What was the single worst idea in the history of war and why was it Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor?

What was the single worst idea in the history of war and why was it Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor?

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That's not a tenth as stupid as providing a ferry service to the Vandals to let them into North Africa.

*kills genghis khan emissary and his goons*

Sending 300,000 troops to Tunisia so they can get captured.

>heh hey guys maybe if we kill the hero of the people for the millionth time the Republic could be saved haha
>what could possibly go wrong?

*discovers america*

>US stops exporting oil to Japan for no reason at all
>implying this isn't a valid reason to go to war

That doesn't make it a good idea.

>relying on the oil of your enemies in order to survive
>acting all butthurt when they cut you off from their oil for attacking their allies

Well they weren't enemies before the U.S cut off the oil.

the worst part is that they kept doing it right up until the Western Empire was completely fucked and they still never thought "hey maybe if we stopped assassinating everyone who's fixing things, our situation might improve"

go away Molyneux

The Japanese didn’t have a choice.

In 1937, the Japanese invaded China to make sure the shipments of rice would continue as China descended into political chaos.

The truth is, Japan couldn’t feed itself, that’s why they needed to secure the Chinese rice.

The US government was completely and utterly unaware of this. US intelligence back then was worse than a joke, they literally got most of their information from the Encyclopædia Britannica.

So when the US and US Allies embargoed Japan and told them this embargo would continue until Japan evacuated China, the Japanese were left with no option.

Giving up China would have resulted in millions of people dying from starvation, obviously this was not an option. The US embargo however was strangling the Japanese economy. If Japan ran out of oil, the transport of rice from China to Japan would come to a halt … and millions would die.

So the only option left was war. Attack hard and fast, occupy as much territory as you can, then make peace with Britain, the Netherlands, and the US.

The Japanese intelligence on the US was a joke as well. The Japanese believed that since the US would not suffer direct economic effects from their attack (except for the damage done at Pearl), the US would look at it from a financial point of view. The Japanese really believed US policy was based on economic needs only, they believed the US would look at the attack on Pearl like an accountant and conclude that a long war was too costly.

The Japanese didn’t have any clue as to the nature of the American psyche, they really believed the US wouldn’t go for a long war … fatal mistake.

trips cont'd


Without modern techniques, the Japanese farmers could not increase production sufficiently. Japanese agriculture was fragmented, almost no tractors and no artificial fertilizers were available.

Expanding the agricultural base was not possible due to lack of available soil.

The grab for Manchuria was to get a power base on the continent, there is no question about that. But by 1937 the struggle between the Communist and the Nationalists had reached such levels that the rice shipments became endangered.

You should try to get a hold of the 1947 UN report (written in French) on the Second World War. It contains all the statistics you want.

Discovering fire was honestly the worst mistake humans have ever made

It was a good idea that could have worked if the carriers hadn't been elsewhere and more damage done to the fleet

>Our grain shipments are in danger
>This justifies us murdering millions

yeh no, Japs were cunts

please stop posting

It bought them the time they wanted, which was six months.

It wasn't that they especially 'wanted' six months, that was just the estimate they gave themselves.

The failure to destroy the carriers fucked them over hugely in later battles, and they didn't do enough damage to the remaining fleet to follow up the attack with a decisive knockout blow and make America consider peace.

Kills cyrus the greats emisssary

You should cease posting this pasta, it's been discredited in other threads.

Why is it that we have like 2 "what did japan do wrong" or similar treads per day, and why do they always get run into the ground by the "japan dindu nuffin/US started it"-posters? Almost makes me miss the Holocaust treads from last year

>So when the US and US Allies embargoed Japan and told them this embargo would continue until Japan evacuated China, the Japanese were left with no option.
The US embargoed Japan after they occupied Indochina, and they gave them warning about this.

The US had been trading with Japan all throughout their China war, so your post is quite false.

You can't "destroy" the carriers in harbor with the tech of the time, only sink them. They will be raised and fixed within months. Maybe sinking the 3 carriers that could have been there would've prevented the Doolittle Raid and made the Port Moresby invasion possible, but those advances would've been erased sooner or later. The only way Japan could've "won" was by taking hawaii.

>It bought them the time they wanted, which was six months.
No, it gave them nothing. Before the 6 months you claim, most of the Japanese fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor was lying at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, lad. Lurk more.

>Before the 6 months you claim, most of the Japanese fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor was lying at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, lad. Lurk more.
Midway was almost exactly 6 months from Pearl Harbor. Lurk more. Better yet, leave.

It was less than 6 months, lad. The 6 months you claimed never existed, as the Japanese attack fleet was destroyed within your fantasized 6 months.

You are quite a faggot.

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>The only way Japan could've "won" was by taking hawaii.
That's literally the point. They didn't do enough damage to the fleet and missed the carriers which meant they couldn't threaten Hawaii, hence they couldn't pressure the Americans into peace, which was the only realistic way to avoid defeat.

Yeah by 3 days. Way to admit you lost an argument by harping on pointless minutiae.

And 6 months later it got them a powerful nation with seemingly infinite resources and manpower hellbent on wiping nip asses from the face of the Earth.

Japanese faith in their 'unbreakable' codes was part of the mistake about Pearl, but it was a worse mistake.

Actually, the codes may have been unbreakable, and the code books were stolen by Lucy.

>Japanese faith in their 'unbreakable' codes was part of the mistake about Pearl,
In what way? Japanese plans were not compromised, and they achieved complete surprise with a large fleet that had to strike 2000 miles from their base.

> Be Paraguay
> Fight a war with Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay at the same time.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War

America had friendly relations with China and pledged as well to uphold France's holding in Indochina. The Roosevelt administration made its position on the matter clear to the Japanese yet Japan's aggression continued unabated provoking a measured economic response from America.

...

No but the battle plans for Midway were 100% compromised because if code beakers

Battle plans for Midway were compromised but not close to 100%, but what is your point? What does that have anything to do with Pearl Harbor or show that
>Japanese faith in their 'unbreakable' codes was part of the mistake about Pearl

Not that guy but midway was in fact essentially completely compromised. Americans knew that the attack on the Aleituans were a decoy and they knew from where the Japanese would attack midway and when. Maybe the only thing they didn't know was the total manpower

On Dec 7 the U.S. had built 4 machines capable of breaking what the U.S. called Purple codes. In peace time it was a low priority, but after Pearl it became a top priority project and became much more effective. Its success leading up to Pearl made the Japanese over-confident and over-reliant on it, and this causes them substantial losses. One U.S. gives it credit for how poorly the Japanese Submarine Fleet performed in WWII.

>t. Prometheus

what is the point of this burst of verbal diarrhea? were the Japanese plans for Pearl compromised? Are you so insecure that you can't just admit you made a stupid fucking post and leave it at that, instead of trying to drown your incompetence through volumeposting?

You are wrong. Read a book before you post.

Careful that chip does not break your shoulder. No, the Jap plans for Pearl (and other attacks that took place that day throughout the Pacific) were not compromised by the limited ability of the U.S. (and others) to break the Purple codes during peacetime. Had this not been so the Japs would have made a greater effort to make changes to Purple, which they did not do until it was too late. Op asked was there a greater mistake made by the Japs than Pearl. My answer is yes, and it was over-confidence in the Purple codes.