“Unless the Japanese got the US off their backs in the Pacific, they believed they would face complete destruction”

Eighty years ago Japan’s surprise raid on Pearl Harbor forced the US offthe fence and into the Second World War. Ellie Cawthorne is making a new HistoryExtra podcast series about the attack, and she spoke to Christopher Harding about the long roots of Japan’s disastrous decision

- Christopher Harding

Pearl Harbor is today seen as a turning point in the Second World War. What was the situation in Japan in the years leading up to its fateful decision to attack the US?

The big theme for this period in Japanese history was a sense that global events were turning against Japan. Particularly in military and right-wing circles, there was an idea that the interwar dream of internationalism only favoured the European colonial powers and the United States. Add to that the perceived threat of the Soviet Union, Chinese nationalists, and Americans across the Pacific, and Japan, with its rather awkward geography, was starting to feel encircled.

To understand the attack on Pearl Harbor fully, it's helpful to look further back still. Ever since Japan opened up to the west in the 1850s, there was always a concern that adopting the trappings of western modernity – technology, industry, weaponry, banking, infrastructure and more - - might put Japanese culture at risk. By the late 1930s, those concerns were being exploited by Japanese ideologues and military figures to argue that Japan's experimentation with civilian democracy wasn't working.

The feeling grew that the political status quo was failing the nation and civilian politicians were more interested in lining their pockets than strengthening Japan's position. People argued that the one institution that was not westernised, corrupt or self-seeking, was the military. The armed forces were held up as a proponent of the values that Japan ought to be preserving, like self-sacrifice for the good of the nation.

How influential was militarism in this period, and did it equate to greater warmongering?