You also have to add in that given the critical logistics capability of the Japanese, the other failing was not to adopt convoy system to protect their shipping, which made them orders of magnitude more vulnerable. Indeed convoy management might also have provided opportunities for larger scale actions to draw out US warships and destroy them on a more piecemeal basis, instead of the idea of the single large knockout engagement.
So its not only the entire concept of acquisition of colonies that was flawed - so was the execution - they never really understood the concept of support and resource management - and this was especially shown up during the high water mark land attacks on Kohima where effectively they simply starved their army to death due to lack of logistics.
The fact that US subs concentrated very heavily on commerce shipping and the few escorts were only secondary targets should have alerted the IJN - they also had the example of the Atlantic convoys to study - but no, Japanese culture valued fighting spirit far above the mundane business of logistics.
But upthread, it was said that the DEI didnt have enough oil.
In any case, why go to war with the ASA over them not giving you oil- if you arent gonna get oil from them anyway?
Why not just take the DEI? The uSA did nothing when the Nazis invaded Poland, The Netherlands, Luxemburg, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, france, etc- why would anyone think the uSA would declare vs Japan for also ganging up on the Dutch?
As all of this was unfolding, in a poll conducted Sept. 1-6, 1939, Gallup asked Americans to what degree they supported assisting England, France and Poland. Americans supported providing material assistance to these three countries but were overwhelmingly opposed to sending military forces to fight Germany.
<snip
In a separate question in the same 1939 poll, Americans were specifically asked if the U.S. should declare war on Germany in support of England, France and Poland and should deploy forces to assist those countries. Americans were strongly opposed, with 90% rejecting the idea and 8% in favor.
At the time all the Japanese saw in America was a country totally unwilling to go to war. What they misapprehended was America didn’t want to get into someone else’s war but if you were making an assessment of America’s willingness to fight at the time it was not unreasonable to think America would want no part of a war in the Pacific.
That data was collected on the first 6 days of what later would be named “WWII” in Europe.
And was 2 years & 3 months old before the Japanese government chose to bet their country on it by attacking Pearl Harbor. Talk about stale data!
Bureaucratic inertia can take some of that blame. As can the slow speed of administration in an era of typewriters and calligraphic brushes.
But 2+ years is a friggin’ eternity in the progress of a war and the evolution of any country’s attitude to their place in it. Between late '39 and late '41 a LOT of stuff had happened in Europe and not much of it was favorable to the Allied side.
On the eve of Pearl harbor, yes, many Americans wanted to stay out. But they were increasingly aware they were hoping against the odds, and events may well force their hand. Which they duly did.
Of course, a poll misses the circumstances of WW2 as well and this was obviously before the full scale of Nazi atrocities came out, of course. The elephant in the room was that the previous generation, at considerable cost to the nation in blood and treasure and liberty, had gone to war in Europe and fought for fairly idealistic… ideals… but faced severe disappointment as the resulting years showed only bitter nationalistic hatred and continued rivalries between the European powers. When these erupted yet again, there was some support for Britain, sure, but very few Americans wanted to intervene again. What, after all, was the point in propping up cruel empires for twenty more years? So they could have another go in the 60’s next time?
This is why Pearl Harbor was so important; what should have been obvious to even the most blinkered diplomat was that directly punching the American eagle in the face like that was un-imaginable provocation. Only a nation that was completely beaten psychologically could be treated that way. The United States, whatever our problems, was not beaten in that sense. Apathy towards Europe tearing itself apart was one thing. And to clarify, that occurred every decade or two for the entire history of the United States to date. We forget about this today because after WW2 peace was forced upon Europe at the tip of a sword; a large number of American immigrants arrived fleeing European wars. A direct attack on our soil was a very different prospect.
An attack on Pearly harbor was thus a triple failure in the political sense even though it was reasonable in the military sense. The attack, at best gave the United States a unified reason to strike at Japan. In practice, however, two additional things came about because of it: the damage to our fleets was never going to be serious enough to cripple us militarily, but it could not be ignored. Furthermore, other Japanese attacks effectively put the United States into alliance with Britain. Britain’s Navy had to be divided between northern Europe, the Med, and Southeast Asia, of course, but it meant that the United States was going to be cooperating with all of Japan’s enemies and they were literally at war with everybody within punching range except the USSR. So… yeah this probably was never going down in history as a grand strategic masterstroke.
Psychopathic leadership is as psychopathic leadership does. Whether that’s the psychopathology of a ruling individual, or the psychopathic group-think of the coterie that inevitably coalesces around such a ruler.
The parallels to the present situation in the USA are sobering to say the least. Fantasy-based policy is worse than deliberately evil policy because literally anything can happen.
