Was Pearl Harbor the dumbest military strike in the history?

Yes, didn't make much difference in the end though. The Japanese severely underestimated American industrial capacity and will to fight.

>it seems top stupid to me from where I'm standing

Congratulations! You've stumbled upon one of those quirky little elements of historical study, known as "Hindsight." Hindsight is the application of historical knowledge to a historical context, without regard to the fact that the people within that context didn't possess that knowledge. This gives you an advantage they never had, and this skews your judgements of their actions, since you can see everything they could not. As the saying goes, "Hindsight is 20/20!"

The next step for you, friend, is to learn the art of what we call "Empathy," commonly called the ability to "put yourself in another's shoes." By using empathy, you will be able to see things from someone else's perspective more clearly, and through this, be able to make determinations about why they acted the way they did. This isn't exactly time travel, but it's about as close as we can get!

Now that you've been apprised of your shortcomings, you can work to improve them with further study of the period you're curious about. By using empathy to place yourself in that context, you'll gain a better understanding of those people who came before you, and be able to form more informed conclusions about their actions. And be sure to share your conclusions with others, because the study of history can only benefit from that!

>if Germany hadn't fallen japan probably wouldn't have either

Do you have a single fact to back that up? They were two completely different theatres of war.

Memes aside it was a dumb decision even at the time, you don't even need to take the hindsight of aftermath into account.

Hey, thanks for the advice, friend. You're alright.

>Germany gets the entirety of Europe and Russia
>ex colonies chimp out against oppressors
>Its the entire planet vs the US

The Japanese didn't just lack hindsight, they lacked foresight. The military junta running Japan at the time was the definition of drinking your own coolaid. They were murdering anyone who tried to oppose them and had been for decades when they decided to attack the US.

It's one thing to desire your country to be stronger. It's another entirely to murder other Japanese advocating for a peaceful growth.

>this fantasy

This is why speculating on a history board is a bad idea.

Nigga. No.
Japan was getting their ass whuped completely separate to how the war in Europe was going. Unless you're so crazy you think even if Germany had won, they'd be able to project power into Asia.

>other Japanese advocating for a peaceful growth.
That "other Japanese" wanted to assassinate the Emperor. They're Marxists.

>This fantasy
Name 1 country that isnt yours and Britain that had anything to gain from the war turning out as it did

Name 1 country that isn't objectively worse than what it was back then that isn't in a location strategical significance

>We atack japan
>Germany nein or we threaten from the atlantic
>All the colonies that were starved to death would see it as an opportunity for independence

There were a variety of different groups and men opposed by and murdered by the Junta.
Few of them wanted to kill the Emperor.

Are you really actually implying a country that couldn't supply an army over the Mediterranean would be a threat to the US in any way, shape or form? Hell, even a real threat to England. At no point were the Germans capable of invading the U.K., or contesting them at sea.
You're getting into anime levels of unrealism if you think Germany could have ever been a threat to the US under any circumstances.
In fact, if you saw a Germany winning in Europe you'd see a Germany that got nuked in 1945. It's ok to not know this stuff, but please. Stop speculating. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Brazil.

>Germany gets the entirety of Europe and Russia

I am convinced it was a false flag. No, I have no evidence, but I cannot believe Japan was that stupid. Japanese people are born with higher IQs than Europeans, and most people of European descent could have told you that that was gonna blow up in their faces (literally)

look how you are avoiding answering

I bet literally no one wanted the war to turn out how it did except the head of the side that did

Literally the entire planet got turned into a shithole after that war ended including the countries that had won

The US turned out far better, but I still fail to see where you're going with this. It's not really Roosevelt's fault Hitler's decided to go full retard anyways.

Completely wrong

o look more no answers

Yes, but only because they got timid and stopped attacking when they actually could have annihilated our entire fleet.

It's hard to answer a question when you haven't been asked a question yet.
I'd very much appreciate if you could enunciate here. Say whatever you mean outright instead of >implying.

I got home from the hospital a few hours ago. Had surgery this morning. I'd be lying if I said my mental faculties were operating at peak performance.

That is some mighty tasty pasta. Good luck teaching empathy to autists.

