Even 60 years ago, the United States embarked on an uncompromising struggle against an enemy that surprised it. But if today she sees herself as a global police officer, then during the days of Pearl Harbor strong winds of separatism blew in her
The bombing of Pearl Harbor, 60 years ago today. Wonderful timing
In the consciousness of every nation are engraved a few events whose shock not only led to a national turnaround, but whose record is evident even after generations. One such event is the Japanese attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor (Pearl Bay) in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, and it seems that this will also be the responsibility of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. Despite the initial similarity, it is already clear that the two events differ from each other in their historical consequences.
Both show the visual shock of the destruction of the old order, but the Japanese attack dragged the world into prolonged chaos and Pearl Harbor immediately became synonymous with national disgrace and a strong motive for revenge.
60 years later, one can examine the event with a somewhat distant view and wonder to what extent
A cartoon published in the "Chicago Tribune" three days after the attack. American determination for revenge
It is relevant today. Even now, and especially after the terrorist attack on New York, it is not easy to refer to Pearl Harbor objectively, and for good reason. Long years of American political, and especially cultural, hegemony contributed to the fact that the American narrative regarding the event became the almost exclusive source for historical writing in the West and even outside of it. This narrative crowned the defenders of Pearl Harbor as almost holy victims, who fell victim to the Japanese villains, according to the accepted concepts; And according to revisionist concepts - to the dark plot of those in power in the United States. Both currents prevented for years an in-depth discussion of the circumstances that led to the war and the meanings of the attack.
The American preoccupation with the painful wound so painful that the Japanese opened it obscured the fact that the attack on the base was not the focus of the war and did not even cause it. It was actually just a blow intended to prevent them from interfering with the great show of the Japanese, which was taking place at the same time on the other side of the ocean. There, the lands rich in raw materials in Southeast Asia, which until then were under the control of the Western powers, were at the center of the Japanese target. The disgrace of Pearl Harbor was so heavy that many forgot that on that Sunday a world war actually began. After all, until then, a fratricidal war was raging in Europe, while in China, a separate struggle was taking place. Now the countries of America and Asia have also become partners in one global campaign.
As in September of this year, the attack on Pearl Harbor made possible the mobilization of the American nation for a prolonged war effort. But the comparison may miss the strength of the psychological turning point that the Americans experienced in December 1941. Because today the USA sees itself as the global monkey policeman, whereas at that time strong winds of separatism blew through it, which did not weaken even after China was brutally dismembered, Western Europe was conquered and the Soviet Union was about to fall to Germany . The Japanese, to their surprise, fulfilled an American need by inflicting the traumatic event on them, and it seems that his only power was to get them out of their lives of peace and luxury. The American decision to go to war after a long period of hesitation was accompanied, as a classic cognitive dissonance, by a deep self-conviction and a desire for revenge, which, alongside a single-valued and almost messianic sense of justice that characterizes this nation, led it to fight without compromise.
While on the home front American propaganda used the lowest racist images and presented the Japanese enemy as a subhuman being, a merciless war was waged on the front against the entire Japanese nation. While at Pearl Harbor the Japanese only acted against military targets and avoided harming civilians as much as possible, the American revenge campaign led to the death of close to a million Japanese citizens in conventional bombings of most Japanese cities and the dropping of two atomic bombs on civilian targets.
Over the years, the voices that find a connection between the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the willingness to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons have increased. On the other hand, some argue that the US also bombed cities in Europe, and if it had an atomic bomb before the surrender of Germany, it would have used it against Germany as well. Moreover, it is now accepted that racial motives played a secondary role, if at all, in considerations regarding the use of nuclear weapons. However, it is likely that the extreme desire for revenge for Pearl Harbor eased the moral dilemmas that faced American decision makers.
Only a historical view of at least a decade made it clear that the US's entry into the war occurred at a wonderful time for it. By the end of 1941, all the other participants in the campaign were exhausted, and some of them were even in danger of being eliminated. At such a critical stage, historian Richard Aubrey claims in his book "Why the Allies Won", the full American involvement tipped the scales, and not necessarily in classic field warfare. The main contribution of the USA was initially material. Even before the invasion of Normandy and the landing on Okinawa, the American military supplies to its allies, the strategic bombings in Europe and the opportunity given to the Russians to transfer forces from Siberia and focus on the German enemy served as a solid basis for victory over the Axis countries.
