How to judge Japan's attack without the benefit of hindsight?

[xj900uk]

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Offworlder. Up until 07/12/41 Japan was a very minor problem/concern for the US. True they did expect to go to war some time in '42 (April was touted as an expected start of hostilities date) and the IJN air-arm had been dismissed by western observers as 'bespectacled pilots flying quaint old biplanes' - nothing could have been further from the truth. Germany was the over-riding concern, after all quite a few US citizens and ships had already been sunk by U-boats or involved in hostilities on mainland europe although the American First movement promotoing isolation was still pretty strong in the US (exactly how strong and influencial is still open to debate to this day).
The US rightly or wrongly believed that Japans agressive stance in SE Asia could be countered, or at least checked, by moving the Pacific FLeet from the West Coast to PH. Call it gunboat diplomacy or sabre rattling, the US administration believed that this would curb Japans beligerance or at least make them take not until such time as the US economy as a whole could trundle sedately into a war footing. Whilst some politicians in Tokyo regarded the move by the US's Pacific Fleet (which, with hindsight wa s apointless gesture as it lacked the facilities in PH and also the screening destroyers, which were desperately needed in teh Atlantic) as 'a knife toTokyo's throat', more practical and imaginative admirals, army-men and planners saw the move as an opportunity rather than a crisis - an opportunity to destroy it in one blow or at least render it impotent regarding their main thrusts into Burma, Malaysia and the DEI. In fact one could wonder that if the US Pacific Fleet had not been present at PH in Dec '41, would the IJN have mounted 'The Hawaiian Operation' at all?

[Czert]

Didnt read it all, but I think, ftrom japanese persective (and if some events happened otherwise - e.q. decisive winning at miday for japanese, but at this poins japanese overreaching thier capacities, mayby earlier event, but didnt recalled one), they have nice chance of archiving thier goals.
Look at geramy and thier campaigns in europe - before french campaign , french army was considered most powerfull in europe (and world), no one expected thay fren will lose (ever), and it was great schock, that frenchs figth 2 weeks (IIRC) loger than polish. It was french poor morale and bad command, which defeated france, not cuting off in belgium. But who one know/predected this ? With proper command, germang cutting off attack in belgium will be great trap for german panzers.

And look at soviet front - everyone sow thier performance in winter war (which cost them around 1m dead). So, everyone expected fast end to soviets (and not only germans). Who can forsene that, that soviets kill more germans than all other allies combined ?

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: zaquex

I dont thing the Japanese was as stupid and ignorant as most seem to think, they where put in a desperate situation where the choices where to give up without a fight or to fight a war they at best could draw. With the Samurai mentality in Japan it wasnt even a choice.

I think your assertions are nonsense. Still, perhaps you could change my mind by enlightening me on one point: How was Japan 'forced' to continue the invasion and occupation of China & Manchuria? Or were tehy really doing mercy work in China and the rest of the world just didn't understand?

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: zaquex

I dont thing the Japanese was as stupid and ignorant as most seem to think, they where put in a desperate situation where the choices where to give up without a fight or to fight a war they at best could draw. With the Samurai mentality in Japan it wasnt even a choice.

I think your assertions are nonsense. Still, perhaps you could change my mind by enlightening me on one point: How was Japan 'forced' to continue the invasion and occupation of China & Manchuria? Or were tehy really doing mercy work in China and the rest of the world just didn't understand?

The government of Japan was forced into the war by the simple expedient of either accepting war or accepting the downfall of the government and/or the assassination of its members. Japan, as a nation, may not have been forced into the war. Most Japanese might not have been in favor or a war. But that is neither here nor there since the people of Japan had no say in the matter.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: zaquex

I dont thing the Japanese was as stupid and ignorant as most seem to think, they where put in a desperate situation where the choices where to give up without a fight or to fight a war they at best could draw. With the Samurai mentality in Japan it wasnt even a choice.

I think your assertions are nonsense. Still, perhaps you could change my mind by enlightening me on one point: How was Japan 'forced' to continue the invasion and occupation of China & Manchuria? Or were tehy really doing mercy work in China and the rest of the world just didn't understand?

