(April 28, 2011 at 10:04 am)Zen Badger Wrote: (April 28, 2011 at 9:17 am)Gawdzilla Wrote: Taking on the Russians while the Japanese were undefeated would have been madness.
Not really, at least as far as the Japanese were concerned, they were only a few months away from defeat anyway.
True in hindsight, but at the time we thought it would be 1946 before Japan was subdued. Remember, on May 8th, 1945 we hadn't exploded the first atomic bomb yet.
Quote:Don't forget Admiral Yamamato's comments that if they didn't win in 6 months they were doomed.
And he was right.
"If we go to war, I will run wild for six months to a year. After that I guarantee nothing." Hardly "doomed".
Quote:One could make the valid claim that the WORST thing the Japanese did was attack Pearl Harbor.
If they had just gone ahead and attacked in Malaysia etc,thereby attacking the possesions of colonial powers that were occupied by the Germans or too busy fighting in Europe to effectively deal with them, it would have made for easy conquests.
Roosevelt would've struggled to make a case for war in the face of the strong isolationist movement in the U.S.
There was no "strong isolationist movement" in the US at the time. Care to look at the Gallup Polls for '39-'45?
Quote:Pearl Harbour united America in a way that no amount of propaganda could ever have done( and for the cost of three obsolete ships,quite cheap when you think about it)
Gee, I guess the ~2,500 dead men, women and children don't count in the tally then?
