Pearl Harbor Dbq Essay

Former United States Representative, Joe Baca, states, “Pearl Harbor caused our Nation to wholeheartedly commit to winning World War II, changing the course of our Nation’s history and the world’s future.” What this quote purposely left out was how the United States needed a way out of the Great Depression. The only way out of the depression was war. Even with all the acts and plans Franklin D. Roosevelt put forth, none would truly be able to turn the economy around. Pearl Harbor was an emotional time for America; however, it was also an extremely key time for the American Government. We could easily put Japan in a crisis and we did, but American acted as though they did nothing aggressive to provoke the Japanize to attack them. In this paper,

The United States could not come out of neutrality, though because of the economic ties throughout the nation. The federal government wanted to side with the Allies, but the communist Soviet Union was on this side. The government could not tie itself to communism. On the other side, the United States did not want to join the Axis powers, which involved fascist Germany and Italy. With a Democratic government in the United States, they wanted nothing to do with the Fascist, but many of the United States citizens had ties with Germany. In order for the United States to join the war and to pull itself out of the depression, they needed an extreme occurrence to partake to create a large enough amount of nationalism to join the war. The United States government needed to make the United States a target by Axis Powers to be pulled into the war. Japan was the perfect option for the United States, which joined the Axis powers during the war, and was much weaker than Germany and

Japan kept making a strong military power; however, Japan’s military was becoming extremely weak, forcing them to become part of the Axis Powers. Japan was part of the League of Nations with a lot of the Allies powers. With them joining the Axis powers, Japan withdrew from the League, along with withdrawing from Naval Disarmament Conference (Buchanan). America was inching closer to drawing war. Once Japan withdrew from these conferences, the United States ended the 1911 Commercial treaty with Japan (Buchanan). At the time, Japan did not have the necessary natural resources an industrial nation required; therefore, the United States and the western parts of Europe were supplying Japan with these resources: coal, iron, steel, copper, rubber, and petroleum (Higgs). Without these resources, Japan would collapse in a matter of months. In order to sustain their military, they would need coal, iron, steel, and petroleum to supply their military. Japan had to act fast, or else their whole economy would crumble. On the islands that American took away from Japan during the imperialist stages in the late 19th century, such as Hawaii and the Philippians, had these resources. These islands were also within striking distance for the quality of planes of the 1940s. America knew exactly what they had to do, and they put Japan right where they wanted them to