On this day 80 years ago, Imperial Japan dealt the US Navy a devastating defeat at Pearl Harbor. Four days later, Hitler declared war on the USA as well. This is widely considered his “most puzzling” decision in the war, but he had clear motivations. Our perception of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany says a lot about us.
Motivation 1: Hitler wanted to declare war first
Hitler wanted a position of strength, no matter how imaginary it was. Roosevelt was supporting the UK in just about every conceivable way, sending Lend-Lease shipments, and even ordering American ships to open fire on any U-boat they spotted. In a Gallup poll taken shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack, 90% of Americans supported a declaration of war against Germany for their role in promoting Japanese aggression. By declaring war first, Hitler’s government could maintain public perception that everything was going to plan and defeating the USA’s “Jewish” government was simply the next item on the agenda.
Motivation 2: A chance to wage unrestricted submarine warfare
Up until this point, Hitler had refrained from retaliating against American attacks and allowed Lend-Lease convoys to pass by mostly unimpeded to Great Britain. With his final decision to declare war, Hitler gave up trying to avoid provoking the USA and launched devastating attacks against American shipping in the Atlantic. He was optimistic this would be enough to finally break the back of the British Empire and knock them out of the war.
Motivation 3: Hitler had just lost the Battle of Moscow
By the end of November, Operation Typhoon, under the command of Gen. Heinz Guderian, had clearly failed. On December 5, Soviet counteroffensives began and Nazi Germany was in serious trouble. To be honest, nothing else happening in the world was particularly important in comparison. But thanks to declaring war against the USA, Hitler made an inspiring speech in the Reichstag and everyone felt better.
Apparently, Hitler’s speech wasn’t quite inspiring enough. Guderian disobeyed orders and retreated, losing ground that there was no realistic chance of recovering. On December 25, Hitler relieved Guderian for cowardice, and the rest is history.
Motivation 4: Imperial Japan was a logical ally against both the USA and the Soviet Union
Hitler was not contractually obligated to come to Japan’s defense when Japan herself was the aggressor. Instead of trying to come up with other reasons, let’s just Occam’s Razor this and suggest that Hitler sided with Japan against the USA because there was no reason not to. Imperial Japan could, hopefully, tie up or even defeat the US Navy in the Pacific. Though the Soviet Union did not go to war with Japan until August 1945, the Japanese presence in China tied down a large chunk of the Red Army for the duration of the war.
It is true that Imperial Japan lost the Pacific War, but this doesn’t in any way make Hitler’s decision a mistake. American Lend-Lease shipments to the Soviet Union certainly helped, but the crucial time period in June-November of 1941 was already over. While the Japanese lost, they did apparently tie up American resources for a respectable timeframe. The Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, were a long time coming. American intervention in the European theater was a huge help to be sure, but did not change the outcome. Hitler had already lost WWII before Pearl Harbor even happened.
Why would anyone consider Hitler’s declaration of war on the USA a blunder at all? This was a perfectly logical decision on his part, but our perception that he was being stupid is dependent on several myths.
Myth 1: The USA was much stronger than Imperial Japan
To debunk this silly stereotype, start by looking at a map. Japan isn’t a collection of teeny tiny islands, it’s a big place. In 1941, Imperial Japan had a population of more than 74 million people, and that was just in Japan proper. At its peak in 1943, Imperial Japan ruled 20% of the world and more than 460 million people. That’s more people than Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States combined.
That said, Imperial Japan had two serious weaknesses which cost them the war. The first problem was that their economy was dependent on imports, not just energy, but raw resources in general. Imperial Japan couldn’t withstand siege conditions.
By the end of the war the major heavy industries had been reduced to a state of near idleness. In mid-1945 the coal supply was only 56
-Richard Lee Krause, The Iron and Steel Industry in Wartime Japan, 1931-1945
percent of its wartime peak. Imports of coking coal from North China and Manchuria had been cut off. The supply of electrodes for the production of electric steel was almost gone because graphite from the mainland could no longer be brought in. Ingot steel production, which by mid-1945 had dropped to a rate of 2,900,000 tons per annum, compared to a 1943 peak of 7,800,000 tons, appeared certain to drop below 1,500,000 tons as the full effects of the shortages and damages to the industrial plants were felt in production.
