Historically, a lot of military action is preemptive. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was a preemptive move in their eyes. Imagine how Americans would feel if

Historically, a lot of military action is preemptive. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was a preemptive move in their eyes. Imagine how Americans would feel if Russia established a huge military base halfway between Russia and America in the middle of the ocean somewhere. Now imagine that nuclear weapons don't exist. In that scenario, a preemptive strike might start to make sense to a lot of people in America. That's pretty much how Japan felt about Hawaii before Pearl Harbor. I'm not justifying Japan's attack. It was a horrible tragedy. But it's totally understandable, if not laudable.