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Comment by CapriciousCptl | Hacker News Reader

WW2 was straightforward— Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and (afterwards) declared war on the US before the US declared war in response. WW1 it’s harder to point to one thing but the sinking of the Lusitania and the Zimmerman telegram were taught.

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Japan also invaded the phillipines, which was a US territory at the time. FDR was concerned that the American people wouldn't support entering the war if he focused his speech on all the US territories. He specifically mentions Pearl Harbour, since Hawaii was viewed as more apart of the US, also Hawaii had a majority white population.

I'm only really scratching the surface, but the US just never likes saying we're an imperialist nation who's colonies were being invaded by Japan. It's still the argument used to deny statehood (or independence) for Puerto Rico

The sentiment for neutrality in the US was dramatically higher than Americans typically care to remember. Months prior to Pearl Harbor US destroyers in the Atlantic were engaging (and in one case being sunk by German U-boats.) That was considered by many to be a reason to get rid of Roosevelt rather than fight with Germany.

But why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor?

Because of the American oil embargo against them (Started on August 1st, 1941. 80% of Japan's oil was imported from the US, and as of December 1941, they had three months worth of supplies left.)

Why was there an oil embargo?

Because FDR wanted them to stop their war in China. (Which started in 1931, by the way.)

Pearl Harbor did not just magically appear out of the blue, with no prior context. In both the precipitating event (Peace talks over aggression in China), and the triggering event (Surprise attack on Pearl Harbour) Japan grossly misjudged FDR's willingness to employ the nuclear option. (Pun intended. And yes, I know that it was Truman who ordered the bomb to be dropped.)

The oil embargo had much more to do with Japan marching into French Indochina. Like you said, Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, and the US took no action. In 1937, Japan starts invading the rest of China after the Marco Polo bridge incident, and the US still did nothing even after Japanese bombers hit the USS Panay on the Yangtze river. December 1937, Nanjing Massacre, again no direct action from the US. (But plenty of funding to the ROC and supplies being shipped into China through French Indochina, part of the reason why Japan would later occupy this area) The US didn't start limiting oil and scrap iron shipments to Japan until 1940, after supplying a decade of Japanese military adventures. Why 1940? In 1940, Nazi Germany defeats France and the Vichy French government allows Japan to occupy French Indochina. Suddenly, Japan controls the world's main source of rubber, is within striking distance of the Dutch East Indies and its oil supply which the UK needs to hold out against Germany, and has occupied a western colony.

US had declared war on Japan but not Germany. Germany declared war on US a few days later.

My memory of the details is a little fuzzy, but Great Britain played a role in all that as well. As I recall, they had a mutual defense pact of some sort with the US, to the point that they declared war on Japan before the US did, in response to the Pearl Harbor attacks. The US then declared war on Japan shortly afterwards. The Germans apparently saw all of this as "the writing on the wall" and realized that US entry into the war in Europe was inevitable, and so declared war on the US.

Something like that anyway. It's been a while since I read up on all of this.

Japan declared war and invaded Asian British colonies simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_declaration_of_war_on...

OK, I found the bit I was remembering:

The UK actually declared war on Japan nine hours before the U.S. did, partially due to Japanese attacks on Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and partially due to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's promise to declare war "within the hour" of a Japanese attack on the United States.[1]

I had forgotten the part about the attacks on Malaya, etc.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Afterma...

Hitler had a mutual defense pact with Japan. But he didn’t have to declare war on the US. It was one of his greatest blunders. Had the US not declare war on Germany, or delayed it for a year or two, Germany might have been able to finish off the Russians and cement their control of Europe.

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