<P> Two contemporaneous factors in Japan contributed both to the growing power of its military and chaos within its ranks leading up to the Second World War . One was the Cabinet Law, which required the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) to nominate servinet could be formed . This essentially gave the military veto power over the formation of any Cabinet in the ostensibly parliamentary country . Another factor was gekokujō, or institutionalized disobedience by junior officers . It was not uncommon for radical junior officers to press their goals, to the extent of assassinating their seniors . In 1936, this phenomenon resulted in the February 26 Incident, in which junior officers attempted a coup d'état and killed leading members of the Japanese government . In the 1930s, the Great Depression wrecked Japan's economy and gave radical elements within the Japanese military the chance to force the entire military into working towards the conquest of all of Asia . For example, in 1931 the Kwantung Army (a Japanese military force stationed in Manchuria) staged the Mukden Incident, which sparked the Invasion of Manchuria and its transformation into the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo . </P> <P> Twentieth - century events marked the culmination of a millennium - long process of intermingling between Germans and Slavs . Over the centuries, many Germans had settled in the east (examples being the Volga Germans invited to Russia by Catherine the Great, and the Ostsiedlung in medieval times). Such migratory patterns created enclaves and blurred ethnic frontiers . The rise of nationalism in the 19th century made race a centerpiece of political loyalty . The rise of the nation - state had given way to the politics of identity, including Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism . Furthermore, Social - Darwinist theories framed the coexistence as a "Teuton vs. Slav" struggle for domination, land and limited resources . Integrating these ideas into their own world - view, the Nazis believed that the Germans, the "Aryan race", were the master race and that the Slavs were inferior . In 1935, When the Nazis came to power, they set out Numenburgs Laws . These laws were supposed to define the biological traits of Jewishness and anyone that fit the description would not be part of the supreme Aryan Race . </P> <P> The Treaty of Versailles was neither lenient enough to appease Germany, nor harsh enough to prevent it from becoming the dominant continental power again . Germans largely saw the treaty place the blame, or "war guilt," on Germany and Austria - Hungary and punish them for their "responsibility" rather than working out an agreement that would assure long - term peace . The treaty provided for harsh monetary reparations, separated millions of ethnic Germans into neighboring countries, territorial dismemberment, and caused mass ethnic resettlement . In an effort to pay war reparations to Britain and France, the Weimar Republic printed trillions of marks, causing extremely high inflation of the German currency (see Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic). </P> <P> The treaty created bitter resentment towards the victors of World War I, who had promised the people of Germany that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points would be a guideline for peace; however, the US played a minor role in World War I and Wilson could not convince the Allies to agree to adopt his Fourteen Points . Many Germans felt that the German government had agreed to an armistice based on this understanding, while others felt that the German Revolution of 1918--1919 had been orchestrated by the "November criminals" who later assumed office in the new Weimar Republic . </P>

Which was not an economic or political cause of world war ii