Japan could not produce enough oil to run its machines, so it had to rely on imports from other oil-rich countries. While Japan had 400,000 tons of oil, only 0.1% of the global production, which made Japan face several oil shortages before. Due to the lack of natural oil produced on their land, Japan relied on the import of oil sent by other countries such as the US. Japan imported up to 80 to 90% of the oil they needed from the US, but when they stopped providing Japan oil because Japan occupied French Indochina, they thought they had to take the oil by force, which led to the attack of Pearl Harbor.

That is why rubber was a valuable resource during WWII because it was used to make military airplanes and battleships due to its traits. It was also used to make footwear and waterproof clothing for the 6 million soldiers that Japan had. Around 32 pounds of rubber per soldier were used for footwear, clothing, and equipment. 1,000 pounds of rubber for one military airplane, 2,000 pounds for one tank, and more than 75 tons for one battleship.

Considering Japan being isolated as an island, they needed to have a lot of military airplanes and ships to attack and invade other countries. During WW2, Japan had 6450 tanks, 611 warships, and around 12700 airplanes.

When Japan invaded Southeast Asian countries, the rice produced there was used to supply the Japanese army and also provided daily food requirements for the Japanese soldiers. Indochina was the biggest rice exporter to Japan during the war period exporting 2.8 million tons of rice from 1940 to 1944.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was an attempt to blunt the US's responses. This allows Japan to attack and conquer Southeast-Asian territories freely. On December 7, 1941, Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor, killing 2,403 U.S. personnel, including 68 civilians. The US declares war on Japan, officially joining WWII.

February 1942: Japan conquers Singapore. Singapore was the center of the world's natural rubber production for the Axis powers. Essentially 90% of Allied access to natural rubber was cut off.

March 1942: Japan attacked Rangoon(now Myanmar) which was under British rule at the time, and the Dutch-East-Indies surrender. Japan seized the rich oil fields of the Netherlands East Indies and Borneo quickly. These fields produced 65 million barrels of oil in 1940, a rate more than adequate for Japan's import needs.

April 1942: Japan conquers the Philipines, defeating US troops. This is the height of the Japanese Empire's power.

In 1930, world powers began to isolate Japan because of its expansionist militarist ideology, this meant Japan did not have adequate access to global markets. During this time, Japan's population increases rapidly and the country is in desperate need of food for its citizens. Because of this, Japan begins colonizing countries for their resources.

D-Day: on June 6th 1944, these troops invaded. In May 1945, Germany surrendered. However, Japan continued to hold off American troops.

The problem was, that there was only a certain demand for products within this sphere. Once the war started, Japan was cut off from the global markets, and the sphere started making less and less money each year. As Japan began losing land and finally lost the war, the colonized countries gained independence.

On September 2, 1945, Emperor Hirohito officially signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender which finally ended 5 long bloody years.

In the following months, many civilians died of untreated wounds, starvation, and lack of resources like clean water, food, or shelter.

Though 80% of the emmited radiation decays within the first 24 hours, the radiation from the bombs plagued Japan for the next 10 years. Even low levels of radiation can kill or sicken those exposed over long periods, contaminate the environment, and have long-term health consequences, including cancer and genetic damage. The high level of radiation emitted was also carried by the wind to other cities, causing radiation air pollution.

Though it is true that many lives were lost in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the cities have been rebuilt into modern, thriving communities. And it effectively ended WWII. Already so many people had died, and the Japanese government had been planning to keep fighting to the end. The Atomic bombs, though deadly, effectively ended the most bloody way in history.

In a way, the development of nuclear weapons may have stopped this tension escalate into a war between the US and USSR. Both sides new that a nuclear war would destroy the world, and the only way to win was not to do anything.

Though the atomic bombs detonated on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had devastating effects, I would argue that these weapons not only ended WWII, but prevented a more bloodier war from occuring.

There won't be conflicts between Japan and Southeast Asia. After many years since World War 2, Japan has now emerged as a major domestic partner for the ASEAN countries and viewed Japan as a trusted external power for South East Asia. Japan is also one of the G7 and G20 countries, and as one of them, Japan has donated and funded a large amount of money to the ASEAN countries for climate initiatives, infrastructure, and development in Southeast Asia. For example, in November 2022, the Japanese and the US governments signed a Just Energy Transition Partnership with Indonesia and also raised US$20 billion to support Indonesia’s carbon reduction plan with the US government with the G7 countries, the European Union, Norway, and Denmark.

Importantly, Japan needs Southeast Asian countries' support to promote Japan's security and economic well-being. They also need Southeast Asian countries' support to constrain other global major powers, especially China.

The economic and political relationship between Japan and Southeast Asian countries shows that there will not likely be major conflicts made.

Thanks to Japan's improved technology, Japan has enough rice to provide to their citizens and also export their rice to other countries. The Tohoku region in northern Honshu became the main rice production region in Japan.

It is most likely that Japan will not have future conflicts in getting oil and rubber as long as they have active trading, and it is most likely that Japan will not have future conflicts in getting rice, thanks to their improved technology to grow rice.

But Japan's reliance on trading could put Japan in a lot of problems especially if natural resources such as oil and coal run out. If the natural resources slowly start to run out, countries in the Middle East Asia would not export oil as much as they used to. Then Japan will get less and less oil to make energy for their country. Though Japan tried to get a domestic energy source through nuclear power plants, due to the Fukushima Nuclear incident in March 2011, citizens in Japan tend to dislike using Nuclear energy.

This could lead to Japan having conflicts on getting resources they could make energy from and trying to make new domestic energy they could rely upon.