Japan
From the Call of Duty Wiki
Japan is a country in Asia, and one of the three primary countries that were part of the Axis in World War II. It's military was the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy.
Compared to the other major belligerents in the Second World War, such as the United States, Britain and Germany, Japan had only recently joined the ranks of the world's industrialized powers. The process of modernization and industrialization that took place during the Meiji Restoration led to massive development in every sector of Japanese economic and political life, while the island nation rapidly developed a powerful military machine equal to any European force, as demonstrated by their victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.
The early twentieth century saw a brief period of democracy overshadowed by the rise of expansionism and militarization. The primary goal of this policy was to facilitate the continued prosperity of their new industrial economy, hungry for raw materials and natural resources. Much like the European powers during the Age of Empire, Japan felt that by constructing their own regional empire throughout East and South-East Asia, they could ensure economic growth and prosperity for their nation. Shortly after the Meiji Restoration, Japan acquired colonial possessions in the Korean peninsula. World War I enabled Japan, which joined the side of the victorious Allies, to expand its influence and territorial holdings. Japan continued its expansionist policy by occupying Manchuria in 1931. As a result of international condemnation for this occupation, Japan resigned from the League of Nations two years later. In 1936, Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Nazi Germany, joining the Axis powers in 1941.
In 1937, Japan invaded other parts of China, precipitating the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), after which the United States placed an oil embargo on Japan. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States' naval base in Pearl Harbor and declared war on the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. This act brought the United States into World War II. The war in the Pacific would rage for four years, with a considerable series of Japanese successes against American, Canadian and British forces finally brought to an end by the Allied victory at the Battle of Midway, at which point the Allies took the offensive and held the initiative until the end of the war. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, along with the Soviet Union joining the war against it, Japan agreed to an unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945.
The war cost Japan and countries part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere millions of lives and left much of the country's industry and infrastructure destroyed. The Allied powers repatriated millions of ethnic Japanese from colonies throughout Asia, while in Canada and the United States, fears over sabotage and Japanese infiltration led their respective governments to racially profile and intern ethnically-Japanese citizens for the duration of the war. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, was convened by the Allies (on May 3, 1946) to prosecute some Japanese leaders for war crimes. However, all members of the bacteriological research units and members of the imperial family involved in the conduct of the war were exonerated from criminal prosecutions by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces. Following the war, Japan was occupied by Allied forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, and the country underwent a lengthy process of rebuilding and reform, including a revision of the Japanese Constitution which led the country to officially renounce military action as a method of policy, and possess armed forces for defensive purposes only. Since the end of the Second World War, Japan has remained a stanch ally of the United States and other Western powers, and an industrial and economic powerhouse.
