World War II Forum: Causes of WWII
Posted by: Chris Whitten (chris@ThisIsToPreventSpam-162-RemoveThis.interesting.com) on 12 Mar 2003 at 10:13:27 AM
In-Reply-To: why did ww2 start and who started it? posted by dan rezendes on 1:09:14 PM 10 Mar 2003
Hi Dan,Check out http://www.worldwariihistory.info/WWII/Europe.html
for a good introduction to the European war.
These pages also have summaries of the Pacific war, but the introduction to the causes of the Pacific war isn't as good.
Very, very briefly, we (the U.S.) had been asserting growing influence in the Pacific. This clashed with the Japanese who had imperialist designs over much of Asia -- designs which also clashed with the European empires of old.
The Japanese hoped to scare the American public out of the Pacific by bombing Pearl Harbor. That is, they wanted to make it clear that Americans would pay a high price for getting involved in their affairs. Naturally, this didn't scare Americans quite as much as it angered them.
Pearl Harbor gave Roosevelt a wide opening for turning the cold war in the Pacific into a hot war, and intervening in Europe, which he'd been hoping to do for a long time.
That's very brief, and I'm no expert.
Chris
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