The first link in the first sentence of the article referencing paywall rollback (in four years no less) sits behind a NYT paywall!

I believe the word you are looking for is devastate.

While I believe Japan was very far from blameless you should read the Wikipedia article "Events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor" to understand their motivation for the Pearl Harbor attack. We, the USA, had our fingers in the Indochina pie in 1940 (for the first of several times).