The government of Japan was forced into the war by the simple expedient of either accepting war or accepting the downfall of the government and/or the assassination of its members. Japan, as a nation, may not have been forced into the war. Most Japanese might not have been in favor or a war. But that is neither here nor there since the people of Japan had no say in the matter.

I understand that about individuals in the government, but that was not his point.

[zaquex]

I dont say that Roosevelt was a bad guy it would in my oppinion be more correct to describe him as cynical and/or pragmatic, in any case I have no doubt that he was a very smart guy.

There is no doubt that FDR was seen as something of a warmonger at the time and its hard to argue that he didnt do his best to provoke Japan as best he could.

I´m not really a revisionist either although I must admit they have presented a few compeling arguments, I do however find the topic intriguing.

Hopefully more document will be declassified in the future and maybe then we will know what actually happened.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: zaquex

"I dont say that Roosevelt was a bad guy"

"There is no doubt that FDR was seen as something of a warmonger at the time and its hard to argue that he didnt do his best to provoke Japan as best he could"

"I´m not really a revisionist either"

Warspite1

Zaquex, this makes no sense - how can Roosevelt not be a bad guy if what you said in your earlier post is correct - and that he did nothing to stop the Pearl Harbor attack despite knowing about it in advance. That makes him complicit in the deaths of circa 2,400 US service personnel and civilians.

How is having the good common sense to realise that evil regimes like the Japanese Empire and Nazi Germany needed to be stopped before they spread their poison beyond a point of no return, make FDR a warmonger? You will be saying next that Chamberlain and Daladier were warmongers for declaring war on Germany; this despite the fact that they did everything possible in their power to try and stop a European war - including the dismemberment of poor Czechoslovakia..

In what way is this not revisionist thinking.

[Canoerebel]

We already know what happened. We know, that is, if you're willing to accept the massive amount of credible evidence showing that the Americans expected Japan to attack, but were caught looking for that attack to take place in the Philippines, DEI, or possibly even Russia.

There is no credible evidence - not one single tiny tidbit with the remotest bit of credibility - that any American leader expected and wanted an attack on Pearl Harbor.

Those who fall in the "Roosevelt knew" camp are either ignorant (in the true sense of the word) or are willing to disregard the compelling, overwhelming weight of credible evidence, instead to latch onto the delusional, far-fetched, proposals that lack any semblance of credibility.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Those who fall in the "Roosevelt knew" camp are either ignorant (in the true sense of the word) or are willing to disregard the compelling, overwhelming weight of credible evidence, instead to latch onto the delusional, far-fetched, proposals that lack any semblance of credibility.

I sat next to one of FDR's granddaughers in Spanish class. She said he didn't know anything. Worked for me.

(I really did sit next to her.)[:)]

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

ORIGINAL: fbs

But who would pay for that? It's not like the US could just direct its industry the way that Speer did. If a significant fraction of the public did not support a war in the other side of the world, Roosevelt might be limited on what he could order, ergo the industrial production would suffer.

Sorry fbs, but the above quote strongly suggests to me that beyond knowing that aggregate German production increased under Speer, you really have no knowledge as to...

I didn't mean that Germany had a more efficient production system or even it could produce more, but that a military dictatorship has more control over its military production than a democracy. I'd love to listen to arguments against that.

People argue what FDR could do in 1942, and I agree with that, but by then the country was united into the war. Democracies usually give dictatorial powers to its leaders in times of crisis, and 1942 was such case. That doesn't mean that FDR would have the same powers if the war was unpopular.

The Two-Ocean Navy Act is a good example. It provided 15,000 aircrafts for the Navy over 6 years. Its incentive was the war in Europe much more than Japan; Carl Vinson himself introduced the measure saying that "The Axis now has at its disposal the shipyards and munitions factories of Germany, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, and possible Spain... and Japan has its own shipyards". After Pearl Harbor, that became an appetizer: from 1941 to 1945, the US produced 73,000 aircrafts for the Navy & Marines, or 14,600 aircrafts per year.

