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Good post. As you said many - if not all - conspiracy theories have in common that the explanation the conspiracy theory offers is more comforting - or less frightening.

Something similar is true for natural science. The Theory of Evolution and ID/Creationism are overused but perfect examples for this phenomenon.

Same way ppl argue against conspiracy theory by recalling events from past we can recall some other events who pushing incidents to get into war, like fill passenger ship with ammunition and send it into submarine infested waters, or have be attacked by your planes and call that enemy attack, or some small shooting over unimportant bridge, or fantasy WMD etc..
But never in history anyone was push to war by destroying huge part of his own forces to create cause belly, that is simply wrong...
Imagine i want to get into bar fight with you and i want to look u are start it and in process of that i cut mine right hand, that is crazy, with what will now i fight?

but second part of OP question is much more interesant to me and that is "what if" Japan fleet is discover on way...
now we can divide this in 3 situations:

1. early discovery on first 1/3 of journey(they stil not get order for attack at this point)
- i think fleet will just pretend it is on traning mission and go back, then try it some other time but with very small chance to get same surprise...

2. middle discovery, now this is most tricky let as say fleet is discover by submarine 2 days before geting into launch position
- this is tricky and i will like you option what will they do and if that is press attack what will be results?

3. late discovery, couple of hours up to half day befre geting to position
- i think in this position they will for sure press attack and i think result will be pretty much same, hours will pass before spotting get to right place and confirmations will be asked before general alarm will be sound and nothing will be done in mean time... KB will get to launch position, actually it can even go worse imagine many pilots driving in Jeep's or just siting into planes when attack happened that will kill good number of them, on other side AA fire will probably be better, i m pretty sure no big ship will have time to get out of harbour and if it get it will be easy target...

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Good post. As you said many - if not all - conspiracy theories have in common that the explanation the conspiracy theory offers is more comforting - or less frightening.

Something similar is true for natural science. The Theory of Evolution and ID/Creationism are overused but perfect examples for this phenomenon.

Can we please avoid religious opinions.

Bill

Absolutely Bill. Although it was not my intent to voice a religious opinion and I would argue that my post does neither, I do see your point.

Sorry for that.

Original, Lecivius:

"Not I, and I agree 100% with the revered Canoe man. Tin foil hats belong in the Distant Worlds forum"

End Quote

I like my Tin foil hat...<grin>

Tin Foiler Mac

6) Battleships in port are quite vulnerable to a carrier raid. HMS Illustrious with 21 bi-plane torpedo bombers did this to the Italian Fleet at Taranto 13 months earlier, sinking one BB and crippling two others (The Japanese Navy took note of this).

A fairly good analysis, but this point is questionable. The USN was aware of the Taranto raid, but did not believe that it could be duplicated at Pearl Harbor because the depth of the water was too shallow. Any air-dropped torpedo was supposed to impact the bottom instead of running to its target. (Unfortunately for the USN, the Japanese were aware of the water depth, and specially modified their torpedoes with wooden fins.) In a similar vein, air-dropped bombs were not supposed to be able to pierce battleship deck armor; in the early days of WWII Churchill pushed to up-armor the "R" class battleships so they could ignore Stukas. (Happily, the Admiralty had more important things to do with their shipyard capacity.) The 800 Kg bomb was a nasty surprise.

The 800 Kg bomb was a nasty surprise.

It apparently was a nasty surprise to the IJN as well. Of the 10 hits at Pearl Harbor, 6 detonated at a low order of detonation and essentially caused only minor damage. Exactly 1 functioned as hoped for (spectacularly on the USS Arizona); but completely obscuring the relatively poor performance of this weapon system.

ORIGINAL: spence

The 800 Kg bomb was a nasty surprise.

It apparently was a nasty surprise to the IJN as well. Of the 10 hits at Pearl Harbor, 6 detonated at a low order of detonation and essentially caused only minor damage. Exactly 1 functioned as hoped for (spectacularly on the USS Arizona); but its one success completely obscured the relatively poor performance of this weapon system.

Stalin was told that the Germans were going to attack and did nil....funny that! (same as US thinking head in the sand stuff?)

The Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy and Japan (Axis) signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Adolf Hitler, Galeazzo Ciano and Saburô Kurusu

Germany going to war in June 1941 must have made it more likely Japan would attack?

The idea that FDR knew (unlikely) is an old idea that has been kicked Around.(but the US military should have known better)


Tiger

ORIGINAL: tigercub

Stalin was told that the Germans were going to attack and did nil....funny that! (same as US thinking head in the sand stuff?)

The Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy and Japan (Axis) signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Adolf Hitler, Galeazzo Ciano and Saburô Kurusu

Germany going to war in June 1941 must have made it more likely Japan would attack?

The idea that FDR knew (unlikely) is an old idea that has been kicked Around.(but the US military should have known better)


Tiger

To be fair Stalin had no reason to believe Richard Sorge until he had some sort of track record. After the intelligence in June proved to be true, Stalin was more ready to believe Sorge when he told the Russians that the Japanese were going to war with Britain and the US.

Bill

To be fair Stalin had no reason to believe Richard Sorge until he had some sort of track record. After the intelligence in June proved to be true, Stalin was more ready to believe Sorge when he told the Russians that the Japanese were going to war with Britain and the US.

Bill

True.

But this was not the only indications and reports about the imminent German attack that Stalin got, and he decided to ignore them all, when the cost to ignore them where high, and the cost to increase the threat level was low.