>Name 1 country that isnt yours and Britain that had anything to gain from the war turning out as it did

>Name 1 country that isn't objectively worse than what it was back then that isn't in a location strategical significance

So, the people who win wars are the ones who end up better off.

That's really deep, my little shallow friend.

>USA
>The most powerful military force in the world during WWII
Germany and the USSR both could have singlehandedly destroyed the USA if they had to. The only reason the Americans won against the Nazis was because they had the help of two other immensely powerful countries. America didn't win the war, the Allies did.

Pearl Harbor was "rejecting Hitler's art school application" level stupid.

Source

Is this Veeky Forums or /Rev/Veeky Forums?

Okay. I already said it but Brazil.

Common sense. I see you with that blank look in your eyes.

O look

He still refuses

to answer

is it cause you agree with me?

>Brazil
>Go outside
>Get shot/stabbed/whatever
>Drug cartels literally run part of the country
>On the road of becoming india 2.0

Both the Germans and the USSR were completely incapable of doing any damage at all to the US. The only reasons any Americans died to Germany was because they sailed halfway round the world to fight.

USSR maybe, but Germany? With what, their shitty navy that couldn't even cross the English channel?

>i can't believe Japan was that stupid

You have to understand that the previous Japanese government had been overthrown and replaced with a hardline right wing, military Junta, and the smart ones were purged or silence.

So yeah, they really were that stupid. And continued to make a large series of stupid mistakes throughout the war and pretty much ever command level.

Not him, but the Soviet navy was even weaker than the German one.

US would've gone to war with Germany eventually, but muh Yamato Damashii retards were stupid to try and take on murrica.

Weren't the factions of the military also fighting for honor?

Even several commanders thought it was dumb as fuck.

Invading a separate continent with millions of people many of whom are privately armed and on their own land is different than invading your neighbors.

It was the right thing to do from the perspective of a high ranking militarist seeking short term political power.

>mfw I write out that shit on the spot and people assume it's pasta

Different guy. lrn2samefag before you make yourself even more idiotic.

In that case, well done.

O LOOK

Different guy

0 answers

America trying to stop Japanese expansion in to the pacific was inevitable, and the Japanese were not going to back down on their expansion because YAMATO BANZAI BUSHIDO DAMASHII demanded that they be a relevant world power rather than just some technologically backward island nobody cares about, and for that they needed resources and clay.
Their biggest mistakes were ignoring the submarines, ignoring the oil tanks and other ship supporting infrastructure, and the bad luck of all the aircraft carriers being away. If it weren't for those fuckups they might have ended up being able to hold their own long enough to bring the USA to the bargaining table.

I meant the pic retard

>All but one of the US's aircraft carriers were out of port at the time of the attack.
Actually all of the PacFleet's 3 carriers were away from Pearl Harbor.

>The US was ready to immediately strike back with bombing raids.
US wasn't ready for anything at all. IJN dominated the East Indies for months with zero interference from the USN who were limited to tiny raids on island outposts.

That and there was a huge amount of competition between the IJN and IJA, and between individual officers in both to be the most "honourable" and out-do one another

>fails operation Barbarossa
>most powerful military in the world

Why are werhboos so delusional?

Barbarossa was a success. The whole Russian invasion was not called Barbarossa. that was just the first operation in the whole russian war

It was pretty amazing actually, America realised first hand what it was like to be raped by a superior force.

>that was just the first operation in the whole russian war
Which failed.

>attacking the most powerful military force in the world
the American military was a joke for a country its size pre-pearl harbor, in 1940 the Army had ~270,000 personnel and 160,000 sailors. For comparison, Hungary (Size of Pennsylvania) had 200,000 troops in 1940

>Germany, which couldn't even cross the fucking channel, being in any way a threat to America
>The Soviets, who were going to borrow American ships in order to attack Japan, being in any way a threat to America

The US was the strongest individual nation among the allies in the fact that all of their fighting was done abroad, and all fighting was done outside of the States. Nobody living in any of the States was ever threatened, minus the one exploding balloon the Japs sent over that actually worked.

It was a good idea. War was inevitable and Japan needed to keep the US out of the Pacific for long enough to kick out the British and French. Remember two out of every three Japanese soldiers were still fighting in China. They needed to level the playing field.

