The only logical explanation for the bungling at Pearl Harbor is that the FDR administration grossly underestimated Japan's military strength and instead relied on racial stereotypes instead of "intelligence". The administration considered the Japanese to be an inferior race that had some mysterious balance and vision problem and as such they would be pushovers in the real war. Four months later the U.S. lost an entire army at Corrigador and Battan while COS Marshall was blaming subordinates for his lack of leadership.
Which in the end turned out to be true in a certain sense.
But as was stated,the Japanese themselves knew that they had to end the war quickly before our massive production ability kicked in.
Another **** up by the Japanese,all we had to do was sit back on the American mainland and start building weapons of war.
If Japan was unwilling to attack the U.S. mainland they were doomed from the get go.
Which is true, except from what they were seeing from our people (our culture.) They strongly sensed that we as a people just did not want war at any cost. They had seen Churchill begging us to enter, only to see us shun them regardless of what was clearly happening.
One of Sun Tzu's rules in the Art of War is the population being behind a war effort so to speak. They may have been right IF our carriers were destroyed at Pearl Harbor. Although, I do think we would have went to mass production, but our factories were in fact already supplying others in Europe (even though were not officially involved.) Bottom line is if the carriers were lost, there would have been real problems.
Turned out that that there was no real need to even replace the battleships that were lost at Pearl. I am not sure how things would have went in Europe if those carriers were lost. That would have been interesting and I wish someone would do a study (I bet there is one) if the US did lose the carriers at Pearl like the Japs desired most.
Wars are mainly about logistics and those that have the logistical advantages usually win. Yes, the Japs also underestimated the American resolve. They were conditioned ABSOLUTELY that the American public would not respond the way we did.
Fortunately for us the liberal pussies (and they were all around as Mccarthy would later be vindicated) did not yell all that loud like the Japs thought they would and the way they did about not getting involved in Europe.