Today is December 7, 2025. We call it a day of Remembrance because that day in 1941 is when the Japanese pulled us into the war by bombing Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The reasons they did are both simple and complex. They are both economic and political.

            As in Europe the roots of World War II started in the early 1930s. With Japan it was the invasion of Manchuria on September 18, 1931 using a fabricated excuse as the reason. The full scale invasion on China started July 7, 1941. FDR thought he could get Japan to stop and pull out by cutting off our exports of oil and steel. It did not work because of the complex reasons.

            The major party in Japan was an ultra-nationalist group who thought Japan should be the dominant power in Asia and the Western Pacific. Their term for the Control of China, Philippines, South East Asia and all the islands was The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere which would allow them to steal all the resources and enslave their peoples. The leader of the party finally got complete control of Japan’s Army and Government on October 18, 1941 through coercion and assassination of political opponents. The party saw Japan’s powerful army and navy as more than a match for an isolationist and weak United States. They thought if they declared war, devastated Pearl Harbor and captured Wake Island. FDR would sue for peace. Through a screw-up war was not declared until hours after the attack.

            Adding to the complexity was Japan, Germany and Italy signing the Triparte Pact. It was supposed to be a Mutual Defense Agreement. Germany thought it would keep the United States out of the war but Japan’s attack on us caused Hitler to declare war on the U.S. causing WWII. If Hitler had kept silent we would not have gone into the European War.