It failed for the same reason the Germans got slaughtered on the Eastern Front. They deluded themselves into believing their enemies were naturally weak and would surrender at the slightest hardship.

>to be raped by a superior force
Japan was neither a superior force nor was the attack on Pearl Harbor a success, let alone a rape. They failed all of their objectives. Tactical victory at best.

It made sense at the time. They just didnt hit the right targets

They hit the right targets to give them a more or less free hand in the Pacific until they secured the NEI and the Philippines. It's not like a different selection of targets could have changed the outcome, either in the sort or long term.

Unless you're one of those "they should have bombed the port facilities" lunatics.

>Was Pearl Harbor the dumbest military strike in the history?
Eh. If you understood the Japanese war plans it doesn't sounds so stupid but ultimately it failed. Japanese command knew there economic could not compete with a mobilised US and their Navy. Their plan was to give Japanese navy superiority temporarily by attacking Pearl harbour and taking important ships out of action, even if temporarily. They would use their temporary Naval superiority to invade South East Asia and entrench in land. the Japanese never sought a complete victory over the US, but instead hoped they would sign a peace deal respecting Japans sphere of influence in Asia.

>lunatics
Since when are the heads of the IJN during WWII lunatics? They all stated they shot themselves by not hitting the dockyards and oil storage facilities?

>Since when are the heads of the IJN during WWII lunatics?

That is less of a rhetorical question than you might think. Japanese command in WW2 was pretty shit-tier.

>They all stated they shot themselves by not hitting the dockyards and oil storage facilities?

user, they had 414 carrier planes at Pearl Harbor, about a third of which were fighters on CAP. You cannot destroy a major port with that force; the British would try to do so with sorties as large comprised entirely of Lancaster bombers, each of which could carry some 8 times the bomb load of a Kate or a Val. The Brits usually failed. The Japanese too, would have failed. The U.S. was quite capable of creating dock and aircraft facilities on uninhabited coral atolls in a couple of weeks; you really think they couldn't have fixed up Pearl Harbor?

I saved it to post later, so congratulations you're now a pasta author

graduate highschool before you post here kid.

nah

the supposed supplicant debt includes Obama's included debt. Why should I trust this graph you lying cunt? Pretend to be stupid or manipulative. Not so stupid that he can't manipulate properly. You're a pathetic little shit kys.

>The US also embargoed japan from oil trade and without they can't into war
maybe they should have stopped invading people then?

That's sort of bullshit optimistic thinking when the entirety of history up to that point showed that weak, nice nations get rolled for whatever reason the aggressor wants. It's also true today. Look at what Ukraine got for giving up it's nukes.

In realpolitik, the only safety lies in being strong. Japan had no way to get strong without resources.

Chandler's visit in 1853 had a huge impact on Japan for what it represented. It was a national psychological shock. It was like 9/11 except the Jews weren't behind it and nobody died.

>Japan had no way to get strong without resources.
You do realize Japan became a strong, wealthy nation post-WW2 without colonies and with a pacificist constitution, right?

That's mostly because of the US. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here.

>That's mostly because of the US.
What a retarded thing to say.

>Japan must suspend their imperial ambitions
>but the US won't, because it's the strongest
If Japan had won they would've been in the right. Fuck yanks.

what imperial ambitions did the US have around that time period then?

Then what in the hell kind of impact do you think the US had?
The US utterly annihilated Japan. If left to her own Japan would be Africa tier today. What impact did the US have if not the most important one?
Not just the massive amount of free aid from raw capital to construction material, but also the countless advisors both sent to Japan and invited by the Japanese.

The new Japanese economic model was based entirely around American economist's works and reports. Japan was destroyed by America and then rebuilt by it.
Of course the Japanese themselves were paramount to their own recovery. You cannot help the unwilling. And the Japanese were more than willing to receive the help. But it's lunacy to place the lion's share of the recovery effort on anyone or thing besides American men and material. Japan went to war because they had no rich lands with which to develop from. No oil reserves or good iron deposits or mineral rich fields to exploit. They were a country that even in the capital still had mostly wooden buildings in 1941.

Their ambitions were to elevate themselves to a position rivaling the West. They got there, but only because of the US.

1. America wasn't nearly as strong as you think back then. Powerful enough to protect it's interests, and economically powerful enough to become the biggest, but it wasn't the biggest at the time, far from it.

