Re: WWII & Japan

[Benjamin Grosman <bgrosman@healey.com.au>]

Dear Sir,

>Japanese Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura and Special Ambassador Saburo Kurusu
>were to present Secretary of State Cordell Hull a Declaration of War at 1pm
>Washington time on Dec. 7th. To achieve technical compliance with
>international rules it was intended to be delivered approx. 30 minutes prior
>to the actual attack. There were decoding difficulties however and it was
>delivered after the attack. Neither of the Ambassadors is thought to have
>had any knowledge of the actual attack and therefore did not understand the
>criticality of delivery. Japan intended to go to war with the United States,
>Great Britian, and Holland over their policies concerning the Japanese
>presence in China and Manchuria.

This is totally true, except that the American forces actually knew that an
attack was coming, and the Japanese ambassadors definitely had an inkling of
what was going to happen. Communicades to the Japanese ambassadors were
being made sparse as the attack came, and details of actions to come were
broken up into a 14 part message. On the USA side, the even knew that the
attack was coming on a Sunday. They had broken the Japanese codes, and had
been distributing the information from the communicades to pertinent
authorities. However, a copy of a communicade was found in a rubbish bin in
the hallway of a military building, and so distribution was reduced to fewer
people. But nobody wanted to take any notice. This begs the question of the
illegal lend-lease agreements between the Americans and the British which
could have had Roosevelt impeached if the details had come to light in congress.
However, as to the reason why the Japanese wanted to go to war, your
explanation is a little basic. It is true that the Japanese wanted to go to
war over the aforementioned countries policies concerning the Japanese
invasion and occupation of Manchuria, or Manchukuo as they called it.
However, this was not simply the reason. The aforementioned countries
policies barred export of vital natural resources to the Japanese, who live
in a naturally mineral poor country. Their original invasion was actually
staged (see "The Manchukuo Incident") in the hope that they could gain more
natural resources from Manchukuo. 
Another reason why the Japanese wanted war is a rather complicated one, and
it dates back to the end of World War I. At the end of the war most
countries in a position to have colonies in the pacific/orient area were
under severe financial stress. The French had borrowed so much money from
the USA that they had doubts of ever being able to count so high, and
Clemenceau, the "French Tiger", was determined to extract as much
reparations under the War Guilt Clause of the Versailles Treaty as possible.
The British had also borrowed phenomenal amounts of money. However, these
two, after taking all territorial possessions of the ex-German Empire, and
the ex-Austrian Empire, had in fact huge amounts of possessions. The British
Empire spanned roughly a third of the world in both population and size, and
the French were roughly two thirds as big as the British. But how to pay for
this massive Empire? Maintance of ships, particularly the newer Dreadnought
class Battleships, was incredibly expensive, and enough were not in
possession at the end of the war to defend pre-war borders, let alone the
newly expanded ones. Thus the British Empire, and the USA decided that it
was best to maintain the status quo. They had "run the race" and won. They
had their colonies (the USA had the Phillipines, and a few other pacific
islands, although the USA has always had a policy against Colonialism), and
they decided to end the possibility of another arms race via an agreement.
Thus it was that the Washington Naval Conference was formed. This conference
limited certain countries to certain ratio's of certain classes of ships, to
help maintain the status quo, and all measurements were done against the
British Navy. It was this conference and the forged agreement that came out
of it that greatly crippled Japan, in desperate need of Colonies and the
natural resources that could be exploited from them, for Japan was limited
to a navy roughly half the size of the British Navy, but consisting of
mainly smaller ships overall, for their quote of battleships was less than
half. Holland and France were also participating countries in this pact.
However, whilst it limited ships in the pacific regions, it did not limit
ships in other regions. This crippled Japan, but left _all other players_
with other waters in which to build ships (hence the large buildup of
Atlantic sea forces by the USA that facilitated the lend-lease agreements
later on). This in itself a heavy blow to the Japanese, but added to this
was the failure of the British to renew their alliance. Not only was the
most powerful empire in the world now not an ally of the Japanese, but the
Japanese could not even compete to provide what they needed. And the other
countries, naturally, liked this just fine.
Therefore, whilst your comments are true, they are only true in part. The
Japanese ambassadors certainly had a general idea as to what was following
due to the 14 part message, and the Japanese had more motive to attack than
a simple "policy of other countries" explanation warrants.

Yours Sincerely,

Benjamin Grosman