Sarah Paine

He thought it had really long odds of being successful.

General Tojo gave it a 50-50 chance.

Admiral Yamamoto wasn't even sure that it was that good.

But he felt it was the best possible plan for Japan to get out of its predicament.

Now, from a Western point of view, this makes no sense.

You're talking about getting the United States potentially into a war with Japan that's already overextended and China who does this.

Either you need to ratchet back the policy objective and or you need to downgrade your strategy to something a little more costly or risky.

And I suppose what you can do is go, oh, they're stupid.

Okay.

I guess if I call you stupid, that makes me so smart because I can –

denigrate you, explains nothing.

So rather than do that, they're very intelligent men.

And why are they doing these?

Why do they consider their actions rational and rational in what context?

So this is what I'm going to be up to.

And I can start with a little story to illustrate my point.

In the summer of 1943,

This is after the battles of the Solomons, New Guinea, Guadalcanal, they're all over with.

The Imperial Japanese Army had a war college, an instructor comes into class one day, and he says, from now on, the curriculum's changed.

The main emphasis is going to be countering U.S.