2. It was literally a dick swinging contest in the Japanese military. Any sane strategist would have realized that a simple bombing was the worst possible action. If they had actually taken it then it would have given them more leverage.

The US was definitely top 5. It had a navy on par with the British actually. Had that since the turn of the century.

France, the U.K., Russia, USA and Germany were the big 5 by 1941. At least, that's what the thought was. France turned out to be a mess which was a shock for the world. Germany that had been a top 20 nation in 1936 had risen to the strongest land power in the world by 1940.
Power rankings are a tad abstract and silly in the end though. But I do agree that in 1941 the US was far from the most powerful country on land at least.

The Americans were isolationists at this point. I'm not even American, and even I can tell you that you're retarded.

It wasnt. USA was wanted to attack Japan and was provocing whole 1935-1941. Concetration of fleet was obvious and clear trap to get casus belli of war.
What the choice had Japan? They could ignore this, then USA would just repeat its traditional self-destruct (Tonkien, Havana, 9/11) and attack. So Japs decided to destroy at least this bunch of scraps.

>The Americans were isolationists at this point.
If the Americans were such isolationists, then why were they constantly intervening in Latin America? Wasn't the Philippines basically an American colony?

>Not just the massive amount of free aid from raw capital to construction material
Japan didn't get any material aid from American post-war, except for a small amount of rice to avert open starvation.

Japan never learned the old wisdom about discretion being the better part of valor.

>Not just the massive amount of free aid from raw capital to construction material
Care to document this massive amount of free aid?

>the countless advisors both sent to Japan and invited by the Japanese.
You are fucking hilarious.

>The new Japanese economic model was based entirely around American economist's works and reports.
Care to explain? Which American economist and what work and reports? What exactly do you think is the Japanese economic model? I want to know just how far you are willing to take your retardedness.

Could Japan have taken Hawaii in a Pearl Harbor type move, a surprise attack?
Say they capture Hawaii and the other islands, hold them for a year and do their best to bleed the Americans dry while they consolidate their hold on SEA colonies

Obviously they would have lost in the end, though

No

They barely had the fuel to be able to get close enough to attack Pearl Harbor. They wouldn't have been able to land a large enough army there to take it and keep it supplied

USA! USA! USA!

No. A colony would imply the US was gaining something out of it. Now the US was gaining a refueling station for its ships and a position to project power into Asia with that, but it's hardly necessary to have a colony to do that. And other than the military aspect there was very little economic value coming from the Phillipines although a massive amount was going on.
The Phillipines from the onset were planned to eventually be returned to full Phillipine rule, but it was not considered capable of ruling on its own effectively at the closing of the Spanish-American rule.

And don't get me wrong. They were definitely exploited for the military aspect and all. But American imperialism was much less about exploiting natural resources (the mainland having an over abundance of them) and much more about being able to project power to protect its trade, which is what the US ultimately cared about. If the Phillipines could have ruled well on their own the IS would have just signed a land lease or treaty allowing US ships to base there, rather than spending millions to try and turn the country into something resembling modern civilization.
That whole White Man's Burden deal.
You can argue about the semantics but ultimately the exploitation of American colonies took on a very different flavor from European colonies.
Europe colonized because it was getting cramped at home, most of their forests long gone, many mines picked clean. New, less developed lands offered cheap and abundant resources necessary to compete for positions of power and dominance abroad.
The US had lush forests, untapped mountains, rolling fields unmarred by plows. While the effects were often the same the causes and reasons were ultimately quite different.

There were 2 fully equipped army divisions at Pearl Harbor at the time. The rule of thumb is that, for a regular offensive, you need a 3:1. For an amphibious invasion against a massively better equipped enemy that enjoys air support, you would need much more than that. Let alone having the logistics to carry and support 10+ divisions across an ocean, I don't think Japan had 10+ divisions to spare.

The amount of weebs on this board is hilarious. If anyone even suggests that Glorious Nippon got help in the reconstruction of their country they immediately get dogpiled by a horde of katana-swinging faggots. The US did send a shitton of aid to Japan in the postwar years, partially because it was also strategically important for them to counter Soviet influence in the Pacific.

>on this board
Newfag