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The headline doesn't square with everything I've ever read about the attack. Embarrassment was at best a minor factor in the Japanese thinking. The major fact

by dctoedt 11y ago

The headline doesn't square with everything I've ever read about the attack. Embarrassment was at best a minor factor in the Japanese thinking. The major factor, IIRC, was that certain military officers -- many of them belonging to (or fearful of) a murderous ultranationalist faction -- had come to dominate the Japanese government [1]. These military men: + wanted to strike south to secure desperately-needed sources of oil, rubber, and other resources for their war machine (an alternative they debated was to invade Siberia); + felt that for a strike south to succeed, they had to neutralize both the U.S. Pacific Fleet and the American bases in the Philippines, from which the U.S. surface fleet, submarines, and air forces could have caused serious problems for Japan's maritime supply lines from Southeast Asia; and + perhaps most importantly, were out of their depth when it came to assessing a political risk, namely the extent to which a surprise attack would bring down on them the implacable fury of an enraged and industrially-powerful United States. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_militarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_militarism

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
oblio 11y ago
> an alternative they debated was to invade Siberia You're too polite. They did try that. There were minor skirmishes along the Soviet-Japanese border before WW2, they were close to an actual war. But the Japanese Army got smashed so that idea was scrapped. The other faction vying for power then gained favor and they headed south.
jordanb 11y ago
I've read the linked book[0] and you're right that the headline gets it wrong. It should have said that the decision to attack Pearl Harbor was the result of Face-saving among the Japanese military leadership. To summarize: The US had embargoed Japan and was demanding that the army (IJA) withdraw to its pre-war Manchurian borders in China. The IJA needed American goods to prosecute the war but such withdrawal would result in an utter loss of face for the IJA. The IJA instead proposed that the US and Dutch be attacked and goods be secured from American and Dutch colonies (Philippines and Indonesia) to fight the war in China. This would chiefly be a Naval war and thus executed by the IJN. The IJA hoped to force the IJN to share in its loss of face by admitting it wasn't powerful enough to fight the USN. But the Admirals refused to publicly admit that they couldn't fight the USN (privately they lobbied the Emperor and his subordinates to intervene). Through this impasse between the service branches the Japanese government drifted towards a war they knew they couldn't win. [0] http://www.amazon.com/Japan-1941-Countdown-Eri-Hotta/dp/0307594017 http://www.amazon.com/Japan-1941-Countdown-Eri-Hotta/dp/0307...
duaneb 11y ago
I've been reading Dower's"Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II" and I think embarrassment is a significant factor, though this is not exclusive with your explanations. While the nation as a whole may not exhibit signs of shame, the Japanese culture at the time seemed to encourage the direction of moral responsibility upwards. So while (particularly) the need for oil can't be overstated in this case, I think that there was a degree of self-consciousness that DID characterize the actions of the upper military acting on pressure from those "beneath" them. I don't think the pressure was directly to attack, but there was enough power concentrated in the hands of the few that their decisions were allowed to be implemented rapidly and without much resistance.
rangibaby 11y ago
They did try invading Soviet territory, but got slapped so badly by Zhukov that they gave up. Permenantly; the Soviets were able to send all of their military forces west when their spy in Japan confirmed that the latter had no plans to attack them. Some important Japanese politicians did anything they could to stop war with the USA (Mamoru Shigemitsu, a pacifist, and Fumimaro Konoye, who considered an attack on the USA to be a very bad idea) but the militarists had the ear of the emperor, and kool aid was drunk.
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
> + perhaps most importantly, were out of their depth when it came to assessing a political risk, namely the extent to which a surprise attack would bring down on them the implacable fury of an enraged and industrially-powerful United States. By "out of their depth" do we mean "dumber than six pounds of gravel"? I admit that the fantasy that slapping someone in the face will instantly cow them, instead of provoking angry retaliation, is a common one in history, but I don't think that makes it any less stupid given the historical evidence. (See also Every Terrorist Ever, with the exception of the ones who want to provoke angry retaliation.)
- dctoedt 11y ago
  > 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 believed to be on their shoulders. I'm curious what if anything you know of such pressures.
  - stickfigure 11y ago
    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 like you can plug just about any name you want into this paragraph. What are you trying to say?
    - newjersey 11y ago
      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.
Spooky23 11y ago
The article and the commenters here vastly underestimate the weakness of the US strategic position and the initial advantage that the IJN had. They institutionally understood and embraced the new reality of carrier and air warfare. The reality is that the Philippines were incredibly vulnerable and run by a General who was not so effective. Ditto the fossils living in WW1 dreadnought world on the Navy side. Had fate turned ever so slightly at Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, or Midway, the great gamble made by the Japanese would have been genius. The embarrassment and face saving nonsense killed them not in 1941, but in 1943, when they followed through on a fools errand instead of settling for peace. Once the US industrial power was mobilized, the result was pretty certain.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- hga 11y ago
  Had fate turned ever so slightly at Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, or Midway, the great gamble made by the Japanese would have been genius. The embarrassment and face saving nonsense killed them not in 1941, but in 1943, when they followed through on a fools errand instead of settling for peace. Once the US industrial power was mobilized, the result was pretty certain. Disagree strongly. The way those battles turned just sped up the destruction of Imperial Japan---and if you expect every battle to go your way, you're a damned fool. The surprise attack, their brutality in war, plus our memory of how WWI did not end in a lasting peace, made sure settling for a peace was not an option by 1943. By the time we were focusing on the home islands with Operations Starvation and Downfall, plus the fruits of the Manhattan Project, the details of the Bataan Death March unquestionably revealed by the liberation of the Philippines ... well, it really sucked to be Japanese by then. But not hardly so bad as the subject people in the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, which they were killing at a rate of 400,000 per month by then. I'm finishing reading Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947 http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Pay-Operation-Downfall-1945-1947/dp/1591143160/ http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Pay-Operation-Downfall-1945-1947/... and it's really sobering. Olympic as planned, the invasion of southern Kyuushu, wasn't going to work, and with Marshall pushing for all nuclear weapons after Nagasaki to be earmarked for it, and liberal use of poison gas, it would have made Okinawa look like a walk in the park. And there's no way Coronet, the planned March invasion of the Kanto plane in Honshu that includes Tokyo would have happened on schedule before the weather made it impractical. Yet we were absolutely determined to see it through, one way or another, with as many as a million of our men dying the process.
dang 11y ago
Ok, we changed the headline to the more generic HTML doc title.
- nkurz 11y ago
  For future reference, the previous title was "Japan attacked Pearl Harbor to avoid embarrassment", which is the title that appears at the top of the linked story. While clearly a proposition rather than a solid fact, I think it's an accurate summary of the thrust of the article.
  - _nedR 11y ago
    I think a lot of wars, murders, suicides, as well as a great many companies, inventions, organisations, movements happened at least partially to avoid embarrassment. In such cases, people prefer terms like "honour", "principle", "fear of failure", "perseverance", etc.
awfullyjohn 11y ago
I completely agree. The title is reductive.