The major cause of this appalling condition in the heavy industries was to the combined Allied attack on Japanese raw materials and their supply lines. As the Allied blockade had drawn tighter and tighter around Japan proper, access even to the nearby resources of Manchukuo, Korea and North China across the presumed inviolable Japan Sea had been attacked and all but stopped.
The cumulative effects of the Allied attack on shipping and the mining of ports were the predominant reasons for the poor condition of the Japanese heavy industries at the end of the war.One cannot improvise in these industries; bulk materials must move in unceasing volume, 24-hour-a-day operation is a necessity, and when the whole operation began to break down owing to a lack of raw materials, it is reflected in the war potential of Japan.
Even otherwise worthwhile Hollywood films like Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor tend to depict the 1941 Japanese as quaint villages of people living in paper huts. It’s easy to watch those movies and be baffled by how Imperial Japan could ever be crazy enough to start a war with anyone, let alone the USA. On the contrary, Imperial Japan was a world power in every sense of the word. Their downfall was not caused by a lack of factories to produce more ships, planes, and weapons. Their downfall wasn’t even caused by factories being destroyed. American blockades cut off Japan’s supply of raw materials, and those factories ended up sitting idle, completely useless.
Imperial Japan had another and arguably more serious weakness; people. Just having a large population on paper isn’t enough. As of 1939, the British Empire ruled 550 million people. But the vast majority of those inhabitants were slaves who had no interest in dying for their Anglo masters. Imperial Japan encountered the same issue. Conquered enemies, local collaborators, and slaves can’t be counted on to enthusiastically defend the empire. They can’t even be safely given weapons. Only the Japanese could be counted on to defend the Japanese empire; the large majority of those 460 million subjects were either not particularly helpful or an outright liability.
Remember that assumption was applied to the Soviet Union and USA. The Germans thought they could invade the Soviet Union and be greeted as liberators. Initially, the holocaust was meant to take place over decades, and only after the war was safely won. Up until June 1941, the Nazis were used to fighting people who surrendered immediately, and were astonished to run up against serious resistance for the first time. Likewise, the Japanese had no reason to believe that America’s large black and immigrant populations would willingly fight to defend the country from attack. Those assumptions turned out to be wrong, but they weren’t crazy to believe either.
I would go so far as to say those dictators in 1941 were smarter than us. They were wrong, but not stupid. We are stupid. I read senior military officers who say fundamentally ridiculous things, like (Ret.) Army Lt. Col. Alex Vershinin. In his article for War on the Rocks, he talks about European “partisans” helping NATO in a war against Russia. Does Vershinin actually believe that people in the European Union pseudostate will eagerly die in the tens of millions to secure vague American geopolitical interests? Guys like Vershinin were astonished that people weren’t willing to die defending the pseudostates we left in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and will continue to be surprised no matter how many times it happens.
Myth 2: The Pacific War was a onesided fight
Logically, one would think that the Pearl Harbor attack by itself would be sufficient evidence that Imperial Japan was a powerful and competent war machine. But in the popular media at least, we collectively dismiss Pearl Harbor as a sneaky sneak attack, so it doesn’t count. It was very rude for Imperial Japan to attack America without informing us of their plans ahead of time. And of course, the West never does sneak attacks on people.
Aside from the Pearl Harbor attack, most Hollywood films focus on the Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway and their doomed island defenses during and after the Guadalcanal campaign. As a result, when Americans ponder the Pacific theater, we imagine little yellow men in suicidal Bonzai charges against machine guns (yes, that does sound kind of racist when you think about it).
