USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -When President Roosevelt stopped U.S. shipments of steel and oil the Japan, he was doing exactly this: the Japanese are dependent on other countries for raw materials, for they have almost none on their own islands. Without imports of steel and oil, the Japanese military could not fight for long.

Detailed explanation-2: -Many Japanese believed self-sufficiency in natural resources was essential to fight a total war. Japan had learned from World War One that future wars would be imminent and protracted. To win a nation would have to gear all resources towards war production.

Detailed explanation-3: -Faced with severe shortages of oil and other natural resources and driven by the ambition to displace the United States as the dominant Pacific power, Japan decided to attack the United States and British forces in Asia and seize the resources of Southeast Asia.

Detailed explanation-4: -It was the military expansion in the 1930s that created an artificial shortage of mineral resources, the wholesale exodus of population, and a lowering in the standard of living of the general public.

Detailed explanation-5: -Coal, iron ore, zinc, lead, copper, sulfur, gold, and silver are among the most abundant minerals (in relative terms), with lesser quantities of tungsten, chromite, and manganese. Japan also has large deposits of limestone.