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Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

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Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#101

Post by zhte415 »

sirkneeland wrote: post #83
powera wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to completely ignoring Japan's wars of invasion against China, Korea, Indochina, and basically every border other than "America" first. Or for that matter, the rest of World War II which had been going on for over a year.

2 years, really. It kicked off in late 1939 with the German invasion of Poland, subsequent declarations of war by Britain and France, and then an awkward months-long period of shuffling about known as the "Phony War".

Pedantry?

Japan's intrusions and occupations of Korea and China lasted decades before 'it kicked off in late 1939'.

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#102

Post by newjersey »

stickfigure wrote: post #97
dctoedt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By "out of their depth" do we mean "dumber than six pounds of gravel"? There's no excuse for the Japanese militarists' infliction of millions of deaths and untold suffering, but please keep in mind that they were doing the best they knew how at the time with the hand they were dealt (genetics, education, training, experience, social pressures, etc.), in a situation with enormous risks for their nation, which they b…

There's no excuse for Adolf Hitler's infliction of millions of deaths and untold suffering, but please keep in mind that he was doing the best he knew how at the time with the hand he was dealt (genetics, education, training, experience, social pressures, etc.), in a situation with enormous risks for his nation, which he believed to be on his shoulders. I'm curious what if anything you know of such pressures. Seems l…

Or in case of Germany, zero risk because hyperinflation after the treaty meant Germany didn't have much to lose and a lot to gain.

Blame Hitler all you want but England and France are ultimately responsible for WWII.

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#103

Post by newjersey »

arrayjumper wrote: post #88
twoodfin wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious: Which brutal dictators are currently receiving U.S. arms? With Mubarak gone I can't come up with any. The Saudis? Hard to describe what they're running (or at least barely managing) as a dictatorship.

Pakistan? Their democracy is a joke. The military holds all the power as evidenced by the multiple military coups in their past

Knowing nothing about Pakistan, don't the coups demonstrate the lack of power military holds? If I was a military chief, I'd rather prefer to steer policy from the background assuming I had any real influence. Not saying you're wrong. I'm trying to understand...

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#104

Post by usrusr »

hibikir wrote: post #35
rquantz wrote: post #2

And untold millions died because of Japanese leaders' cautious stupidity. It seems like there are lessons to be learned here? Let's start with, whenever there are positions that are culturally unspeakable, you have a problem. Perhaps another is, whatever idiocy a foreign nation's leaders are spouting, it's a good bet nobody actually wants war ( cough cough Putin )

This is a problem in all organizations, not just governments. Few things predict failure better than an environment where criticism and negative feedback are suppressed, often because it's seen as not nice, or uncivilized. I've seen startups fail because big problems were readily visible and understood by most of the staff, but people were terrified to talk about them. By the time people were aware of how widely shar…

Or to phrase it in a slightly different way: followers ignoring their own judgement to root for ideas they think their leaders might like, combined with leaders trusting an overwhelming agreement between their followers more than their own initial opinion. It's a feedback loop than could even pick up random noise and amplify it to the level of ideology, if it wasn't for preexisting cultural seeds that have a headstart over that random noise. It would not even need the often cited climate of fear to work, even though that would certainly "help" a lot (and should therefore certainly be avoided): a uniform wish to get ahead, strictly positive reinforcement, should already be sufficient to make an organization collectively believe funny stuff none of the individuals would ever believe on their own.

