War ー Then and Now: Who Started What?

On February 28, 2026, the United States launched an attack against Iran in conjunction with Israel. Varying rationales for the attack have been forwarded by President Donald Trump and his cabinet members. But the rationale of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was something of a departure for an American government official. He stated, "We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we're finishing it."

Secretary Hegseth then referenced 47 years of "savage one-sided war against America" in which the Iranian regime utilized car bombs, rocket attacks on ships, murders at American embassies and roadside bombs.

His 47-year time frame stretches back to the Iranian revolution of 1979, during which the people of Iran overthrew a regime headed by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. Unsurprisingly, Hegseth's timeline does not extend to the 1953 CIA overthrow of the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, and the installation of the Shah, from which the Iranian revolution can be plainly sourced. Nor does it acknowledge that the "terrorism" that Iran supports has been largely in response to attempts by Israel to expand its borders.

However, the Secretary of War nonetheless recognizes the notion of preamble. This is atypical of how the US has viewed the military conflicts in which it has become embroiled, especially those initiated against the US.

*Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941.(©Sankei)*

History Begins on the Day of the Attack

There have been two occasions when the US has endured a significant attack during living memory: the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack by Al Qaeda, and the 1941 raid against the US fleet in Pearl Harbor by Japan.

On both of these occasions, the attack was largely reported without context. When context was reluctantly conceded, it was deemed null and void by virtue of the severity of the attack. "History begins today," stated Richard Armitage, then US Deputy Secretary of State, on September 13, 2001. "There is no intellectual history" echoed Richard Pearle, an influential neoconservative, "The world began on 9-11."

Even in the present day, the motivations behind the September 11 attacks have not been addressed. Al Qaeda mastermind, Osama bin Laden, made clear that his primary grievances were the basing of US troops on Saudi Arabian soil and US support for Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At its core, however, the September 11 attack was one by Saudi Arabians against the United States of America. Fifteen of the 19 September 11 terrorists were Saudi Arabian nationals, as was Osama bin Laden. But Saudi Arabia is rarely mentioned in discussions on the issue.

The Decades-long Preamble to the Asia-Pacific War

The Pearl Harbor attack by Japan has traditionally been cited as the beginning of the Asia-Pacific War, and there is never any shortage of you-started-it-we-finished-it on social media whenever a significant anniversary of the Asia-Pacific War comes around. It has nonetheless become increasingly common to backdate the start of the conflict to the onset of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, or the Japanese creation of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1931. Both of these dates still imply that all begins with Japan.

In reality, the nearly half-century timeframe that Secretary Hegseth has employed in the case of Iran may not be long enough to reach the source of the Asia-Pacific War. Nor may be the 73 years extending back to the 1953 ouster of Mohammad Mosaddegh.

*Commodore Matthew Perry (Public Domain, Image via Wikimedia Commons)*

Opening Japan

Japan was famously "opened" in 1853 by the Black Ships of Commodore Perry - an act rather aptly described by Japan-based historian Michael Hoffman as "rape dressed up as seduction." The US imposed unequal treaties upon Japan. Other Western imperial powers rapidly followed suit.

The Japanese quickly recognized that the world they were forced to join was one of imperial powers and imperial possessions. They astutely resolved to align with the former. The Japanese escaped from the final remnants of the unequal treaties in 1911, one year after imperial Japan annexed Korea. That date was not seen as coincidental at the time. Neither should it be in the present day.

The China Problem

The primary focus of Western imperialism in Asia was China, which is well described by Theodore H White and Annalee Jacoby in Thunder Out of China as "everyone's colony but no one's responsibility." The Western powers were content to extract wealth from the Chinese nation, while ignoring the fate of its central government and the Chinese people.

In 1911, the Chinese government duly collapsed, and the country devolved into warlord-led fiefdoms. Japan was thus presented with a highly unstable giant upon its doorstep.

Then there is 1983. The US invaded the minuscule nation of Grenada, citing a mix of political, security and Cold War concerns. Mid-20th-century China was as big to Japan as Grenada was small to America. It was inevitable and understandable for Japan to attempt to influence the direction in which its neighbor would go.

In the 1920s to 1930s, as China descended into civil war, the Japanese sought to expand their empire by acquiring additional colonies, while also seeking to become the voice of influence that a right-wing Chinese regime could not ignore.

The peak of the Western imperial presence within China was the 1880s, during which its collection of imperial guests was a veritable who's who. During the following 60 years until the Pearl Harbor attack, the strength and presence of the European powers fell, while that of America and Japan grew.

The US progressively came to fill the vacuum created by the demise of the European powers. As with Japan, it had designs on being the driving force behind a non-communist governing Chinese regime. From one perspective, the Asia-Pacific War was essentially fought between Japan and America for that position of influence.

Acceptance of the Concept of Preamble

There is much that could be added to this brief preamble to the Asia-Pacific War. In particular, there were the events of the immediate pre-Pearl Harbor months, the acceptance in the West of the overtly racist pseudo-science of eugenics, and the ever more virulent forms of racially-driven legislation enacted in the West during the decades before Pearl Harbor.

However, it should be clear that the world order in which Japan was forced to operate was unstable, grossly unjust, and not of Japan's creation. That is not to suggest that Japan should be seen as a victim, nor that America "started" the Asia-Pacific War. However, Japan's showdown with America had a decades-long prologue during which there were innumerable legitimate grievances.

The "We didn't start it" rationale for the invasion of Iran by Secretary Hesgeth is both selective and self-serving. He is claiming an aggressive rationale that is categorically dismissed by the US when others initiate aggression.

Nonetheless, he has promoted the concept of preamble: Acts of aggression do not take place in a vacuum. This is positive and may lead America towards a more nuanced view of history. In turn, that could lessen the chance of the US becoming embroiled in future wars.

Author: Paul de Vries

Find other reviews and articles by the author on Asia Pacific history on JAPAN Forward.