OT: Who is to blame for the failure to anticipate the Pearl Harbor attack?

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: ilovestrategy

Maybe on a tactical level it was brilliant but IMHO, it was a colossal strategic blunder. The Americans viewed it as a sneak attack. With the Germans it was just business that we had to do, but the Japanese became public enemy number one.

A couple of years ago Terminus called Japan in 1941 a 3rd world country with 1st world ambitions, and I think that is pretty accurate.


Edited because of my poor one finger typing skills.......

Absolutely correct! Japan's strategy was based on her successes against China in the 1890's, Russia in 1904-05, and China again in the 1930's. "Hit first, hit hard, and give no warning". This worked well against these politically divided opponants, and each time allowed Japan to gain her objectives against a foe that was superior on paper, but was unwilling or unable to achieve full mobilization of their potential. Pearl Harbor was SUPPOSED to shock the US into aquessing to Japan's conquests..., INSTEAD it mobilized American resolve as nothing has before or since. Japan's leadership saw the world with blinders every bit as effective as those of America. The difference was that America's were based on a realistic evaluation of the relative strengths of the two nations, while Japans were based on "wishfull thinking" and not much else. Guadalcanal was America's "Operation Shoestring"..., but for Japan it was her entire war effort.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: ilovestrategy

ORIGINAL: guytipton41

ORIGINAL: JeffK

I have little to complain about the way Japan opened the war, only in the way they prosecuted it.

+1

Pearl Harbor was brilliant! Asking who was to blame is like asking why the Australian Olympic basketball team lost to the US Olympic team. The IJN brought their A-game.

If only the rest of the IJN/IJA actions during the war had been to the moral standard that they held themselves to during the Russo-Japanese war. I don't ignore Allied actions but see them as reaction for the most part.

Cheers,
Guy

Maybe on a tactical level it was brilliant but IMHO, it was a colossal strategic blunder. The Americans viewed it as a sneak attack. With the Germans it was just business that we had to do, but the Japanese became public enemy number one.

A couple of years ago Terminus called Japan in 1941 a 3rd world country with 1st world ambitions, and I think that is pretty accurate.


Edited because of my poor one finger typing skills.......

warspite1

Seriously?? By what definition?????.....

[Natali]

ORIGINAL: ilovestrategy
Maybe on a tactical level it was brilliant but IMHO, it was a colossal strategic blunder. The Americans viewed it as a sneak attack. With the Germans it was just business that we had to do, but the Japanese became public enemy number one.

A couple of years ago Terminus called Japan in 1941 a 3rd world country with 1st world ambitions, and I think that is pretty accurate.

Edited because of my poor one finger typing skills.......

I don't know from Terminus, but this "3rd world country" stuff is nonsense. Nothing but todays look at things and to yesterday. And it's wrong.

The Isrealites were a bunch of 3rd world goat herders that whacked one of the foremost civilizations of the time (Phoenicia), and carved a nation out of the remnants.

The Mongols were a bunch of 3rd world goat herders that whacked several of the foremost civilizations of the time (too numerous to mention), and carved a nation out of the remnants.

Fredrick II inherited a 3rd world principality that whacked one of the foremost civilizations of the time (Austria), and carved a nation out of the remnants.

The Unites States were a set of 3rd world colonys, that whacked one of the foremost civilizations of the time (Great Britain), and carved a nation out of the remnants.

The Confederate States were a set of 3rd world agriculturalists, that fought against one of the foremost industrial civilizations of the time. They lost, but not by much.

So what is this nonsense about how you gotta be some 1st world industrial power to even think about starting wars. People have been doing that successfully for millenia. Who the heck are you 21st century wargamers, in your comfy chairs, to talk about things you know nothing about.

Japanese did what they thought needed to be done. Wasn't what we would have thought, but who the hell are we. They ran a Country, they ran a Navy, they ran an Army, and we didn't.

[JeffroK]

You may have listed 3rd world countries but they had 1st world leaders and strategies.

Japan was a mixture of 1st & 3rd world technologies, cultures, ecomomy but lacked the 1st world leadership and had little strategy after "whacking" the USN and grabbing the oil.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

You may have listed 3rd world countries but they had 1st world leaders and strategies.

Japan was a mixture of 1st & 3rd world technologies, cultures, ecomomy but lacked the 1st world leadership and had little strategy after "whacking" the USN and grabbing the oil.

warspite1

Mix of 1st and 3rd world? - so kind of 2nd world then.....

