Talking About World War II: I understand the U.S. "Island Hopping" strategy during WW2 in the Pacific, but why did Japan choose the strategy of occupying all those islands in the first place?
Map of Pacific Ocean territories and their respective owners. Credit: World of Warships On Quora, Matthew Lewis asks I understand the U.S. "Island Hopping" strategy during WW2 in the Pacific, but why did Japan choose the strategy of occupying all those islands in the first place? My reply: After the First World War - indeed, as early as the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 - the Japanese military, particularly the Imperial Japanese Navy, began to look at the United States as their great trans-Pacific rival. This, of course, was to be expected once Russia and China, Japan’s close-to-home enemies, became (in Tokyo’s eyes) weak and toothless paper tigers mired in revolution and civil war. During the first three decades of the 20th Century, the same Japan that had been content to be an isolated feudal island kingdom developed an unhealthy appetite to become just as imperialistic as the European powers that controlled vast expanses of Asia and Oceania. Se...