From Pacific War to World War II

I. Why did Japan attack the United States?

A. bogged down in China

SEA and raw materials

the ABCD embargo

colonialism in SEA

the European pull-out

nationalist resistance groups

AXIS and Allies

America and England

B. Why Pearl Harbor?

Singapore and the Philippines

the "incomplete" attack

the strength of the American fleet?

C. What did Japan expect?

defeat [Yamamoto Isoroku]

victory [assorted loonies]

Japanese spirit

desperation

compromise [Tojo Hideki]

the European war

relatively little damage

D. Why no declaration of war?

E. Japanese perceptions of the U.S.

Army and Navy

isolationism and disarmament

spiritual [racial?] inferiority

II. American complicity and the backdoor to war theory

A. Did the U.S. provoke Japan?

ABCD embargo

Konoe-Roosevelt talks cancelled

FDR and the European connection

isolationism and foreign policy

B. Did the U.S. know the attack was coming?

MAGIC and security

immediate warning signs

submarine

radar

immediate motives

concentration of aircraft

outdated fleet and Congress

the missing aircraft carriers

Americans' perceptions of Japan

the new "Yellow Peril"

racial [spiritual?] inferiority

C. The American response

III. The War in the Pacific

A. the sweep across the Pacific

Pan-Asianism and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

rhetoric, reality and orders

the battle of Midway, July 1942

B. Island-hopping, 1942-1943

C. Who fought in the Pacific?

Europe, Australia and New Zealand

England, India and Burma

Ho Chi Minh, Sukarno, and the Huks

other resistance groups

D. The war on the Japanese homefront

the war against a war machine

firebombing and civilians

censorship, oppression and resistance

starvation, homelessness and social break-down

preparations for the final assault

IV. The end of WWII and the beginning of the nuclear age

A. Alternative ways to end the war

conditional surrender

June???: the Potsdam Declaration

July 12: Konoe's message delivered

July 16: the Trinity test

Aug. 6: Hiroshima

Aug. 8: the USSR enters the war

Aug. 9: Nagasaki

Aug. 14 the emperor's message

invasion: Olympic-Coronet

reducing American [and Japanese] casualties

security and the bomb

what if it didn't work?

B. the decision to drop the bomb

the beginning of the Cold War

cost and accountability

scientific experimentation

racism

ignorance

C. The bombs

Little Boy: 13 kilotons, 200,000 dead in first year

Fat Man: 16 kilotons, 100,000 dead in first year

the third bomb

D. Aftermath

surrender and the emperor

the hibakusha and genetic damage

Japan's "nuclear allergy" and pacifism

the international anti-nuclear movement

the American lake