I think 3rd world as we know it today - parts of Africa, Asia etc are nothing like Japan in 1941.......

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: Natali

So what is this nonsense about how you gotta be some 1st world industrial power to even think about starting wars. People have been doing that successfully for millenia. Who the heck are you 21st century wargamers, in your comfy chairs, to talk about things you know nothing about.

Japanese did what they thought needed to be done. Wasn't what we would have thought, but who the hell are we. They ran a Country, they ran a Navy, they ran an Army, and we didn't.

Reality check, Natali. As the Confederacy proved, in the "Industrial Age" you need to be an industrial power to fight a war with an industrial power. And to fight the greatest industrial powerhouse of the 20th Century you better be among the first rank yourself. Japan wasn't...., not even close.

And to make matters worse, the "they" in your comment, "They ran a Country, they ran a Navy, they ran an Army, and we didn't.", WAS the Japanese Army..., and they proved incapable of running a latrine detail, let alone a war.

[Natali]

ORIGINAL: JeffK
You may have listed 3rd world countries but they had 1st world leaders and strategies.

Japan was a mixture of 1st & 3rd world technologies, cultures, ecomomy but lacked the 1st world leadership and had little strategy after "whacking" the USN and grabbing the oil.

That's true, but my point is that the whole concept of 1st and 2nd and 3rd world countries belongs to our 21st century world. It did not exist for a man in the first half of the 20th century. Japan lived in the world of 1920-1930. If was a coulda, shoulda, woulda, kinda place that someone from that period would understand. You need to have been there, or at least recognize what those who were there might have thought, to get your mind right.

People who pontificate on 21st century principles, don't know. They can only guess and pee on things from hindsight. But if they went back, in their minds, to the period, they just might find contentment.

[JeffroK]

But we live in the 21st Century, and express ourselves that way.

I'm sure if you went back to the 1930's you would find equivalent terminolgy.

Look back at the writing of the late 30's, many eminent strategists, plus a few rat-bags, saw the japanese empire as a 3rd rate power.

[ilovestrategy]

ORIGINAL: Natali

ORIGINAL: ilovestrategy
Maybe on a tactical level it was brilliant but IMHO, it was a colossal strategic blunder. The Americans viewed it as a sneak attack. With the Germans it was just business that we had to do, but the Japanese became public enemy number one.

A couple of years ago Terminus called Japan in 1941 a 3rd world country with 1st world ambitions, and I think that is pretty accurate.

Edited because of my poor one finger typing skills.......

I don't know from Terminus, but this "3rd world country" stuff is nonsense. Nothing but todays look at things and to yesterday. And it's wrong.

The Isrealites were a bunch of 3rd world goat herders that whacked one of the foremost civilizations of the time (Phoenicia), and carved a nation out of the remnants.

The Mongols were a bunch of 3rd world goat herders that whacked several of the foremost civilizations of the time (too numerous to mention), and carved a nation out of the remnants.

Fredrick II inherited a 3rd world principality that whacked one of the foremost civilizations of the time (Austria), and carved a nation out of the remnants.

The Unites States were a set of 3rd world colonys, that whacked one of the foremost civilizations of the time (Great Britain), and carved a nation out of the remnants.

The Confederate States were a set of 3rd world agriculturalists, that fought against one of the foremost industrial civilizations of the time. They lost, but not by much.

So what is this nonsense about how you gotta be some 1st world industrial power to even think about starting wars. People have been doing that successfully for millenia. Who the heck are you 21st century wargamers, in your comfy chairs, to talk about things you know nothing about.

Japanese did what they thought needed to be done. Wasn't what we would have thought, but who the hell are we. They ran a Country, they ran a Navy, they ran an Army, and we didn't.

Who won? We did. In 1945 we had more fleet carriers than they had capital ships. We were bombing Tokyo at will. And this was over the expanse of the Pacific Ocean while we were getting ready to cross the Rhine on the other side of the world. And this was while building the atomic bomb.

To put it simply, Japan decided to take on the big boy on the block and got whipped. Heck, in 1943 our new carrier force was bigger than the KB. They did not have a snowball's chance in Hell. They got off to a really good six month start but fell apart after that.

Taking on the world's industrial powerhouse and uniting it's people by making yourself public enemy number one was a mistake that doomed them.