Remember that during the Pearl Harbor raid, Japanese forces simultaneously attacked the Phillippines, Guam, and Wake Island. Gen. Douglas MacArthur seemed to believe that the “Japs” were too stupid and genetically stunted to pose a threat. How surprised he must have been when they defeated his entire force in the Phillippines with almost no effort at all. American GIs nicknamed MacArthur “Dugout Doug” and made up a less than complimentary poem about him. Under Macarthur’s outstanding leadership, 100,000 American and Filipino service members were captured, the worst defeat in American history. This was a hard time for Dugout Doug, but fortunately, he learned absolutely nothing and made the same mistake again in the opening phase of the Korean War, the second-worst defeat in American history.
Here’s a personal detail about Dugout Doug that many people don’t know; he wanted to become President of the United States. One advantage he had is that very few of his soldiers survived, so couldn’t vote against him.
In fairness to Dugout Doug, the British didn’t do any better against Imperial Japan. They actually performed worse. In February 1942, Japanese troops landed in Singapore, where the British garrison outnumbered them by more than two to one. Winston Churchill sent a message to Lt. Gen. Ernest Percival pretty much begging him to not give up, but he surrendered anyway. Japan captured 80,000 allied soldiers almost without a fight, making the fall of Singapore the worst defeat in British history.
Even after their serious losses at Midway, Imperial Japan got their licks in sometimes. The Battle of Savo Island in August 1942 was the worst naval defeat in American history, besides Pearl Harbor.
Imperial Japan gave black eyes to both Anglo empires of the time. This should be enough to prove they were a serious world power and it wasn’t irrational for Hitler to want to be on their side.
Myth 4: Strength and goodness are the same thing
I’m not saying Imperial Japan was good, any more than Hitler was good. Nor am I saying they didn’t commit genocide and other horrendous atrocities. The very fact I even have to say that highlights the problem with American culture, and why it is almost impossible for us to properly analyze history. As a collective, we can’t look at the past from a perspective of morality. We’re only capable of recognizing power dynamics.
We can’t just say “Imperial Japan was morally wrong and we were morally right, so it is good that we won.” No, we have to invent a narrative that we were vastly stronger than Imperial Japan, whether or not that statement has any basis in reality. Furthermore, Japanese atrocities did not in any way justify American atrocities. And yet, we seem to like assuring ourselves that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were good because that was the most convenient way to win the war.
This cultural defect becomes even more obvious when looking at discussions of conflicts after World War II. At face value, the USA was the bad guy in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Also at face value, it also looks like the USA lost both of those wars. North Korea is still independent, and the colonial government in Vietnam collapsed completely. But no, see, we actually won, and we were the good guys. Why? Because we had more firepower and killed more people. That’s literally what every historical discussion degenerates to. The American military completely and utterly destroyed North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, but not only is this somehow justifiable it proves that the USA is the best because we were strong enough to saturate entire nations with bombs. The narrative is that strength and goodness are the same thing, and it is very tiring for me.
Our whole understanding of World War II is very silly and nasty, and it has poisoned our perceptions of almost everything else too, including what’s happening right in front of our noses.
Speaking of the good guys, whatever became of Guderian? He did alright for himself. The USA refused to extradite him to the Soviet Union to stand trial. Instead, he lived a quiet retired life in Germany, taking credit for inventing Blitzkrieg, downplaying the Holocaust, painting the Nazi regime as the “defenders of Europe” against the Soviet Union, and is celebrated as a military genius to this day.
Operational art is a vital link between the national and theater strategic objective and tactical combat…The very essence of operational art is to win decisively ~ achieving the strategic aim, while avoiding a costly attrition war
Lt. Cdr. John Mengel, US Naval War College
An Analysis of the Operational Leadership of General Heinz Guderian
The big guy couldn’t have said it better himself. Good job, Gen. Guderian!
Image Source: Encyclopedia Britannica
Ian Kummer
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fake : roosevelt pay tojo for attack pearl harbor
fake : roosevelt pay tojo for attack pearl harbor