Reasons that Japan Involved the U.S. in War
             For more than fifty years, historians and social scientists have been questioning whether or not the United States was already "at war" prior to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Because of the conflict that already existed regarding Japan's expansionist practices, the United States may or may have not needed to have its hand forced in the official designation of war in the Pacific. As the Japanese Empire had grown, so had its control over its territories. For example, in the early 1930s, Japan invaded Manchuria, a clear sign that the Japanese did not intend to lessen their efforts to gain control throughout Asia. The Japanese, who had blocked a number of Russian incursions into Manchuria, were moving in to gain control of the region's plentiful coal and iron, which Japan sorely lacked. In 1937, Japanese and Chinese forces fought near Beijing resulting in Japan's occupation of northern China. The United States ostensibly "disapproved" of such actions but refused to take any direct action in stopping it. Whether or not these conflicts began inadvertently or whether they were planned is unknown. Nevertheless, they led to a full-scale war known as the second Sino-Japanese War.
             Questions as to why Japan wanted the U.S. involved in war bring to bear the numerous issues involved in any discussion of pre-World War II Japanese-American relations, as well as those revolving around the war itself. It seems obvious that if there had been some level of agreement between the nations regarding the larger expansionist practices of Japan, the need for such a dramatically destructive move as the bombing of Pearl Harbor might have been avoided.
             Japan's sense of achievement, as well as its sense of resentment, its attempt to learn from the West and its resistance to Western influence, warred with each other throughout the 1920s and early 1930s (Fallows 33)....