by dctoedt 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

oblio 11y ago

> an alternative they debated was to invade Siberia You're too polite. They did try that. There were minor skirmishes along the Soviet-Japanese border before WW2, they were close to an actual war. But the Japanese Army got smashed so that idea was scrapped. The other faction vying for power then gained favor and they headed south.

jordanb 11y ago

I've read the linked book[0] and you're right that the headline gets it wrong. It should have said that the decision to attack Pearl Harbor was the result of Face-saving among the Japanese military leadership. To summarize: The US had embargoed Japan and was demanding that the army (IJA) withdraw to its pre-war Manchurian borders in China. The IJA needed American goods to prosecute the war but such withdrawal would result in an utter loss of face for the IJA. The IJA instead proposed that the US and Dutch be attacked and goods be secured from American and Dutch colonies (Philippines and Indonesia) to fight the war in China. This would chiefly be a Naval war and thus executed by the IJN. The IJA hoped to force the IJN to share in its loss of face by admitting it wasn't powerful enough to fight the USN. But the Admirals refused to publicly admit that they couldn't fight the USN (privately they lobbied the Emperor and his subordinates to intervene). Through this impasse between the service branches the Japanese government drifted towards a war they knew they couldn't win. [0] http://www.amazon.com/Japan-1941-Countdown-Eri-Hotta/dp/0307594017 http://www.amazon.com/Japan-1941-Countdown-Eri-Hotta/dp/0307...

