What Motivated Japanese Aggression in World War II?

[gipper]

In the 1930s and 1940s, Japan seemed intent on colonizing all of Asia. It seized vast swathes of land and numerous islands; Korea was already under its control, but it added Manchuria, coastal China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Singapore, Malaya (Malaysia), Thailand, New Guinea, Brunei, Taiwan... Japanese attacks even reached to Australia in the south, the US territory of Hawaii in the east, the Aleutian Islands of Alaska in the north, and as far west as British India in the Kohima campaign.


What motivated a formerly reclusive island nation to go on such a rampage?

Why Was Japan So Aggressive in World War II?

Here go - FDR's Pearl Harbor Bait

That should be required reading for all Americans.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Here go - FDR's Pearl Harbor Bait

That should be required reading for all Americans.

Yep. It sure should be, man. It sure should be.

 

[gipper]

Here go - FDR's Pearl Harbor Bait

That should be required reading for all Americans.

Yep. It sure, man. It sure should.

I suppose most would consider it conspiracy theories and ignore. The statist brainwashing is tough to overcome.

 

[Natural Citizen]

I suppose most would consider it conspiracy theories and ignore. The statist brainwashing is tough to overcome.

Perhaps. But that's okay. I'm not interested in teaching the old guard, though. In time, they will pass. As we go out to the colleges and other similar places, we find that the younger generation is open to learning what their parents and grandparents were never taught. And they're often open to becoming involved in the political process as they learn. These are the educated people who will lead in the future. Or participate in it in a functional way, at the very least. These are the people who put 10,000 people in the building next door when the establishment party changes the rules and won't let em in to speak at theirs, ignoring the fact that they earned the right to do so fair and square. And they have not forgotten about it.

As has been said before, an idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government. It will not be said that we stood around and did nothing. In time...

 

[whitehall]

The Japanese Empire had been an aggressive nation since the 1870's. The problem for the U.S. during the early part of the 20th century is that the U.S. had no intelligence network and Japan was actually judged on the basis of racial bigotry prior to WW2. The people who ran the U.S. government during FDR's first two terms actually thought that the Japanese were a nearsighted war-like little yellow race who had a balance problem and couldn't build a plane that would fly or a ship that would float. FDR invited an attack by Japan so the U.S. could get into the "real war" in Germany.