It was, according to the oft-quoted opening words of President Franklin Roosevelt’s address to Congress made on the following day, ‘a date which will live in infamy’ – when, on 7 December 1941, ‘the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan’. But if the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor represented a remarkably successful tactical victory for the Japanese empire, it was also a strategic blunder on a massive scale.
In the 85 years since that infamous day, a disappointingly large number of my fellow Americans have come to believe that the attack on Pearl Harbor marked the beginning of World War II – when in fact, or at least according to some reckonings, the conflict had actually begun a decade earlier. In 1931, the expanding Japanese Empire had launched military operations in China. This militaristic, expansionist policy was quickly imitated by Adolf Hitler in the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia, and by Benito Mussolini in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). Recognising each other as ‘fellow travellers’, the nations of Germany, Italy, and Japan were able to create the Tripartite Pact in 1940, by which time Germany had already invaded Poland and precipitated a general war in Europe.
Despite its alliance with the Fascists and Nazis of Europe, Japan, like those allies, maintained diplomatic relations with the United States. These relations were rather strained, however, as the United States government put pressure on Japan in response to the latter’s expansionist claims, as they attempted to create their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. America, at the time, was a member of what was termed the ABCD group (American, British, Chinese, and Dutch), which objected to Japanese expansion, and as part of this America ceased to allow exports of iron ore, steel, and petroleum to Japan. As Japan depended on the ABCD for some 80% of its petroleum products, this embargo threatened to bank-rupt the country.
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