In Reply to: It's not clear that Japan was planning war with the US. posted by mh on February 17, 2026 at 16:17:39
Japanese War planning could not allow major US bases in the Philippines which sat astride maritime routes needed to move rubber and oil from SE Asia to the home islands.
Japan's imperialist designs on Indochina and Indonesia directly conflicted with US policy and interests at the time. The "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" as Japan called their intention to extend its empire beyond China and Korea made conflict inevitable. Japan may have preferred to delay conflict while absorbing European colonies and trying to achieve greater industrial capacity in preparation for conflict, but the ultimately the Army was the most influential faction in the regime and pushed the country into war more rapidly because it was more aggressive and may have had less regard for US capabilities and willingness to fight over its Pacific interests.
In the event, US embargoes in response to Japanese occupation of Indochina resulted in the IJA's more urgent timeline, since Japan could not sustain its war efforts on the Asian mainland without those resources; also the German conquest of France and the Netherlands rendered those countries incapable of successfully contesting Japanese aggression and the Army saw their conquests as easily attainable.