You keep trying to shove words in Gingrich's mouth that he did not say.
I'm focusing on the term "brilliant" here, with respect to strategy in general.
And no, it wasn't the job of the military to decide to go to war. The military people who planned the actual attacks were not the people who actually made the decision to go to war. As you know, Yamamoto -- head of the entire Japanese Navy -- opposed the war but was ordered to plan an attack. Gingrich is very obviously referring to the execution of the early-war attacks, specifically by the Imperial Navy, which was brilliantly carried out
Wait, Q-Tip.. I would put to you the following:
1) Hideki Tojo was
in the military, he was major general of the Imperial Army, de facto leader of the state, and "Prime Minister" of a totalitarian regime...
2) Yamamoto was
not ordered to plan the attack, he
demanded that he be allowed to plan the attack. Yes, he didn't think they would win a drawn out conflict, but he felt he was the best person to draw up plans to implement the strategy.
3) There wasn't a functional civilian government of any sort in Japan at this time. The State was effectively run by the military.
4) The Japanese were already aware that they were overextended, by the late 1930s, this was well known among Japanese leaders -- Tojo decided that Japan would extend itself further.
With all this being said, I'm not arguing about the execution of the act, I'm arguing about the act itself ... A brilliantly executed blunder is a blunder.. So using the term "brilliant" is a bit strange to me. The Japanese did not achieve their ends, the goals were misguided, and had they realized this sooner, they wouldn't have attack the United States.
No, it was a geopolitical blunder. Given the order to attack the U.S., Yamamoto carried out that order brilliantly. You could make the exact same argument about the German attack on Russia in 1941. It was a geopolitical blunder of massive proportions. But the military professionalism demonstrated by the Wehrmacht in carrying out that order was brilliant.
But here's where I take exception: the
military doctrine of Kantai Kessen was flawed. The idea that they could draw out and defeat the United States in massive naval victory around the Islands of Japan was flawed. The misunderstanding of naval warfare at that time, along with the technological advancements which obsoleted the tactics used in the Russo-Japanese conflict all point to a military and strategic miscalculation.
The military strategy of that lead to Pearl Harbor was misguided. So I don't understand calling
that brilliant.
If you want to say the execution of the act in itself, assuming it was in a vacuum, was well done or "brilliant" fine.. But that's leaving a lot on the table, including the why and what happens next.
Completely true, yet completely irrelevant to Gingrich's point. The IJN was not given the choice to do that because they were ordered to attack the U.S. over Yamamoto's objections.
I don't disagree with this!
I just disagree with the notion that it was brilliant. I think most Japanese strategists at the time knew it was a grave mistake. That's where the genesis of my disagreement comes from.. It wasn't simply in hindsight that it was a bad idea -- it was an enormously bad idea contemporaneously.
With that being said, I think many Japanese, if not most, would take exception to Gingrich's characterization. It's just an odd phrasing, I think.. One that calls into question the nature of the decision itself, particularly given the outcome.