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#105

Post by dctoedt »

stickfigure wrote: post #97
dctoedt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By "out of their depth" do we mean "dumber than six pounds of gravel"? There's no excuse for the Japanese militarists' infliction of millions of deaths and untold suffering, but please keep in mind that they were doing the best they knew how at the time with the hand they were dealt (genetics, education, training, experience, social pressures, etc.), in a situation with enormous risks for their nation, which they b…

There's no excuse for Adolf Hitler's infliction of millions of deaths and untold suffering, but please keep in mind that he was doing the best he knew how at the time with the hand he was dealt (genetics, education, training, experience, social pressures, etc.), in a situation with enormous risks for his nation, which he believed to be on his shoulders. I'm curious what if anything you know of such pressures. Seems l…

I'm saying:

1. it's better to understand who and what you're dealing with, especially when it's a mortal adversary whom you might have to fight to the death;

2. the older I get, the less judgmental I get about other people personally, because I really do believe everybody does the best they know how --- and that's true even though very often I don't accept (and might be more than willing to fight against) what they regard as "the best"; and

3. I'm mindful of the words of a very wise, first-century Middle Eastern sage [1] who urged us to love our enemies [2].

[1] http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/11/benjamin_frankl.... (self-cite).

[2] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205:43-...

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#106

Post by dctoedt »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #100
dctoedt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By "out of their depth" do we mean "dumber than six pounds of gravel"? There's no excuse for the Japanese militarists' infliction of millions of deaths and untold suffering, but please keep in mind that they were doing the best they knew how at the time with the hand they were dealt (genetics, education, training, experience, social pressures, etc.), in a situation with enormous risks for their nation, which they b…

Certainly the situation as a whole was quite complex, but when you get down to the details, dctoedt specifically asserts that there were people who thought the US would roll over and cower if attacked once, and if that is true, then those people were bloody great idiots. If it's not literally true, then perhaps they were something else.

> dctoedt specifically asserts that there were people who thought the US would roll over and cower if attacked once

For the record, that overstates what I said, which I hope was a bit more nuanced than that.

Certainly the Japanese militarists, as a whole, decided to roll the dice that the outcome would not be "An enraged U.S. will counterattack us until our way of life is destroyed." It doesn't necessarily follow that there were those among them who thought, "The US will roll over and cower if we can just take out their battleships at Pearl Harbor."

(Of course, some Japanese militarists had an overly-exalted regard for Japanese military virtue and prowess. So it does seem likely that there were indeed some militarists, especially junior officers, who held the latter view, and yes, that view proved fatally naïve.)

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#107

Post by dctoedt »

adventured wrote: post #89
qbrass wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also skips over the part where they failed to kick the British out of Canada.

The US never tried to take over the territory later called Canada, whether to annex it or to remove the British. There was never a war declared for that purpose, the US never mobilized its full military toward that aim, there was never a large amount of financing raised to pay for such an immense effort, and so on. There's zero evidence to support the notion that US planned to try to accomplish that outcome. At best…

> The US never tried to take over the territory later called Canada, whether to annex it or to remove the British.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Canada_(1775)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812#Invasions_of_Upper...

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#108

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

WW II was probably the last big colonial war - where the objective of the warring parties/world powers was to gain or defend direct control over territories and natural resources. I find it is such a pity that the world did not figure out a couple of decades earlier that it is cheaper to buy raw materials rather than to kill dozens of millions in a war over those damned resources; so many lives would have been saved;

What have the Americans ever done for us? Post WWII American leadership brought us decolonization; i think that this was a really significant change; one of the biggest changes of the twentieth century...

Re: Why Japanese leaders attacked Pearl Harbor

#110

Post by merpnderp »

twoodfin wrote: post #87
merpnderp wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An absolute disgrace that so many monstrously evil war criminals were let off after the war. But the US is currently shipping weapons and money to brutal dictators in several countries in a horrible display of RealPolitik, so not much has changed.

I'm genuinely curious: Which brutal dictators are currently receiving U.S. arms? With Mubarak gone I can't come up with any. The Saudis? Hard to describe what they're running (or at least barely managing) as a dictatorship.

Army chief el-sisi, who deposed the last elected leader is now the new "elected" leader. When it comes to words like "iron fisted" "tyrannical" "repressive" el-Sisi makes Mubarak like your friendly mailman. But Obama supports him, so I guess that doesn't matter for most people (not speaking for you).
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