this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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neither of these explains how either germany nor japan thought it could win. choosing to start a military conflict when you have neither the production nor resources to win it is simply stupid.
yeah, the oil embargo was real, just like japan's manchurian ambitions (which was what precipitated the embargo).
Again, Japan was backed into a corner with the embargo. They thought that Pearl Harbor wouldn't start a war. So the answer to your question (at least with Japan), is that "they didn't".
backed into a corner?
The embargo could have stopped as soon as their imperial ambitions on manchuria ended.
ah, they wanted to steal a chunk of china/korea, AND keep that cheap american crude flowing?
see you don't get things both ways sparky. They weren't baked into a corner any more than the US was backed into a corner by opec in the 70s - because being backed into a corner MEANS something. It's called death ground. This is a real thing, if you were anything but a random schmuck on the internet claiming not to be a cia plant, you might have studied it at the state dept or army war college.
being backed into a corner means you have no other choice; being on death ground - your only option remaining is to fight until the last.
japan was not backed into a corner, any more than it was on death ground - but they'd find out what both those terms meant in 5 short years. think of it, 5 short years to turn the entire production of this continent onto two TEENY TINY targets - japan and germany.
I don't think you realize how much this undercuts your argument.
What did they think they were going to accomplish, then?
That it would force USA to negotiations about the oil embargo
If true, that was incredibly dumb of them