Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor

By late 1941, the Japanese Empire had found itself in an untenable position. Its hyper-expansionist policies and steady encroachment into the South Pacific and southeast Asia made it vulnerable to ongoing military confrontations and economic sanctions, including those from the U.S., Britain, and the Netherlands (the U.S. ceased oil exports to Japan earlier that year). What's more, the U.S. was actively providing military aid to China. At this stage in the war, Japan had two options: either pull out of its recently occupied territories (including China) or grab new sources of raw materials in the resource rich European colonies of Southeast Asia.

When the infamous attack came on December 7, 1941, the Japanese achieved a limited victory; American aircraft carriers were out at sea on exercises and were untouched by the assault. These same carriers would strike a crushing blow to the Japanese fleet a mere six months later at the Battle of Midway. But more to the point, the U.S. was officially in the war. The Japanese could not handle the ensuing onslaught, nor could it keep up with U.S. production rates. Or its level of technology, as witnessed by the dropping of two atomic bombs in 1945.

It's an open question as to whether or not the U.S. would have entered the war against the Japanese had Pearl Harbor not happened (say, after an invasion of the Philippines). It's safe to say, however, that a strategic pull-back (and not even necessarily a large one), rather than a major offensive, was Japan's most prudent course of action. But it was a lesson the Japanese would never learn, as witnessed by its perpetual over-extension in the Pacific, a problem exemplified by its catastrophic defeat at Guadalcanal in early 1943.