Attacking America Is a Devastating Miscalculation – Sarah Paine

Key Takeaways

Pearl Harbor it's an A+ military operation they sink everything of course it's shallow water and we raise most of it afterwards they lose nothing I mean boy how can you do a a more perfectly choreographed military operation than that one except it turns an Absolut isolationist country to want hellbent coming after Japan and that would be called a strategic disaster so you got to be cautious about your military actions and think about what are the Strategic consequences and it's very difficult to gauge those accurately the sort of like delusional optimism of the Japanese to think that they could beat America how much of that is motivated by the idea that they actually do think they're led by a living deity like is that related to why they thought they could win no I but but you're looking at the United States as isolationist if you're Japanese and you're looking at these absolutely isolationist Americans right who are letting Britain their closest Ally potentially go down to Nazis right they're about losing everything and we're not doing anything and so they're looking at it isolationist well won't the answer be the isolation go woo this is expensive let's get out of here and of course that's not understanding Americans I remember I was in seminar the day that 9/11 happened and the TV uh there was TV in the seminar rooms and there was a break and after the end of the break uh the students had the TV on and we're watching Tower one had gone down and then while we're in seminar the next one we're watching it goes down and I thought oh my there's going to be hell to pay for this one cuz this is how Americans are that if you mess with us boys it get ugly and Ian boy this is like don't think retaliate so um the Japanese didn't understand that part of us and fact a lot of people don't they look Americans we look like a bunch of hedonists but if you mess with us it's ugly one of the things I learned from your book is the overwhelming fraction of Debs on the Japanese side during the war happened after it was known that they were going to lose um I think in the last 14 months and this is all from your book 1.8 million of the total 2.1 million Japanese debts that's 85% of the total happened in the last 14 months of the war and similar thing is true with Germany where I think 43% of the debts happened in the last year of the war um I think like 2.3 million out of the 5.3 million walk me through what is going on inside government when the the higher level people must know that they're losing but they're going to make bigger and bigger sacrifices well you're conflating I I think uh Western values about what the purpose of the government is well in common wealth common wheel common Wheels common good and this notion that governments are about the well-being of individuals okay well we're we're not in societies where we're talking about individuals for openers certainly uh not in uh Japan then there's another well why the death so huge it's at the end of these wars you've broken the transportation system that gets um produce to Hungry mouths and you've also removed so much um uh Manpower literally from the fields you aren't producing anything so that you're talking about Mass starvation as a result of having done a number of previous years of warfare and also this uh Mass starvation helps account for why uh one side gets shattered and quits and then the thing that ought to give everyone pause is okay if Japan's economy was I don't know a tenth of ours in World War II and these are the kind of costs that they could inflict uh watch it on getting into Wars with countries that that you think you're vastly Superior to uh it may not work out the costs are horrific I mean you're illustrating the problems with this Continental or of taking territories this is how it goes but sometimes other people visit Wars on you and then you're into their world of hurt and I mean I think it's it's like Angela Merkel or Neville Chamberlain back in World War I who's going surely these people don't want to do this it's gonna wind up being a blood bath surely they don't want to so nille Chamberlain makes the compromise at Munich thinking surely that this will be it we'll compromise them they'll go wrong they're going going to come in for the whole thing so there's a couple of options and maybe the the correct answer is in one of these but one is that there's just denialism of they genuinely do not understand that they are going to lose the war another is that look they know they're going to lose but it's better to like they would prefer to just go out dying well they're dead anyway so who cares right well this is the problem with nuclear weapons push someone into a large corner and uh or tight enough Corner maybe they think that well it's my last day so guess what it's going to be your last day too how much would we question the the demand for unconditional surrender knowing that most of the deaths in World War II happened because look if there wasn't a unconditional surrender maybe we could reach a piece earlier most of the deaths could have been spared oh I think by the time uh those deaths are Japanese deaths for us uh we're looking at these things and we've lost a lot of people and our idea is hey we're almost there and we're not worried about Japanese civilian deaths or Japanese military deaths we're looking these are the people that have killed how many Chinese and I don't believe China was ever part of Japan what were they doing there so then you're asking for Tender Mercies out of Americans for for the Japanese and those days no