Pearl Harbor 4 Essay Research Paper The

Pearl Harbor 4 Essay, Research Paper

The United States inflexible foreign policy when dealing with Japan lead

to the attack on Pearl harbor which ended American isolationism.

On December 7, 1941, at 7:55 a.m., loudspeakers aboard warships in Pearl Harbor rang loud with warnings, Air Raid. This is no shit (Millis 354). The bombers streaked in low and filled the sky, marking the infamous Japanese attack on the bulk of the American military strength in the Pacific. The surprise attack was the grand entrance of Japan into World War II and resulted in its subsequent war with the United States. In its aftermath, their was no denying that this debacle was the worst day ever for the United States military. In only two hours the Imperial Japanese Navy had turned America s fortress into a shambles. The attack on Pearl Harbor continues to intrigue today as it was so significant to the international state system at the time of the attack. It represented a failure in deterrence by the United States on the Japanese and represented the end of American isolationism in the world which had stemmed from the conclusion of World War I. Instead of deterring the Japanese from pursuing an expansionist policy, these economic sanctions exacerbated relations between the U.S. and Japan, encouraged Japan s southward expansion, and provoked the Japanese to risk war with the United States. Inevitability, the results would be devastating for both nations.

At the conclusion of the First World War, an avalanche of isolationist sentiments arose within the American public. They felt as if they had been deceived and coerced into entry into in the war. They blamed the American entry on the nation s failure to remain genuinely neutral and felt that false propaganda and greedy businessmen were responsible for the unnecessary sacrifice of many young American men. To the public, for most of its history, the United States had managed to get along very well without allies. Plus, it seemed that in seeking to build popular support for intervention, President Woodrow Wilson had made promises he could not keep and had mislead the people. He conveyed that an Allied victory would end all wars and make the world safe for democracy. However, the defeat of Germany had no such results and inevitably this failure led to bitterness. America s distance from Europe, an asset for as long as the United States could afford to ignore the Continent, had enabled them to get along without a significant military establishment, without allies, and without thinking seriously about world politics. (O Neill 14) This pattern of thought was the reason why avoidance of intervention within the international system had existed throughout America s existence.

The war the Japanese planned had three objectives: to break the stranglehold of the embargo, to end interference with their conquest of China, and to build an overseas empire that would give Japan the supplies and markets it lacked. There was never any attempt to follow up the Pearl Harbor attack with a landing on the Hawaiian islands or the American mainland. Simply put, the Japanese were just trying to establish a headstart giving themselves enough time to complete their conquest of an overseas empire in the Pacific. The Japanese High Command hoped that the attack would allow them to develop an impregnable line of defense, giving them the opportunity to extract the necessary resources they needed in the Southwest Pacific with very little interference. They were fully aware that if their attack was countered with the full attention and capacity of the American forces they would most certainly lose. Admiral Yamamoto, who designed the attack of Pearl Harbor, warned, In the first six months to a year of war against the U.S. and England I will run wild., and I will show you an uninterrupted succession of victories; I must also tell you that, should the war be prolonged for two or three years, I have no confidence in our ultimate victory. (Russet 229)

Pearl Harbor was a staggering blow to America, but by no means a mortal one. The subsequent history of the war was to suggest that the battleships were not as of critical importance than both the Japanese and the United States thought at the time. In fact, the true damage was much less than it seemed to be in that first appalling moment. The carriers and the heavy cruisers were the vessels that afterward bore the main brunt of the Pacific naval war, and these warships were missed by the Japanese. Plus, the airplane losses were considered trivial by comparison to the immense number which were just beginning to come through new assembly lines in the United States. The attack of Pearl Harbor although successful failed to destroy the American pacific operation in one staggering blow. The Japanese did accomplish their goal in rendering the American fleet in the Pacific useless for the upcoming weeks which was they had sent out to do but, could of potentially paralyzed American naval action for months. The more important targets which the Japanese seemed to overlook were the base, the dockyard facilities, and most importantly the exposed oil storage. Had they destroyed the fuel of the Americans instead of going for their ships they might have rendered Pearl Harbor useless as a base for many months causing the ships to be driven back to the California coast for their oil supplies. Yet, it cannot be forgotten that in on