Bias_2012 wrote on Jun 27
th, 2019 at 10:56pm:
Aussie wrote on Jun 27
th, 2019 at 8:31pm:
Fact is that Pearl Harbour was not some aggressive action against the US by the Japs to take America. It seems it was an attempt, after years of frustration, to get the yoke of US economic sanctions off their back.
The US didn't like Japan going into China so sanctions were imposed. But besides China, the Japs wanted to expand further south and south west. The Japs knew the US was unprepared for war but the US had war ships that could menace Japans efforts to take more islands and small nations in the south and south west Pacific
Pearl Harbour was just to knock out the US war ships. Japan was not worried about sanctions, they were going to get oil and rubber from Asia, booty from conquests
Japanese war aims were a little more obscure than that. The Japanese actually weren't interested initially in going anywhere, other than into Manchuria and from there, into Siberia. Japan had plans to invade or more appropriately, re-invade the fUSSR. Japan had been the last non-Communist interventionary force to vacate the newly establish fUSSR when it finally left in 1928 from Vladivostok. The UK, France, US and Japan had all in turn and basically seperatedly had invaded the fUSSR in 1918. They all eventually left because of domestic and international pressure to do so.
The Japanese decision to go south did not occur until about 6 months before the outbreak of the war in the Pacific. The Japanese decision was prompted by the US, UK and Dutch decisions to cut off oil to Japan until it withdrew from China. Indeed, the Imperial Japanese Army had not started training in Jungle Warfare until the decision to go south was made.
Japan had about 18 months of oil in reserve, six months if intensive combat operations were undertaken. Without oil, the Japanese economy would grind to a halt. The Japanese knew that the US would more than likely intervene if they were to attack the Dutch East Indies and Malaya in order to secure raw materials for themselves. So, the decision was also made to attack the US fleet at Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto came up with the plan to attack it in harbour, based upon the British attack at Taranto in Italy. If you ever watch the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" It is all explained in the first 20 minutes. For those more interested in the real history, there are numerous books on the topic.
Quote:The US would have learned a lesson from imposing those sanctions - to have a sizable military ready to act at a moments notice, just in case the sanctioned nation acted militarily against the them and/or other US friendly nations .... How prepared is the US military today?
Well, the US Navy was readied for war up to three months before the outbreak of war. It was patrolling to the North and West of Hawaii. However, with the approach of winter and a need to refurbish it's patrol units, the US Navy stood down it's patrols to the North, considering the North Pacific to become too rough for fleet operations. Guess where the Japanese fleet attacked from? The North. It crossed the North Pacific before the real rough weather and caught the US fleet unawares.
The surprise attack horrified the United States. It lives with the legacy of that attack today. It was reinforced by the Cold War and the fear of the ability of the fUSSR to mount a surprise attack on the US. This is why the US maintains a large body of troops, ships and aircraft at a high level of readiness. It was why it was able to respond so rapidly to the first Gulf War but even then, they had to wait three months for the weather to turn in their favour before mounting an offensive operation against the Iraqis.
Quote:It wasn't till the following April in 1942 did the US do something about the pesky Japanese - the Doolittle raid. In the meantime, Japan was invading Malaysia, Formosa, Hong Kong etc
It wasn't until April 1942 that the weather in the North Pacific had improved sufficiently to allow the US Navy to mount an operation against the Japanese home islands. Weather plays a much larger role than you appear to understand or believe in military operations.