The elephant in the room was that the previous generation, at considerable cost to the nation in blood and treasure and liberty, had gone to war in Europe and fought for fairly idealistic… ideals… but faced severe disappointment as the resulting years showed only bitter nationalistic hatred and continued rivalries between the European powers.
Not only that, but many Americans found that they had been suckered into a British war, which was costly and gained us nothing. The Belgian atrocities with Huns BBQ babies on their batonette turned out to be grossly overstated, etc.
I think this is an important thing to remember. By 1941, the military was effectively acting without any political oversight. The commanders of the Army and Navy would get together and decide what was the best military move to make - often ignoring the non-military aspects of what they were discussing - and then present their plans to the Emperor as an already decided issue.
The military would decide that occupying the Philippines would give them a more secure supply line between Southeast Asia and Japan. So occupy the Philippines. Everyone in the room when the decision was being made was thinking about the military aspects of the issue. Nobody was thinking about the political or diplomatic or economic aspects of the issue.
The US was shown to be a major military power, but it didn’t exert that power much outside of its traditional sphere of influence in the Americas. It more or less renounced a world leadership role, in particular by refusing to join the League of Nations.
Colibri, this part is questionable: “in particular by refusing to join the League of Nations.” That body was even more useless than the United Nations. The United States preferred relative isolationism, yes. But international politics in the interwar period were also simply less amenable to influence than today.
I will happily insult Woodrow Wilson but once (and that will be continuously) but I will give that racist reprobate considerable credit in legitimately trying to build an international movement for peace and security. He also did legitimately try to calm things down and keep the end-of-war diplomacy on a level that would permit the European powers to move forward. The failure of Europe to tone everything down a notch was a major contributing factor to the U.S. push for more isolationism.
But Wilson deserves some measure of the blame for the failure of the League of Nations. He acted like he could dictate the terms of the organization to the Senate. When they tried to discuss the treaty - even indicating they were generally willing to ratify it - Wilson refused any negotiation. The result was the Senate voted down his version of the treaty.
This was Wilson’s greatest flaw as a politician. He felt he was absolutely right and therefore everyone else should just do what he said.
Well, I’d probably point to his greater flaws being absurd racism so bad he set back Civil Rights around 40 years, his disgusting proto-fascism that literally inspired actual fascism, his numerous armed interventions in Latin America…
I do not deny the man had some good points. But his flaws were so epic they had ramifications stretching to this very day.
This argument is often used here in threads about Japan and WWII, and I’ve never really found it persuasive for many reasons.
First, in general, this argument fails when applied to other situations in the same war. What about Britain and France vs. Germany or Italy? Everyone turned their back when Italy invaded Ethiopia. Germany seizes the Rhineland and crickets. Germany develops and air force. Yawn. Germany occupies and annexes Bohemia Moravia-Silesia in violation of the Munich Agreement. Reaction? Nothing. Italy invades Albania. Nonevent.
Why Poland? The logic of the argument is that if countries haven’t taken actions before, then that is sufficient reason to believe that they won’t take actions for other steps. Yet, Britain led the way in declaring war on Germany.
Decision making is almost never that clear. My sister is finally getting a divorce after 26ish years to a guy who I never really liked. Why now? I could go through a whole laundry list of reasons over the years she could have used to decide to end the marriage, but she didn’t for so many reasons. The final reasons were actually less than what she had endured before, but eventually some straw broke the camel back.
Why did the American colonies take a stand when they did when they had ignored other actions before? The argument that a person, country or entity won’t take a drastic measure such as getting a divorce or declaring war because they hadn’t before simply is false.
Next, there are material differences between the situations in Europe and in Asia. America was actively preparing for war specifically against Japan. Not only with the greatest peacetime buildup of the navy, but also in fortifying American possessions and the Philippines.
In the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, Britain, Japan and the United Stated agreed to prohibit the construction of new fortifications or naval bases (existing ones were allowed to remain). After Japan
withdrew from the agreement, it started to construct new bases and fortifications, but this wasn’t matched by the US and only in 1940 and1941 did they belatedly start but were actively fortifying the various locations.
Japanese leaders were actively monitoring the US buildup. The US had helped establish a Philippine army, for example, and then in the summer of 1941 it was called into active duty in the US Army. Here is map of Japanese military aerial photography of Northern Luzon in November 1940 to 1941. They were actively monitoring the training in the Philippines and watching the preparation for war. The US was anticipating having preparation in place by the summer of 1942.
Wake Island preparations had also belated began, and there were about 450 marines plus a dozen fighters. Famously, the radar units slated for Wake was sitting in boxes in Hawaii. Guam also was in the initial stages of a build up for war. Japan knew about these preparations and knew that time was not on their side.
Many Japanese military leaders were well aware that they were starting to lose the peace. The US was making more and more militaristic moves specially towards Japan, including relocating the Pacific fleet to Hawaii from San Diego, basing the new B-17 bombers in the Philippines.
