The Origins of the Pacific War

 

Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad,declared congressman hamilton fish on december  8, 1941, the day after infamy. Minutes before , Franklin D. Roosevelt had asked congress to declare war on the nation that had just launcher the unprovoked and dastardly attack  on Pearl Harbor, and fish , an ardent isolationist, rose to support the president`s request. The Japanese, he said. Have gone stark, raving mad, and have, by their unprovoked attack committed military, naval , and national suicide.

Although others did not quote the classic, this madness theme was echoed throughout  American newspapers that day : "sulime insanity” declared declared the new york times ; “the act of a mad dog” the los angeles times announced; “an insane adventure that for fatalistic abandon is unsurpassed in the history of the world” argued the philadelphia inquirer.

In december 1941, most observers agreed with Winston Churchill`s statement that, since American military potential vastly outweighed Japan`s, the Tokyo government`s decision to go to war  “difficult to reconcile with prudence, or even sanity.”

This belief that the japanese must have been irrational to attack the united states continues to plague our understanding of the origins of the Pacific War and lesson that modern strategist draw from that tragic occurrence.

In the Pentagon, for example, the events of 1941 have inspired the dominant scenario for nuclear war: a lingering concern that can be described as hormephobia, the fear of shock  or surprise, has haunted American strategic planning since Pearl Harbor.

The nuclear arsenal of the United States has long been postured to respond promptly to an unlikely, peacetime Soviet surprise nuclear attack. Moreover, the increasing dissatisfaction with the policy of deterrence today can.