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¶ … peace and stability, the Tokugawa Family lost political power. Explain both the internal factors as well as the external factors that led to destabilized society. How did Western powers (including the United States) play a role in destabilizing Japan? Do you think the revolution that followed would have happened without Western involvement? Support your answer with evidence and concrete examples.
The Tokugawa family ruled Japan during a time of decisive peace and stability; however, the fall of this family was connected strongly to a range of internal and external factors. One external factor was the abrupt push of foreigners, foreign ideas and currency which was quite raucous to the traditional Japanese way of life and economic system. This factor was the impetus for why Emperor Komei engaged in the order to "Expel Barbarians." At this point western forces, including the United States, were a permanent issue that Japan had to deal with, and engaging in isolative tactics was something that was just no longer an option. The Tokugawa family was deemed as ineffective in protecting the country against this influx of foreign invaders. Other external factors were that Japan thus had to become more westernized in order to engage in combat with these forces: this meant adopting western military tactics and modernized forms of combat. To still be governed by these ancient feudal constructs and divisions of power were just too antiquated for the rest of the world, and Japan was going to be pulled along into modernity whether it liked it or not.
An internal factor which contributed to the demise of this family was that Tokugawa Yoshinobu had to take power, which he didn't want to do, and, eventually relinquishing some of his power and then resigning all together. The Boshin War was thus launched, as a means of determining that the power would stay with the emperor. The Meiji Restoration then occurred, asserting that the Meiji Emperor would be reinstated. These internal factors also had an impact on the fall of this family which had rule for so long.
2. Describe the "Reverse Course." When did it happen? What were its main features? Why were these policies put in place?
The Reverse Course refers to America' change in their viewpoint and treatment of Japan in the late 1940s: thus, America stopped expressing a strong desire to reform Japan but to turn the country in to a strong and solid ally. Thus, one can summarize the "reverse course" as simply a change in occupation policy. Hence, the late 1940s marked…
5. What factors led to the war between the United States and Japan? Why did the Japanese leadership decide to attack U.S. forces in Hawai'i?
The war between the United States and Japan was the result of constrained relations over hundreds of years. Japan had long believed that powers in the west were a hostile force and felt that America viewed them as an inferior nation. Further stress was placed on their relationship as a result of the fact that the U.S. was not supportive of the expansion of Japan and that the country's stipulations and list of demands were not going to be met via diplomacy. Japan's notion that the U.S. felt superior was a major factor in the two nation's inability to reach a level of harmony or peace.
The attack on Pearl Harbor to the rest of the world looked like a complete surprise, when it reality it was the manifestation of years of tense relations and constrained recent events. For example, in the year before the attack, America has engaged in an embargo on Japan, stopping exports out of their nation as a result of their takeover of Indochina. Japan also signed a neutrality treaty with the Soviet Union, which America of course didn't like. During the summer of 1941, America, the UK and the Netherlands aligned to freeze Japanese assets because of Japan's occupation of southern Indochina. Japan continued to try to expand and the U.S. demanded that they withdraw from territories like China and Indochina. Meanwhile, Japan worked to get their oil embargo removed and started to covertly prepare for war. The Japanese military was indeed serious about this and they thus planned to infiltrate Burma, the Philippines and all other nations in this region in order to build a defensive perimeter in the central and southwest pacific: a warlike response was expected from the U.S. But they didn't anticipate a strong fight. Pearl Harbor was attacked because it was identified as the U.S. Fleet which could ruin all these military plans: thus a surprise attack by air was engaged in as a means of crippling the base.
Leadership of the United States has been called into question by other countries perhaps at a level not experienced since the Vietnam war. The United States has opposed United Nations opinion regarding Iraq. The resulting action by the U.S. And Great Britain with small amounts of help from other countries has triggered anti-war and anti-U.S. demonstrations all over the world (Safty, 2003). Americans are shocked and dismayed at the
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