The saddest thing about WWII is that the people who started the war, by funding it, were never brought up on charges at Nuremberg. Prescott Bush and Standard Oil made millions off selling fuel to both sides. IBM made the punch-card based catalogue service for the Nazis. Henry Ford's company made tank treads for both allied and Nazi tanks and even built the rails leading to Auschwitz.
The reality is that there were entire industries that actively did everything they could to get that war going, in order to profit from it. People look at Hitler and forget that wars need to be funded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_o...
Tensions between Japan and the prominent Western countries (the United States, France, Britain and the Netherlands) increased significantly during the increasingly militaristic early rule of Emperor Hirohito ... as part of Japan's alleged "divine right" to unify Asia under Hirohito's rule.[1]
During the 1930s, Japan's increasingly expansionist policies brought it into renewed conflict with its neighbors, Russia and China... In March 1933, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in response to international condemnation of its conquest of Manchuria and subsequent establishment of the Manchukuo puppet government.[2] On January 15, 1936, Japan withdrew from the Second London Naval Disarmament Conference because the United States and Great Britain refused to grant the Japanese Navy parity with theirs.[3] A second war between Japan and China began with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937.
Japan's 1937 attack on China was condemned by the U.S. and several members of the League of Nations including Britain, France, Australia and the Netherlands. Japanese atrocities during the conflict, such as the notorious Nanking Massacre.... The U.S., Britain, France and the Netherlands each possessed colonies in East and Southeast Asia. Japan's new military power and willingness to use it threatened these Western economic and territorial interests in Asia.
Don't act like the world would have been A- ok if we had just been ok selling gas to power genocides.
So I don't know if you count that as "little done to stop them". That was what we could do, short of war, and even that helped precipitate war.
The difference is these all took place before the war started. We sell weapons to countries all the time. That doesn't mean we wouldn't stop them if they began committing atrocities that we currently have no knowledge of.
I don't think Japanese imperialism can really be defended.
Of course, Japanese imperialism was very much inspired by European imperialism in… well, everything. But that doesn't make it right either, merely just as bad.
This makes it sound as if the US only acted to end competition against another Empire. Japan invaded numerous territories for access to resources and committed horrible atrocities while doing so.
The attack on Pearl Harbour may have been preemptive but the only reason for Japan to fear attack from others was due to actions of the Japanese.
Well, that might well have been the case. While World War Ⅱ did put a stop to some horrible things, I don't know if that was because they were horrible or merely because their perpetrators were a threat. I suspect the latter.
Japanese conduct during the 30s was atrocious. They tried playing by the moral code in earlier wars, the US and other Western powers repeatedly reneged on deals and forced Japan to return any possessions.
They did in my public school.
> People look at Hitler and forget that wars need to be funded.
Your argument is confused. You point to profiteers (who were funded by the war, not funding the war), but then follow with this.
And do you know why we did that? Was that mentioned? Did they talk about Japan's war of conquest in China or the Rape of Nanking, among a thousand other atrocities?
