On Mon, 23 Sep 2002, Bradford DeLong wrote:
> The fascist clique ruling Japan were really weird and really nasty. For
> example, who else--bogged down in a long-term war in China--would decide
> that the thing to do was to get themselves into a war with Britain and
> the U.S., then the world's two superpowers?
I thought their reasoning was fairly straightforward -- that war with the US was inevitable, so it was better done as early and decisively as possible, when they were they most prepared and the US was the least, so as to give them 6 free months to build up the best possible defensive position. It might well have been the wrong calculation in grand strategic terms, and they certainly underestimated the US's fighting will and power, but it doesn't seem fundamentally irrational, the sign of minds that can't be reasoned with.
Michael