"Hugo S. Cunningham" wrote in message
...


Perhaps they would have done better to take a defensive attitude
toward the US fleet at Pearl Harbor while seizing the oil fields in
Indonesia. Pearl Harbor vaporized isolationist sentiment in the USA,
while a far-off colonial war might not have.

IMO opinion that was their best credible move, but not a good one - they had
no good options, given the revulsion the Japs had generated in the USA over
Nanking and the atrocity prone nature of the Japanese military, attacking
south where these atrocities would inevitably be directed against whites
(the race would have mattered a lot back then), throw in the fact that it
would be a pretty clear defiance of the purpose of the embargo and the US
would probably have come in anyway.

The big difference is that the US fleet would have been intact and the PI
would have been a lot more secure, also the USA might not have been at war
with Germany (unless Hitler repeated his idiot declaration).

Honestly, Japans best bet was probably to side with the Allies against
Germany and hope that by supporting them, they could buy silence on the
Chinese front, but I doubt it was politically feasible in Japan or USA.