duaneb 11y ago

I've been reading Dower's"Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II" and I think embarrassment is a significant factor, though this is not exclusive with your explanations. While the nation as a whole may not exhibit signs of shame, the Japanese culture at the time seemed to encourage the direction of moral responsibility upwards. So while (particularly) the need for oil can't be overstated in this case, I think that there was a degree of self-consciousness that DID characterize the actions of the upper military acting on pressure from those "beneath" them. I don't think the pressure was directly to attack, but there was enough power concentrated in the hands of the few that their decisions were allowed to be implemented rapidly and without much resistance.

rangibaby 11y ago

They did try invading Soviet territory, but got slapped so badly by Zhukov that they gave up. Permenantly; the Soviets were able to send all of their military forces west when their spy in Japan confirmed that the latter had no plans to attack them. Some important Japanese politicians did anything they could to stop war with the USA (Mamoru Shigemitsu, a pacifist, and Fumimaro Konoye, who considered an attack on the USA to be a very bad idea) but the militarists had the ear of the emperor, and kool aid was drunk.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago

> + perhaps most importantly, were out of their depth when it came to assessing a political risk, namely the extent to which a surprise attack would bring down on them the implacable fury of an enraged and industrially-powerful United States. By "out of their depth" do we mean "dumber than six pounds of gravel"? I admit that the fantasy that slapping someone in the face will instantly cow them, instead of provoking angry retaliation, is a common one in history, but I don't think that makes it any less stupid given the historical evidence. (See also Every Terrorist Ever, with the exception of the ones who want to provoke angry retaliation.)

dctoedt 11y ago
> 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 believed to be on their shoulders. I'm curious what if anything you know of such pressures.
- stickfigure 11y ago
  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 like you can plug just about any name you want into this paragraph. What are you trying to say?
  - newjersey 11y ago
    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.

Spooky23 11y ago

The article and the commenters here vastly underestimate the weakness of the US strategic position and the initial advantage that the IJN had. They institutionally understood and embraced the new reality of carrier and air warfare. The reality is that the Philippines were incredibly vulnerable and run by a General who was not so effective. Ditto the fossils living in WW1 dreadnought world on the Navy side. Had fate turned ever so slightly at Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, or Midway, the great gamble made by the Japanese would have been genius. The embarrassment and face saving nonsense killed them not in 1941, but in 1943, when they followed through on a fools errand instead of settling for peace. Once the US industrial power was mobilized, the result was pretty certain.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
hga 11y ago
Had fate turned ever so slightly at Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, or Midway, the great gamble made by the Japanese would have been genius. The embarrassment and face saving nonsense killed them not in 1941, but in 1943, when they followed through on a fools errand instead of settling for peace. Once the US industrial power was mobilized, the result was pretty certain. Disagree strongly. The way those battles turned just sped up the destruction of Imperial Japan---and if you expect every battle to go your way, you're a damned fool. The surprise attack, their brutality in war, plus our memory of how WWI did not end in a lasting peace, made sure settling for a peace was not an option by 1943. By the time we were focusing on the home islands with Operations Starvation and Downfall, plus the fruits of the Manhattan Project, the details of the Bataan Death March unquestionably revealed by the liberation of the Philippines ... well, it really sucked to be Japanese by then. But not hardly so bad as the subject people in the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, which they were killing at a rate of 400,000 per month by then. I'm finishing reading Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947 http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Pay-Operation-Downfall-1945-1947/dp/1591143160/ http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Pay-Operation-Downfall-1945-1947/... and it's really sobering. Olympic as planned, the invasion of southern Kyuushu, wasn't going to work, and with Marshall pushing for all nuclear weapons after Nagasaki to be earmarked for it, and liberal use of poison gas, it would have made Okinawa look like a walk in the park. And there's no way Coronet, the planned March invasion of the Kanto plane in Honshu that includes Tokyo would have happened on schedule before the weather made it impractical. Yet we were absolutely determined to see it through, one way or another, with as many as a million of our men dying the process.

dang 11y ago

Ok, we changed the headline to the more generic HTML doc title.

nkurz 11y ago
For future reference, the previous title was "Japan attacked Pearl Harbor to avoid embarrassment", which is the title that appears at the top of the linked story. While clearly a proposition rather than a solid fact, I think it's an accurate summary of the thrust of the article.
- _nedR 11y ago
  I think a lot of wars, murders, suicides, as well as a great many companies, inventions, organisations, movements happened at least partially to avoid embarrassment. In such cases, people prefer terms like "honour", "principle", "fear of failure", "perseverance", etc.

awfullyjohn 11y ago

I completely agree. The title is reductive.