This article reconsiders the birth of the Axis alliance between Japan, Germany, and Italy. Most scholarship correctly suggests that the Tripartite Pact was aimed at the United States of America. But existing scholarship largely neglects what is a surprising undercurrent in the diplomatic history of the Axis pact: the extent to which fears of German designs influenced Japanese leaders to join the Axis powers. As Germany gained ascendancy over much of Europe, many within Japan's foreign policy establishment began to fear that Berlin would seek to control French and Dutch colonies in East Asia.

This fear persuaded Japanese leaders to extend their new order to ‘Greater East Asia’ as a precondition to forging an alliance with Germany. In broadening the scope of its sphere of interest to ‘Greater’ East Asia, Japanese leaders sought to deny Germany a hegemonic position in Japan's backyard, and sought to make Japanese preeminence in East and Southeast Asia the precondition for creating any Berlin–Rome–Tokyo axis.