I was wondering, did the Japanese take the right option?
As part of the Axis pact Why couldn't they just declare war on Britain and the Netherlands and then attack Malaya and East Indies and Australia? Their ultimate goals were oil, rubber,and raw materials,I think they could have given the Philippines or any other American base a wide berth.

America put the oil sanctions on when the Japanese moved into French Indo China [virtually guaranteeing war], but made no other move.

Of course the Japanese would be taking a big chance of America declaring war and hitting them with the Pacific fleet and they weren't prepaired to take that chance.

But would America have declared war?

Bloody oath they didn't.

I think there were some Japanese at the time who thought attacking Pearl Harbour was completely crazy as it would bring the US up against them.

I agree with you Ashes. They should have taken some other options. I guess the tantalizing chance of destroying most of the US fleet and so keeping the US out of the western Pacific was just too great an attraction for the Japanese High Command.

a lot of things could have happened in the past, but the moment the government became overly greedy; everything started to go down hill.

I think Japan should have not attacked the US because at the time the US had an Isolationist attitude and would probably not have entered the war until much later. If Japan had waited it would have not been seriously hurt.

They could have at least attacked while the carriers were there... But the whole idea was hairbrained in the first place.

That would have been a more sensible route, but evidently they thought their gains would not hold unless they knocked out the US. Perhaps they had a fear of the "white races" sticking together, and underestimated the very real differences even between the US and the British.

I think that if a war would rage across the Pacific and all American possesions would be ringed by Japanese waters it wouldn't exatly favour the Americans. If these had happened there would surley also be enough "incidents" or Lusitanias for the USA to go to war.

And when they did they would probably still have the entire Pacific fleet

The Axis was planning a joint invasion of the Soviet Union. If Japan would have attacked the Soviet Union when Germany did, instead of the United States, the Red Army wouldn't have been able to stop them. Great Britain may have been the only country fighting the Axis. America might not have gotten into the war because we were still being isolationists. So no, they didn't make the right choice.

They made a very poor choice. But you must remember that the Japanese were affraid of the Russians after Zukuv gave them a beating once...

The Axis was planning a joint invasion of the Soviet Union. If Japan would have attacked the Soviet Union when Germany did, instead of the United States, the Red Army wouldn't have been able to stop them.

That's the key. If Japan would of launched an invasion of Siberia in late 1941, they would have either fought Zhukov and stopped him from reaching Moscow with his Army, or they would have walked in unopposed cause Zhukov's researve would have already been commited. I've heard things saying the Japanese struck at pearl because they wanted the US out of the war before it began, that is to say some top people in Imperial Japan must have thought the US would have hit preeptivly if an invasion of the USSR came to be. [/i]