by Dmitri Jones

Created on: May 26, 2009

To appreciate the importance of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in shaping the events of World War II, one must first understand the legacy of American anti-war and isolationist sentiment created by the first Great War and the Treaty of Versailles. The surprise assault galvanized a reluctant citizenry to support involvement in a total war and alarmed the Roosevelt Administration, pushing it to take unprecedented steps to both protect the American people and end the war.

No such direct threat existed in 1917 when the United States declared war on Germany and entered World War I. President Woodrow Wilson moved the nation toward war over neutral shipping rights despite promising peace to win re-election. The president promised a post-war world made less violent by self-determination and international cooperation but, despite contributing to an allied victory, failed to convince his European allies at peace talks in Versailles to follow his vision.

Wilson's failure at Versailles and the United States' refusal to join the League of Nations, one of the few concessions the president did win, combined to deflate any remaining sense of optimism in international affairs. Americans called for peace and a return to the isolation advocated by George Washington in his farewell address.

Congress responded to popular opinion when war again broke out in Europe in 1939 with a series of neutrality acts aimed at keeping the United States out of the conflict. President Franklin Roosevelt cautiously but consistently increased aid to the British, but he could not completely dedicate the nation to the war effort based on petty insults or minor missteps by the Germans.

Pearl Harbor provided the perfect reason for joining the war. Japan attacked American soil without warning and without military provocation. Now, Roosevelt could sell war to both Congress and the American people and win their overwhelming support. With this support, the United States and its allies would again gain a military victory. This success catapulted the nation into the super power status it still enjoys today.

The United States fought World War II in both Europe and the Pacific, but the war with Japan proved especially vicious as the memory of Pearl Harbor and the purposeful dehumanization of the enemy fanned the flames of hatred. President Roosevelt ordered the internment of Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans on the West Coast in concentration camps, and average Americans listened to popular songs such as "You're a Sap Mr. Jap" and "Slap the Jap."

Hatred for the Japanese certainly had racial and cultural components, but Pearl Harbor allowed Americans to view Japan and its people as duplicitous and overly zealous. This view clearly affected the treatment of Japanese in the United States, but it also created an image of the Japanese empire as inflexible and extreme. This view ultimately buttressed arguments against an invasion of mainland Japan and for using the United States' new destructive weapon on two Japanese cities.

Clearly, Pearl Harbor remains a pivotal event in United States' history. The Japanese believed the attack would cripple the American military long enough to force a peace on favorable terms, but they failed to consider the popular reaction to a surprise attack and the American resolve it would engender. As the nation's entre into World War II, the bombing proved a crucial step towards the United States' status as a world power, the infamous internment of Japanese Americans, and the use of atomic weapons.

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