Haven't even won the war in China yet

>tfw the IJN actually had their own ground forces because they hated the IJA that much

Also the IJA builidng their own goddamn escort carriers and supply subs to supply their island outposts, shit is fucking insane.

Japan couldn't fight in China without imports from the US. Therefore once the US put embargos on them, they were left with two options.

a)Embarrass yourself in front of the entire world and sign a peace with China, also missing out on the chance to integrate it into the East Asia Co-Propsperity Sphere or whatever it was called
b)Force the US to lift their embargos by force

The Japanese military commanders were smart. In fact, they were a lot more smart than their German counterparts. They knew very well that Japan would have no chance against the US in any kind of prolonged war (Yamamoto specifically said the longest it could go was about 1 year). Therefore they decided that their only option was to launch an attack on the US so crushing and decisive that the American government would have no choice but to negotiate a short peace (lasting for a couple years). In that time, Japan could secure China and the resource-plenty islands in the East Indies and Phillipines.

He mistakenly believed that war with the Dutch meant war with the USA. Which was very likely not to be true. And even if it was, his strategy would be far better served by letting the Americans declare war and come to him. Rather than filling them with a resolve by attacking first and then making things easy for them by stretching already fragile lines across the entire Pacific.

Problem was, the Philippines were an excellent place to strangle Japan's sealanes from if and when a war with USA would start, and in late 1941/early 1942 they were still relatively lightly defended... so do you bypass them and not start a war with USA, potentially letting them build the defences of the islands up and station more air- and seapower there, or do you take them when they're still there to be taken with relatively little effort?

ACKSHUALLY, Tojo didn't have that much to do with the policy of the Imperial Rule faction, but war with the Soviets was off the table after the embarrassing episode at Khalkin Gol

>hey, yeah, uh, so like, we need 4 new carriers. No, no, the ones we have are working just fine, its just, uh, midway went so well for us that we need a larger fleet! yeah!

America only declared war on Germany after Japan bombed them. Pearl Harbor didn't do jack shit to support the Germans.

This is true but misses crucial details, the Japanese knew even if they hit the Pacific Fleet there was nothing stropping the Atlantic Fleet from redeploying, so they wanted to create a ring that could fuck America up with land based aircraft by taking everything from Midway to New Guinea and turning them into natural aircraft carriers

Thats interesting but they must have understood what a long shot that was

Pearl Harbor was a false flag

end...Bane?

You leave them, because then the Americans will take the bait and use them as a base. Thus they will send their entire fleet across the Pacific close to your bases, where you're at your strongest. Wait for them to mass their fleet and get that decisive battle you always wanted.

Japan would have had a massive advantage had she been able to draw the American fleet into a battle in the Western Pacific early in the war, a fact that the USN's planners immediately recognized, hence their injunction about the fleet sailing too far west at war's start. Unfortunately, despite the caution of USN planners, the US Army and General MacArthur had already given the Japanese a means to bait a trap: the Philippines. The USN never intended the Philippines to be held, but MacArthur and the Army dreamed otherwise, and even entertained unrealistic hopes of the Navy sailing across the Pacific to save them (something the USN had never intended to do, Pearl Harbor or no). However, had the Philippines not been conquered so quickly, and had the Army been screaming for an intact battlefleet to come to their aid, it is conceivable that, against all their better judgement, the USN could have been induced (or ordered from Washington) to cross the Pacific and meet its doom in just the kind of early decisive battle the Japanese wanted and needed. Had this been the case the IJN would be facing the USN on its own turf, with a good portion of the USN tied down just defending their lines of communication, with a two to one advantage in cruisers, three to one advantage in destroyers, and wildly superior carrier aviation. This would've gone very well for the Japanese.

They did exactly the wrong thing by taking the Philippines off the table early on. This basically ensured that the Navy could not enact their original plan without trouble. That being to mass a giant navy that the Japanese could never contest and destroy the IJN's cream of the crop thousands of miles from its home.

On the other hand, leaving the Philippines unconquered means the US will be basing subs out of Cavite, and the DEI-Japan oil route they need has to go around the Philippines. In the path of all the subs in the Asiatic Fleet. Which is a pretty big chunk of them. Which would fucking murder the oil transports, and the US might be able to blockade Japan until lack of oil ruins them.

Their torpedoes don't work. This issue was not fixed until 1943. So they're not going to be relevant before the decisive battle happens.

Their Mk.14 torpedos don't work early on, true, but it doesn't help if the US subs can surface and use their guns without much worry since the IJN thinks that "ASW" and "convoys" are something that HONORABRU navies need not bother themselves with.

If he cared about obligations to his allies he would've invaded the USSR

I have no fucking clue how their intel on U.S. firepower and capability was so off, the naval forces they ended up getting overwhelmed with were just mammoth in comparison to what they had

It wasn't really their intel, it was their assumptions. They thought they would strike hard, win their initial pushes, and then go to peace in 6-12 months. All the really big offensives by the U.S. in the pacific happened after that, when they had time to get the production train rolling and spit out things like Essex class carriers.

>we can't sustain this war without trading with this one country
>so lets attack this country that just so happens to be the biggest industrial power in the whole world
>yeah!
How does that line of thinking make any sense?

They wanted to cripple the US fleet so they could have free reign in the pacific.
Basically they were scared of US intervention while invading the South.

isn't that just marine infrantry?
don't most navies have that?

He thought Southeast Asia would be easy to take because Hitler had destroyed the colonial powers like Holland and France in Europe and was busy fighting the Brits. He also needed Hawaii for access to the oil.

Because the oil they needed was in Dutch colonies near them, that were under US protection.

Tojo at the dojo was so-so.

Nope.jpg.
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Navy_Land_Forces
The Navy LITERALLY had its own land army.

For example: the guys who defended Manila from the Allied liberation forces were almost entirely Japanese navy: marines, the naval infantry, and grounded sailors who ran outta ships.

The interservice rivalry was so bad that when the Allies approached Manila, the Army told the navy guys to head up Northern Philippines' mountainous regions to defend their occupation of the Philippines from there. The Navy retards when NONONONO BANZAAAAI and defended the city, resulting to that shitshow of a battle which annihilated the Navy forces there.

When the war ended, a lot of the Jap army guys in the Philippines survived in their mountain stronghold and merely went home (well, save for Yamashita and some officers, who were executed)