So they invade China and Russia doesn't do much more than protect her own borders. No one else steps in.

In the late 1930s and in 1940, Japan invaded several other countries in Asia. The U.S. began an embargo on Japanese trade and stopped selling steel, rubber, and oil. The Japanese knew they wouldn't last long with the embargo and they needed to wipe out the Americans' combat capabilities in the Pacific, and they hoped to be left alone with their territory gains while the U.S., England, and France went after the Germans and the Italians. The belief was by the time that war was over, the Allied countries would be used up and would allow Japan to hold their gains.

So, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in an effort to end the war before it could even start. Japan expected the destruction of the Pacific Fleet would deny the Americans the ability to fight back for years and Japan could then consolidate their control, allowing them to become an economic power player in the world and allow them to continue to strengthen their military and stay relevant on the political stage.

Safe to say, we know how it ended.

Yeah, Pretty much what Ghostbear said. . . Also, it's worth noting that the Japan had already tried to expand it's territory for the same reasons during the Russo Japanese war. If you haven't heard of the Russo Japanese war, than you might find that interesting. I certainly did. It makes a lot more sense in context of World War II as it's precursor.

Ghostbear1111 :

Am I right?

Sword legion : Yes, you're accurate. World War II wasn't the first time, or second time, the Japanese made military moves to expand their empire.

And if you want to go even further back, there were two wars between the Russians and the Japanese from the late 1890s to 1905ish. I'd have to go look up Wikipedia to make sure but the Russians and Japanese went at it a few times over expansion, warm water ports, and Manchuria. The French and Germans fought alongside the Russians in the first one, in 1895, to deny Japanese claims on northeastern China. The Russians also took Port Arthur in that one and the Japanese decided to stage a coup in Korea to take it back. The Russians wanted to stop expansion but also wanted to take advantage of the situation and get themselves well-positioned on the east coast of Asia.

The Russians then sailed all the way around Africa to show up near Korea and get blown to bits. The Japanese ran out of money to fund their war so both countries sent delegates to New Hampshire, of all places, to sign an official cessation of conflict.

So, thirty years later, the Japanese made another move because they were in a new position, politically and economically, to bring their influence over a large number of Asian nations and feed their manufacturing needs.

The U.S. saw what they were doing, embargoed them, and got the Pearl Harbor attacks.

The rest is history, as they say.

Ghostbear1111 : I actually didn't know it was so complicated. I had always heard that Japan just got too big for their britches, as the old timers here say, and that they bombed Pearl Harbor because we were supplying the Chinese against them. This makes a whole lot more sense, though.

m0ssb3rg935 : It could go deeper if you liked, all the way to when Perry opened Japanese trade to the Americans via parking a battleship in the bay next to the Emperor's palace and saying, "Okay, we blow you up or you trade with us."

And then the Japanese, who hated and feared religious and Christian indoctrination, were really only trading partners with the Dutch, who were interested in science and gold and couldn't care less about advancing religions.

And it goes from there. The history is fascinating. People on here love the Japanese culture but I don't know that a lot of them really understand it or why it is the way it is.

My wife is Japanese American, in that she's Caucasian with some Japanese blood but she grew up in Japan and speaks Japanese better than English. Her history is amazing to listen to. It's interesting to hear how she interprets World War II. Technically, her country lost because she doesn't identify with the United States the way I do.