So, with the war in China dragging since 1932 and the population afraid of Germany rather than of Japan, I'm kinda skeptical that FDR could get a fraction of what he got, if there was no Pearl Harbor. Defense spending was 5.72% of the GDP in 1941; that's on par with the spending on 1918, of 8.4%. Meanwhile, in 1945 defense was 42% of the GDP (36.15% for military, 0.77% for veterans, 5.11% for foreign aid). I'm quite skeptical FDR could mobilize the country that way with no attack in PH.

Vietnam is another good example: 7.7% of the GDP in 1972 (with 6.4% for the military), and the government didn't get dictatorial powers (although Nixon seems to have slipped there). I don't think that the Pentagon said "oh, we're happy with 6.4%". I think they would love to get 36.15% of the GDP, but that was just impossible.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: fbs

I didn't mean that Germany had a more efficient production system or even it could produce more, but that a military dictatorship has more control over its military production than a democracy. I'd love to listen to arguments against that.

Control in what sense? Do you mean that a military dictatorship can control efficiency, for example?

There's an old saying that, IIRC, came from the Soviet Union: "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work."

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: fbs

I didn't mean that Germany had a more efficient production system or even it could produce more, but that a military dictatorship has more control over its military production than a democracy. I'd love to listen to arguments against that.

Actually it was the Nazi system that did much to sabotage German production. Because Hitler could only trust his Party Cronies to handle the apparatus of State, and because far too many of them were just street thugs and greedy hacks, Nazi Industrial Production was buried in bribes, petty buracracy, and red tape. Huge industrial resources (the Adam Opal Factories, the Volkswagon factory, and many more) were not utilized, or totally under-utilized.

Then there was the military itself. The Great General Staff was a remarkable entity---but it had no section devoted to industrial mobilization or production. This was an area where the industrial democracies were far ahead of the military dictatorships. There military's knew that the only time they would get massive funding was when the shit hit the fan---so they prepared for such an eventuality and had plans all ready for that moment.

A military dictatorship sounds like an efficient organization, but the fact that it never has to learn to "get along" is actually a big weakness..., because it never has to learn how much it doesn't know.

[noguaranteeofsanity]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: fbs

I didn't mean that Germany had a more efficient production system or even it could produce more, but that a military dictatorship has more control over its military production than a democracy. I'd love to listen to arguments against that.

Actually it was the Nazi system that did much to sabotage German production. Because Hitler could only trust his Party Cronies to handle the apparatus of State, and because far too many of them were just street thugs and greedy hacks, Nazi Industrial Production was buried in bribes, petty buracracy, and red tape. Huge industrial resources (the Adam Opal Factories, the Volkswagon factory, and many more) were not utilized, or totally under-utilized.

Then there was the military itself. The Great General Staff was a remarkable entity---but it had no section devoted to industrial mobilization or production. This was an area where the industrial democracies were far ahead of the military dictatorships. There military's knew that the only time they would get massive funding was when the shit hit the fan---so they prepared for such an eventuality and had plans all ready for that moment.

A military dictatorship sounds like an efficient organization, but the fact that it never has to learn to "get along" is actually a big weakness..., because it never has to learn how much it doesn't know.

Along with the use of slave labor. Around 12 million people were forced to work for the Nazi's, generally were not paid, were underfed and sometimes literally worked to death. You could hardly expect them to be as productive or efficient as a paid and well-fed work force. Because it doesn't have to "get along" with the workers and keep them happy, using the stick instead of a carrot, with little regard for their health or well-being, it is not as efficient as you might expect. Sure they had more control, in fact often total control over the workers lives, but that isn't necessarily a good thing.

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: noguaranteeofsanity

Along with the use of slave labor. Around 12 million people were forced to work for the Nazi's, generally were not paid, were underfed and sometimes literally worked to death. You could hardly expect them to be as productive or efficient as a paid and well-fed work force. Because it doesn't have to "get along" with the workers and keep them happy, using the stick instead of a carrot, with little regard for their health or well-being, it is not as efficient as you might expect. Sure they had more control, in fact often total control over the workers lives, but that isn't necessarily a good thing.

