midjnr.blogg.se

Six years later, in July 1937, Japan invaded China proper to unleash World War II in Asia. Japan had initiated its policy of military conquest by invading Chinese Manchuria in September 1931. That same year Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany formed the Axis alliance, shortly after Italy completed its brutal and successful conquest of Ethiopia. Germany and Japan formed an anti-Communist front aimed at the Soviet Union in 1936. Imperial Japan followed a policy of military conquest with support of its Emperor, military establishment, and many in the educated elite who sought Japanese rule and influence throughout East Asia and the Pacific Ocean.

The Nazi leadership calculated that the realization of German hegemony in Europe would require war, and began planning a European war from the day the Nazis came to power in late January 1933. Under the leadership of dictator Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany aimed at the acquisition of a vast, new empire of "living space" ( Lebensraum) in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. These two nations were the most significant members of the Axis partnership, which was based on anti-Communism and dissatisfaction with the world order after World War I.

Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan unleashed World War II with the intention of establishing, by military conquest, a permanent dominance over Europe and Asia respectively.