<em>President Roosevelt moved the US Pacific Fleet from California to Pearl Harbor in 1939. This move was a threat to Japan, who wanted to expand in the Pacific. Military leaders and politicians saw a war between the U.S. and Japan as inevitable, with the solution being to attack first. Japan wanted to move into the Dutch East Indies and Malaya to conquer territories that could provide important natural resources such as oil and rubber</em>
The government under the Articles of Confederation was very "weak" in that it could only regulate trade between the states. Although its greatest achievement was that it allowed maximum freedom for citizens, its failure was that it could not tax the states adequately.