Actually this arose from another piece of Nazi ideology..., the belief that German Women should stay home and make babies and raise children. Both the Russians and the Western Democracies found Women a huge untapped reserve of willing and trainable labor and made massive use of them to replace men sent to war. Nazi Germany did not..., and was left with no one else to turn to except unwilling slave laborers.

[fbs]

You guys are getting me very confused.

You guys really mean that in a democracy like the US it is as easy to switch the industry to produce war materials, whether the population supports that or not, as it is for a dictatorship like the Nazis or the Soviets?

You really mean that FDR could get 40% of the US GDP to fight the war, even if the population was against getting into an european war or into some asiatic mess?

Consider the total military spending during long wars (i.e., added all years), taken as percentage of the GDP:

American Revolution: 65%
Civil War: 105%
WW1: 25%
WW2: 130%
Korea: 12%
Vietnam: 11%
Gulf War: 2%

From these, the American Revolution, Civil War and WW2 are the ones that got full engagement of the public: that meant big spending. The majority of the population was apathetic during WW1 and Korea, hostile during Vietnam and (from my point of view) uninterested in the Gulf War. These wars had little spending. My conclusion is that popular support for the war means a lot of money for the military; no popular support, less money.

Therefore, am I the only one here that believes that if the population continued to be isolationist then the US would have waged a less than total war against Japan?

And I thought I was living in a democracy by the people, for the people. From the messages here it looks like I live in the Soviet Union. What a rude awakening.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: fbs

You guys are getting me very confused.

You guys really mean that in a democracy like the US it is as easy to switch the industry to produce war materials, whether the population supports that or not, as it is for a dictatorship like the Nazis or the Soviets?

You really mean that FDR could get 40% of the US GDP to fight the war, even if the population was against getting into an european war or into some asiatic mess?

Consider the total military spending during long wars (i.e., added all years), taken as percentage of the GDP:

American Revolution: 65%
Civil War: 105%
WW1: 25%
WW2: 130%
Korea: 12%
Vietnam: 11%
Gulf War: 2%

From these, the American Revolution, Civil War and WW2 are the ones that got full engagement of the public: that meant big spending. The majority of the population was apathetic during WW1 and Korea, hostile during Vietnam and (from my point of view) uninterested in the Gulf War. These wars had little spending. My conclusion is that popular support for the war means a lot of money for the military; no popular support, less money.

Therefore, am I the only one here that believes that if the population continued to be isolationist then the US would have waged a less than total war against Japan?

And I thought I was living in a democracy by the people, for the people. From the messages here it looks like I live in the Soviet Union. What a rude awakening.

Warspite1

The % of GDP spent depends not only on the support of the people, but on the type of war being fought. To look at the Gulf War and Vietnam and even WWI - and compare to USA's spending in WWII, the Civil War and the War of Independence is wrong in this context. The USA is a democracy and fights wars - regardless of whether we think it right or not (that`s too political to go into) - in order to preserve / spread democracy. The Gulf wars and Afghanistan are limited wars and regardless of support or apathy or even hostility to that war, the government will only look to spend a limited amount of GDP. WWII was a life and death struggle for the survival of western democracy; to compare spending to the Gulf war and seek to draw the conclusion that a) spending is low in the Gulf War because the government cant get sufficient support for the war, and that b) you are living in the Soviet Union is a little odd (even if you were trying to be ironic on the latter).

[witpqs]

Part of what I meant is that those dictatorships were not as simply directed as one might think. Hitler, for example, was very afraid of losing popular support and being overthrown. The point being that even such a dictatorship was not 'Leader speaks and all obey whole-heartedly'. We should add '...and flawlessly.' to the end of that sentence.

Pearl Harbor was certainly a major event and, as it did happen, we do see things in light of it. However, had Pearl Harbor not happened, many other things would have. Great 'what if' fodder for AE mods; but the real point is that on a global scale it is difficult to envision a scenario where the US would not have entered the war fully.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: fbs

You guys are getting me very confused.

