Current Events > after pearl harbor, if japan launched a full scale attack on the usa

(+) Yeah! (+)

can they conquer america?

Lol no.

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I doubt it, without help. At most they maybe could have taken over Hawaii if they focused all their forcee on taking it

No, and to this day I feel there isnt a single nation who could effectively invade US soil.

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Conquer some beach huts, possibly.

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Pearl Harbor was to weaken our Navy in the Pacific by destroying ships and carriers as well as our oil reserves, they failed as they wanted us to sue for peace and let them reign over the region. They never had aims to conquer us. Everyone knew we would get involved eventually so they decided to jump first.

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But will we have the Wolverines?

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Heartomaton posted...

Lol no.

This, basically. No way they could've done it.

Mostly they just wanted us out of the Pacific/Asia and I don't imagine conquering the US was ever a goal of theirs.

No. They could likely have done some serious damage, but they wouldn't have ultimately won.

The only thing that I reckon could've changed the tide of WW2 is if Germany and/or Japan managed to build a nuke significantly ahead of America doing so. (Russia doing so might have changed the course of the events following WW2, but not likely of WW2 itself.)

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TC you do know that before, during and after Pearl Harbor, Japan was invading China and failing to conquer it...

And you think they could go to the US and take it over? ... How exactly?

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KiwiTerraRizing posted...

Pearl Harbor was to weaken our Navy in the Pacific by destroying ships and carriers as well as our oil reserves, they failed as they wanted us to sue for peace and let them reign over the region. They never had aims to conquer us. Everyone knew we would get involved eventually so they decided to jump first.

Ironically they also failed because they demonstrated how naval fleets had become largely obsolete in modern war and the age of the Airforce was happening.

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No. They wouldn't have had the range to ever land in mainland america with any sort of significant force.

For Japan to have won WW2 they would have had to conquer china quickly and not attack the US/Philippines. Probably would have been bad news to attack Malaysia/Indonesia/Australia/India as well but that could have made at least some sense if they had managed to subdue China.

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No, the Japanese army was never large enough or well equipped enough to deal properly with what was at the time an incredibly poor, corrupt, and rural China, let alone the US. Like they could have landed and occupied some shit on the west coast but they never woulld have held it once the Army even half assed mobilized to chase them out.

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IIRC it was never their plan to conquer the United States. Their plan was to knock out the Pacific fleet and sue for peace so the U.S. left them alone.

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No think of the supply lines needed to do that. To put an occupying army, on foreign soil, and then keeping it fighting. Japan would have needed to build a supply line somehow. Eastern pacific isn't filled with islands like the West.

Pearl harbor just was a setback for the pacific fleet. Not CONUS military. Or the Atlantic force.

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nativengine posted...

No, and to this day I feel there isnt a single nation who could effectively invade US soil.

Canada could if they did it stealthy like

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furb posted...

No think of the supply lines needed to do that. To put an occupying army, on foreign soil, and then keeping it fighting. Japan would have needed to build a supply line somehow. Eastern pacific isn't filled with islands like the West.

Pearl harbor just was a setback for the pacific fleet. Not CONUS military. Or the Atlantic force.

Somehow the big post I wrote up posted this.

To summarize it. Logistics is a bitch. It is true power of the modern US military.

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."
Yamamoto

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hell no

pearl harbor was a very expensive attack for japan intended by the leadership to discourage us military intervention/presence in the pacific and hopefully prevent all out war

but of course even more us military intervention/presence in the pacific and all out war was precisely what they got in response

japan was already being drained by its invasion of china (never mind its moves into indochina and oceania), and the american-led embargo in response pushed the country into dire straits which was what spurred the attack to begin with

an invasion of the usa was out of the question, and the entire pacific theater was largely japan on the defense (aside from a few exceptions like their attack on an alaskan island for some reason, and occasional hit-and-run attacks on the west coast)

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nativengine posted...

No, and to this day I feel there isnt a single nation who could effectively invade US soil.

Canada, maybe

There is a show on Amazon Prime named The Man in the High Castle that imagines if the USA lost World War 2 and was conquered by Japan and Nazi Germany