The US had done nothing compatible with Germany as you say, “The uSA did nothing when the Nazis invaded Poland, The Netherlands, Luxemburg, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, france, etc” but the US wasn’t building forts in Europe before those events happened.
I’ll relay what Parshall, coauthor of Shattered Sword answered in a Q&A after a lecture of the Naval War College, as shown on YouTube.
Parshall acknowledges that the possibility exists that had the Japanese limited themselves to the colonies of the European countries, that the US possible may not have declared war. However, he pointed out that the Japanese leaders in the government (and also in the general staffs) making the decisions concerning the steps to war were mostly classically trained military men, and no self-respecting military leader would leave his flank so exposed to the enemy. End of answer. Of course, Parshall is the first to tell you that he is not a big fan of alt-hist speculations, so the doesn’t elaborate that much.
As LSLGuy points out, quoting from 1939 polls about a war in Europe is not reflective of the mood of the nation concerning how the public felt about a possible war in 1941 and then it must also be stressed that there was a large difference in how people viewed possible wars against Germany compared to Japan.
Old polls concerning other subjects are simply irrelevant when there are polls specifically looking at how the public felt at that time period concerning possible war against Japan and not Germany.
What must be examined are the 1941 polls, and then shifting of the public opinion shift even in that year can be seen. Most of the questions were concerning Germany, but here are some questions concerning Japan.
There are other polls which show less support for the same question, but this August poll shows very strong support for the actions which the US was actually taking at the time and which were actually leading to war later.
So, let’s exam again the question you asked me.
If the Japanese were to have been so politically sophisticated that they would have been aware of the American model of placing importance of public opinions, then wouldn’t they have been sophisticated enough to use current numbers?
Also, the argument made by numerous authors is not really that they should have known better, it was that they didn’t know better. The US also made some large strategic blunders because Roosevelt and others misread Japan as well. “Fog of War” is a well-known expression but there is also a “Fog of Peace.”
The US failed to see how taking certain steps was backing the Japanese military and government into a position where many of the decision makers felt they had no choice but to start war.
In his best-selling The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, the late historian John Toland, says:
Of course, for Asia, it was better that the war was fought, but the timing could have been better. The US lost a perfect opportunity to buy more time in November, 1941 when Japan made a last ditch attempt at a diplomatic solution, there was a proposal within Japan about a return to the status quo
ante before Japan’s move into southern Indochina and the U.S. imposition of the oil embargo.
That proposal was endorsed by both Gen. George Marshall, Chief of Staff Army, and Admiral Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations as a way to allow the US to continue to prepare. The eminent historian George C. Herring writes:
As I wrote earlier, the US was already taking active steps towards war, and a delay would have strengthened the US position such that Japan would not have been able to take the Philippines, for example, or Wake and even Guam could have been fortified. (In 1941, the US had written Guam off as impossible to fortify sufficiently given the estimated time before war. Had the US been able to fortify even only it’s own possession and PI, you can see what a different war that would have been.)
Given the dysfunctionality of the Japanese government, it’s unknowable if agreeing to those conditions would have actually prevented or postponed the Pacific War, but it’s interesting to think about. Would the Japanese military have agreed to a proposal from the diplomatic side? They saw the handwriting on the wall and knew that time was running out on their side to fight a war and many of them wanted one. Japan was bogged down in China, yet there were those who wanted to take on not only the US but have another round against the USSR.
Another point which many people overlook is that even had Japan not attacked the US and only gone after British territories and the DEI, while it’s possible that Roosevelt may not have been able to sell a war to Congress, there were absolutely no guaranties that the war couldn’t have been prevented.
Joseph Grew, Ambassador to Japan (1932 to 1941, so an expert) strongly warned Roosevelt in early 1941 to be careful that there was a good chance in his opinion that some ship captain may take it upon himself to launch a war with the US.
Actually not. They miscalculated the diplomatic and economic aspects of the issue, but it’s not true that no one was thinking about it.
The decision to occupy the Philippines was part of the planned war against the US (and Britain) and the final decision to go to war was made by the Cabinet. The Meiji Constitution placed the decision making for war in the Cabinet rather than in the military or by the PM alone. Certainly, there were actions such as the Manchurian Incident when lower ranked officers (possibly with the tacit support from high levels) led to wars, it was not the case the Imperial General Headquarters (the body which coordinated the IJA and IJN) made unilateral decisions to start wars.
Yamamoto convinced the Naval General Staff to allow the attack on Peal Harbor before attacking the Philippines, and there was no question that the attack on PH was the start of a war. It’s simply false that the Chiefs of Staffs made the plans and presented them to the Emperor without the involvement of the Cabinet.
