why did Japan declared war on America in wwII when they were

>>3075439
This has been discussed multiple times.

>Why did Japan declare war when they thought they couldn't win.
They were thinking they could cripple the Pacific Fleet of the United States and take majority of the DEI, British Land, Indochina, and the US territories to continue to fuel their war machine + have enough time to set everything up to fight the US to stalemate.

They highly underestimated American patriotism, viewing the US as weak merchants (One thing to be noted in American history, is when you kill a bunch of them/or harass a bunch of them, you piss off the country to the point that it will go to war and kick ass.) At best they thought it would take the US 6 months to get going in the fight, the Japanese also invested more into Battleship than Aircraft Carriers.

>Does America hold moral ground against Japan.
Overall yes, especially after Pearl Harbor + Everything Japan did to Guam/Philippines. If we include how badly Japan acted throughout all of Asia then Japan is the bottom of the barrel.

they watched too much anime

>>3075487
To add to what this anon said, the Japanese government at the time was completely dominated by the military, so all they did was look at a map, see the position of the Philippines and say: shit, if it comes to war the us cuts our empire in half, we have to take the by surprise and capture it first.

They never consulted with any career diplomats who had lived in America about whether their conception of America as weak willed and decadent was realistic or not.

>>3075583
>They never consulted with any career diplomats who had lived in America about whether their conception of America as weak willed and decadent was realistic or not.
they actually were, Yamamoto, the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II , and master mind of the attack on pearl harbour, was a special student at Harvard from 1919 to 1921.

File: hakko ichiu.png (151KB, 500x318px) Image search: [Google]

151KB, 500x318px

>>3075439
>why did Japan declared war on America in wwII when they were aware the could not win the war ?

Because they bought into the "limited war" meme, which, in their defense, they learnt from Tsushima. Their goal wasn't total conquest of the USA, it was the rapid disabling of the US Navy in the Pacific and a good 'ol 19th century-style colonial land grab. They also bought into the "democracies are cowardly dipshits and hedonists" meme, expecting lack of American enthusiasm for war.

> Does america really holds the moral ground against Japan in that war ?

Diplomacy was still a viable means to accomplish what they wanted - no American interference in their marauding in Asia.

Unfortunately, American negotiators were clumsy in expressing their demands for the oil embargo to be lifted - they said "Get out of China", which the Japanese interpreted as also "get out of Manchuria".

Still, from our liberal democracies' point of view, it is hard to see an oil embargo meant to slow down Japanese expansionism being a valid casus belli. If one adopts a militarist's quasi-Prussian perspective, and advocates for the Japanese' right to conquer China and to use American oil while doing so, of course, one will favour Japan. That's another question altogether.

>>3075592
Well and his opposition to the war didn't end up mattering.

>>3075652
good point
the problem of japan at that time is that the military was not controlled by the politics. it reported directly to the emperor

theres no moral high ground

there are american and japanese interests, mutually exclusive as we all know resources are not infinite

>>3075609
this
good post

>>3075487
>They highly underestimated American susceptibility to racist hysteria about asians
FTFY

File: 1495099349837.png (192KB, 473x488px) Image search: [Google]

192KB, 473x488px

>>3075725

>>3075439

They under-estimated American strength but they also over-estimated German strength. Japan seemed to be working under the assumption that Nazi victory in Europe was inevitable, at which point they'd have a supremely powerful ally on their side. And honestly, in 1941, it wasn't unreasonable for an outsider to think that the Germans had a very strong position. Japan thought that they were joining the winning team.

>>3075592
Yeah, and he said he had no goddamn chance. They didn't listen. Japan's military was fucked: dissonant, competitive and ultimately mistrusting of each other. Rank with needless protocol and pedantry, not to mention a suicidal notion of honor.

>>3077203

>"A samurai lives so that he's always prepared to die."

Has any single sentence ever been used to justify so many bad ideas?

>>3075658
The main problem with Japan was that the military directly controlled the government, the Emperor was weak and just signed off on the papers (and should be held responsible either way).

The Army and Navy could literally could cause a stalemate in the government and get the board running it dissolved.