You guys really mean that in a democracy like the US it is as easy to switch the industry to produce war materials, whether the population supports that or not, as it is for a dictatorship like the Nazis or the Soviets?

You really mean that FDR could get 40% of the US GDP to fight the war, even if the population was against getting into an european war or into some asiatic mess?

Consider the total military spending during long wars (i.e., added all years), taken as percentage of the GDP:

American Revolution: 65%
Civil War: 105%
WW1: 25%
WW2: 130%
Korea: 12%
Vietnam: 11%
Gulf War: 2%

From these, the American Revolution, Civil War and WW2 are the ones that got full engagement of the public: that meant big spending. The majority of the population was apathetic during WW1 and Korea, hostile during Vietnam and (from my point of view) uninterested in the Gulf War. These wars had little spending. My conclusion is that popular support for the war means a lot of money for the military; no popular support, less money.

Therefore, am I the only one here that believes that if the population continued to be isolationist then the US would have waged a less than total war against Japan?

And I thought I was living in a democracy by the people, for the people. From the messages here it looks like I live in the Soviet Union. What a rude awakening.

fbs, the statistics, while good information, have nothing to do with whether the governement of a country is democratic or absolute.

The difference in GDP% spent in your list depend on how the population percieves the threat posed to their country.

During the American Revolution, the Civil war and WWII the American population, after some time admittedly, percieved the threat to their way of living or
even their existence as real enough to sacrifice personal advantages and commit to war production.

Korea and Vietnam don´t really fit into this picture because only a minor part of the military production was directly used for these areas, while the rest was sceduled
to fight the Cold War. Both countries were on the other end of the world and this naturally is harder to turn into a direct threat to anybody living in Somewhere, Texas,
than if the same person is informed that the whole US pacific weapon has been decimated in a "day of infamy" and US territory itself has been violated.

Just think of 09/11, where in a short time the USgovernement was able to do anything it wanted until the the population was sufficently sure that everything was done for
"their" security. This acceptance naturally dropped after it became clear that this was not a initial terror attack to throw the US into chaos with strike after strike but one
single attack against an unprepared opponent which could not repeat itself to pose a large enough threat to the United States.

I don´t know enough about US spendings over the last 50 years to know the exact numbers, but if you count everything together that could count
as war spending you´d come close to the 30-35% mark for the cold war phases, I guess.

For the same reason a dictatorship needs an enemy to focus on and/or blame for, simply to exist over an extended period of time. You can bet that at the beginning
of WWII the percieved threat in Nazi Germany/Nazi Austria (I am deliberately including Austria because I often dislike the way we Austrians tend to see ourselves as victims
of Nazi Germany, which is historically not correct) was already far beyond anything needed to go into a full scale war production.
Versailles, the Jews, the threat from the east, the shortage of raw materials, the potential danger of being forced from the stage of the worlds Big Nations...every single one already
sold to the population for half a decade as a reason to be afraid and that war is the only possible solution.

If a dictatorship is unable to generate percieved threat it will have even more problems to keep the population under control than a comparable democracy.
If a threat can be sold to the population well enough it does not matter whether the origin of the propaganda is democratic or a dictator´s publicity departement,
it will work.

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: fbs

You guys really mean that in a democracy like the US it is as easy to switch the industry to produce war materials, whether the population supports that or not, as it is for a dictatorship like the Nazis or the Soviets?

You really mean that FDR could get 40% of the US GDP to fight the war?

And I thought I was living in a democracy by the people, for the people. From the messages here it looks like I live in the Soviet Union. What a rude awakening.

NO. What we are saying is that an "aroused" Democracy is a far more potent war machine than a dictatorship..., though even the Soviet Union did a far better job of mobilizing it's economy for war than any of the Axis powers.

And if you look at the figures, you'll find that FDR had already gotten a significant portion of the Greatest Economy in the World switched to War Production BEFORE Pearl Harbor. On December 8th, 1941, he could have had 80% if he'd wanted it.

[koontz]

Also if FDR knew about the attack what the hell did USN have 2 CV west of PH[&:][&:][&:]