Most analysis of PH focus on America's underestimation of Japanese capabilities. This is only partially true, we knew the Japanese navy had considerable offensive strike capability. But because no reasonable person ever considered Japan capable of winning a war with the US, the attack on PH came as such a surprise because such a move was so obviously irrational. And though it was a tactical success it was irrational, the proof came over the course of the four following years.
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A strong demurral.
The notion that "no reasonable person ever considered Japan capable of wining a war w/the USA"
is so preposterous, it's goofy. Certainly the Japaneses did or were they all unreasonable louts???
And so a reflection.
Japan had adopted an isolationist foreign policy around 1630, for the express purpose of halting/eliminating the spread of Christianity in Japan from Portuguese and Spanish Missionaries;
the exception being trade relations w/China and the Dutch.
Then in 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry, under orders from Pres. Fillmore, sailed into Tokyo Bay
for the express purpose of opening diplomatic and trade relations w/the Empire of Japan.
That action triggered the Restoration of the Mejii Shogunate but much more importantly, in a very
brief period of time, it opened the eyes of Japan who looked North, South, East and West.
What they saw was a another Island nation/state comparable in size to theirs, in the North Atlantic;
Imperial Britain w/an Empire that spanned half the world.
Instantly they grasped the importance of Naval Power and the rest is history.
They structured a formidable Navy which dominated China, sank the entire Czarist far eastern fleet
at the Strait of Tsushima in 1905 and challenged Great Britain for world Naval supremacy in WW 2.
As for the surprise attack at Peal Harbor, it's 'what if' conjecture, speculation and surmise, since in
1941 potential Japanese targets in Asia and the Pacific Rim included India, Australia, New Zealand
as well as Western Latin America.