Although there is no clear evidence that President Roosevelt was aware in 1941 of the advantages inherent in a hesitant wait, the late joining of the US in the war effort had far-reaching consequences for its position at the end of the campaign. While the US ended the war with relatively few casualties and with a strengthened industry, its rivals and most of its allies were on the brink of destruction. Only the Soviet Union, despite the severe defeats, improved its military and even economic position compared to the winter of 1941. Indeed, along with China, the Soviet Union became the only obstacle in the American quest for world hegemony during the jubilee years that followed.
The American failure to prevent the attack on Pearl Harbor was the source of innumerable conspiracy theories plowed by the American decision makers, led by President Roosevelt. These allegedly prevented the navy and the army from properly defending themselves so that the US would join the war. Over the years, much evidence has indeed accumulated that it was possible to anticipate the attack or react to it earlier. However, systemic failures elsewhere, as experienced by Israel in the Yom Kippur War, show that strategic conception and military expectations can sometimes hide much sharper information than the Americans had on the eve of the attack. More than anything, perhaps, the emergence of conspiracy theories in the US, then and after the terrorist attack this year, shows how developed the need to explain reality through dark forces is in the American psyche.
Examining the moves of the Japanese side, on the other hand, raises many questions regarding the decision-making and judgment in this nation. At the tactical and strategic level, the Japanese proved that courage, careful planning and grueling training lead to achievements. Indeed, the operation was seen as a success at the time. However, the irony of fate is that in the attack in which it was overwhelmingly proven for the first time that aircraft are the most lethal weapons in the naval arena, the Japanese actually missed all three American aircraft carriers in the arena.
These ships had left port a few days earlier and within a few months they were the main factor in the destruction of the magnificent Japanese fleet at the Battle of Midway. No wonder, then, that for many years after the attack, Japanese naval personnel debated the question of whether the strike force should have gone on the attack knowing that the aircraft carriers were not in port, and furthermore - whether he should have continued the search for them after the attack instead of leaving quickly.
Operational questions of this type seem insignificant today compared to the issues that were at the heart of the decision to go to war against the US. In fact, since 1874, Japan has been in a continuous process of territorial expansion out of a readiness for armed conflict in its immediate vicinity with any country with competing interests. The unceasing growth of the Japanese Empire created new defense needs at every stage and alongside them growing fears against other powers. The confrontation with the US took place when Japan became the strongest power in the western basin of the Pacific Ocean and came to the conclusion that it was the right time to eradicate the colonial presence of the West in East Asia. She did this not out of concern for the peoples of the region, but out of an ambition - reminiscent in its extremeness of the German plans for the thousand-year-old Third Reich - to create an East Asian empire headed by the Japanese people.
Examining Japanese leadership after 60 years shows much greater conceptual failures than those in the US. The first notable failure concerns the limits of Japanese expansion. During the XNUMXs, a bitter debate took place in Japan between the arms of the army and the navy over the desired expansion directions for the empire. While the army supported a land conflict with the Soviet Union and an invasion north of Siberia, the navy supported a naval confrontation with the Western powers and the conquest of Southeast Asia. At that time, there was not a single personality in Japan who came out as a buffer against these trends. Not only did the great majority support the continuation of Japanese expansion, but extreme nationalists would assassinate anyone who opposed the imperialist trends. In the late XNUMXs, the balance tipped in favor of the navy, and the American embargo on the supply of fuel to Japan only served as a catalyst for the prolonged deterioration in the relations between the two countries. Therefore, it is doubtful whether an American willingness to compromise, as some recent historians have argued, could have prevented the crisis.
Another and more pragmatic Japanese failure concerns the choice of the enemy. In retrospect, it is clear that Japan did not have the power to eradicate the USA, and any military success it had only postponed, but did not prevent, the American decision. In the discussions that preceded the Pearl Harbor operation, the Japanese decision-makers prepared several scripts for the American response. Perhaps similar to the planners of the 11/1941 terrorist attack, none of them anticipated such a determined response from an adversary considered decadent, materialistic and separatist. Because of this, the Japanese insistence on a frontal confrontation against a nation whose national product is ten times greater than its own reveals not only contempt for the material, but also ignorance when it comes to American sensitivity to injury and insult. The Japanese were so focused on their plan that they did not deviate from it even after Germany invaded the USSR in June XNUMX.
The Japanese parade of stupidity is typical, but not unique, for a totalitarian country without a mechanism of criticism and is not necessarily the result of a national nature, as they tried to explain after the war. And perhaps, in hindsight, it is good that the Japanese did this, because otherwise attacking Siberia instead of Pearl Harbor could have led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In such an apocalyptic scenario, the world would be divided into three blocs in an Orwellian fashion, and the next 60 years would look different. Thus, in a two-hour attack, fates were decided that were not in the hands of the attackers, nor in the hands of the defenders of Nabam.
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Pretty!!