The Japanese thought that we would have likely repelled them, pushed them back, but let them go before fully “defeating” them?
They expected a harsh conditional surrender under which they would have to pay an indemnity, be forced to leave China, and maybe lose some territory (perhaps Korea). This would have been bad but they thought that it wasn’t that much worse than accepting America’s prewar diplomatic demands. Unconditional surrender of the kind demanded by the Allies in WWII was unheard of at the time; wars ended with territorial and financial concessions, not complete reordering of the loser’s society to the whims of the victor.
They had no idea that foreign occupation, forced disarmament, trials, etc. were going to be the consequences of losing.
I dunno. The Versailles Treaty (and the occupation of the Ruhr) wasn’t that ancient of an event…
Nor was the subjugation of entire countries or regions by Western imperialist powers, including the US takeover of the Philippenes.
The Versailles Treaty was indeed harsh, but nowhere near what happened after WWII. Apart from the restrictions on the size of Germany’s military, it consisted of territorial concessions by Germany and an indemnity. Germany did not lose sovereignty and the political changes it went through were the result of domestic forces.
The Philippines weren’t a sovereign state.
OK, Hawaii then. Or Nicaragua. Or the Dominican Republic. Sheesh. And that’s just by the US; I’d venture to say big chunks of Africa, Southeast Asia and South Asia regarded themselves as sovereign in some way or another before the British, French and Dutch came gallavanting in. The point is that the Japanese were well aware of what happened as a general rule to brown people who failed to adequately defend themselves against white people.
The senior Japanese leadership in December 1941 didn’t think it would lose. They thought the Americans would be so stunned by the attacks on Pearl Harbor and elsewhere, and that the Emperor’s forces would then be so well-established in the Western Pacific, that the U.S. would accept the situation as a fait accompli. If the Americans attacked, the thinking went, they would be defeated in a single huge, decisive naval battle, and then go home to lick their wounds. Perhaps the Japanese would totally win a short war, or at worst they would secure a treaty that would be very much to their advantage - but they never thought they’d lose. Yamamoto’s warnings notwithstanding, the Japanese militarists totally misread both the likely American response to Pearl Harbor, and the U.S.'s awesome industrial capacity once it was turned to total war.
The current issue of Naval History magazine, published by the U.S. Naval Institute, has excellent coverage of the war in the Pacific. It’s remarkable to see the disjuncture between the Japanese navy and army’s plans, and their wishful thinking and tenuous grasp of strategic reality.
Yes, and it wasn’t as though there’d been a very long history of jockeying for possessions in the Pacific leading up to the attack–not as long as the history of the powers in Europe before WWI. And maybe the Japanese didn’t anticipate the U.S domestic reaction to an attack on Hawaii as compared to the attack on the Philippines. What if they’d left Pearl Harbor out of the plan?
I believe the people of Hawaii were largely in favor of becoming a state right before the attack, but what’s not clear to me is whether it was just the war itself that pushed the drive toward statehood.
Those pretty much were the most extreme form of America’s prewar demands. Why would Japan go to war if they expected to lose and have to do this anyway?
I think you cede the right to still be butthurt, 50+ years later, about a “dishonorable” “sneak attack” once you drop a nuclear bomb on one of their cities. twice.
What controlling authority gets to decide what I’ll be butt hurt about?
the International Butthurt Tribunal, of course.
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Managing your butthurt is our top priority.
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Good reference, it summarizes the point very well.
They didn’t think that defeat was certain. They believed that there was some chance that they might be able to pull it off, so possible gains far outweighed the possible costs (in their eyes).
Unfortunately, most of my books are thousands of miles away but I do some with me. Here are some relevant quotes that I could quickly find:
This is how the president of the Privy Council described the reasoning to the Emperor on 11/5/41:
“It is impossible from the standpoint of our self-preservation to accept all of the American demands… If we miss the present opportunity to go to war, we will have to submit to American dictation. Therefore, I recognize that it is inevitable that we must decide to start a war against the United States. I will put my trust in what I have been told: namely that things will go well in the early part of the war; and that although we will experience increasing difficulties as the war progresses, there is some prospect of success.”
Chief of the Army General Staff Sugiyama Hajime when asked earlier by the Emperor if he was sure of victory:
“I can’t guarantee victory. I can only say that there is a chance of victory.”
Chief of the Naval General Staff Nagano Osami replied to the same question:
“There are many uncertainties in war, and victory is sometimes due only to Providence. But there is a chance of victory. It’s as if you have a child with appendicitis… even if there’s a 70% chance that the necessary operation will fail, there’s a 30% chance of success. As a parent, sometimes you have to accept risky operations.”
Tojo Hideki also famously said about the decision of going to war with the US that “sometimes you have to have the courage to jump from the stage at Kiyomizudera.” This was a reference to a Japanese superstition that said that if you made a wish as you jumped from the stage at Kiyomizudera that the wish would be granted (assuming you survived the 40 foot fall).
None of those were “civilized” countries, though. They were all, as you put it, “brown people”. The Japanese were a major industrialized imperial power. They considered themselves, for lack of a better term, “white”.
Actually, when I think butthurt, I think IBS.
This is also a big part of the Japanese opinion on the matter. They seem to feel that taking two nukes negates their own moral failings. “Geez America, we got nuked twice and YOU are carrying a grudge?”
Again, they convienantly forget their actions prior to and during the war.