Why?

Historians have come up with loads of answers/theories on the subject. Japan hoped that by crippling the American fleet while simultaneously seizing as much Pacific territory as possible they might make the American's feel that any conflict would take too long and be too costly. They obviously hoped that they could bring the American's and other Western powers to the negotiating table and establish Japan as one of the world's great powers.

While it probably is often given more credit then it is really due, the feeling among many in the Japanese high command was that the American's were particularly soft, pleasure loving people. This belief probably helped a tiny bit in convincing some Japanese commanders that their long term strategy would succeed.

I'd recommend reading "Power at Sea" by Lisle Abbott Rose if you have access to a university's inter-library database.

Thanks user. I will see if I can find the book.

Japan's war projections were based around the assumption that America wouldn't have the stomach for a prolonged war, and would give up after a year, two tops, before that industrial advantage could come into play.

>They could have kept on going even if the Americans continued to embargo them
Almost certainly not. They needed oil to run that fleet, and without it, the only real source was the NEI (Nowadays Indonesia). They were pretty certain that attacking the Dutch would lead to war; the last time they expropriated a defeated European power's colony got them the embargo in the first place.

>Also why did Hitler declare war on the US after Pearl Harbor?
Because he was already fighting an undeclared war over U.S. lend-lease efforts.

>into a war Americans wanted to avoid?
America wasn't quite eager for war, but they were trending towards intervening in Europe for a while; every month post the fall of Paris has more and more Americans leaning towards intervention or outright war than the last one according to contemporary Gallup polls.

It was a matter of when, not if.

We ain't soft we showed em yup.

Imperialist arrogance obviously. The Japanese really did think and still do think that they are a master race of people that can get away with anything.

Making ships took at least took one year carriers took even more. So if they managed to destroy their pacific fleet they would have free rein in asia for 2 years at least.

>Be Japan
>Strongest power in Western Pacific
>Only other power that can lay claim to the Pacific is the United States so you already can foresee a conflict in the future.
>Japan was militarized and the United States, thanks to the Great Depression and democrat rule, had an unprepared military. Pearl Harbor kept most of the United States Navy in the Pacific
>Attack Pearl Harbor
>Expect to attack Midway, ending all the American Navy influence in the Pacific

>Now, be America
>Military unprepared for war
>Be more focused on the European Front than on Japan

I hope this helps. Two thorough and under-the-radar attacks on Pearl Harbor and Midway would've put the Americans out of the game. Japan had every reason to attack Pearl Harbor (and they almost got away with Midway if it weren't for some rare occurrences- for more details I recommend watching the movie "Midway" with Tom Sellick and Charleton Heston, its super long but historically accurate).

Don't believe all this nonsense about how Pearl Harbor was a false flag to get in the war. There are too many people with similar first hand accounts (including my own great uncle who swore on fhe bible and was a religious man). If America was going to plant a false flag, it would've been against Germany, not Japan. And Japan had every reason to attack Pearl Harbor.

The false flag memers are more saying the government let it happen, which they kind of did by ignoring all sorts of aggressive Japanese actions

At the time America was still seen as being a traditionally isolationist nation, and the Japanese thought that the US wouldn't actually risk total war with them and ultimately strike peace after a couple of years into the war after some losses. Instead those losses galvanized the American public into support of international war efforts and catapulted America into being a directly interventionist nation. Basically the result was completely the opposite of what they expected.

>Two of the 7 American pre-war carriers are based in Pearl, so even if you get both of them, you're at most knocking out 1/3 of their naval aviation (The Ranger couldn't really do Pacific patrols)
>There is of course a big difference between a raiding port strike and invading and occupying the island; there was zero chance whatsoever of knocking out Pearl Harbor the port short of a ground invasion, which would be absurd to contemplate, given the distances from their nearest bases in the Marshalls and the rather large land garrison in Hawaii.
>If you're talking about the Battle of Midway, you again have no invasion fleet, so you're running up against the same problem. A few hundred CVP at most cannot destroy a port and keep it out of action for very long, as evidenced by the difficulty the British had knocking out the French ports under German occupation when bombing them with planes that have about 7 times the payload as a Kate.

Protip: You should actually read publications and books, not watch movies for your history.

Would it surprise you to know that Hitler also thought the Americans were soft, and therefore declaring war would be no big deal.

Hitler was retarded when it came to warfare, no surprise there.

The Japanese did have an invasion fleet at the battle of Midway though in my opinion the US garrison could have repelled it.