Here’s an ironic turn of history for Japan in WW2. While the Navy had considerable political influence, the Army had much more influence. It was a more or less open rebellion of officers in the semi-autonomous Kwangtung Army in Manchuria that precipitated the China Incident. That influence grew unchecked through a policy of intimidation and assassination of civilian leaders so that after 1937 the Army more or less ruled Japan.
Now, here we have Japan ruled by the Army, and the army’s policies create confrontation with the United States. Yet it is not the Army that will bear the brunt of fighting the United States. It’s the Navy that will do all the fighting. So the Army created the war for the Navy to fight.
And it was a war that just about every intelligent Japanese who had traveled to America knew they had no business fighting, and in the long run, could not win. Most of those people, including Yamamoto, were in the navy; the army had little contact with America. The navy was more reluctant to pick the fight with America, but once the decision was made obviously they went along with gusto. Yamamoto’s plan to give the United States Navy the quick “knockout punch” had much merit. He knew that he had to get in the quick first strike and gain the strategic leverage. In a long war of attrition, Japan could not win. And they didn’t.
Yamamoto knew full well what had to fall in their favor to pull it off too. He went to the U.S. Navy War College as well as Harvard in the United States. It was after this time that he shifted his specialty from Naval Gunnery to Naval Aviation. He clearly understood the importance of aircraft and aircraft carriers in any future war. He was very dissappointed that the U.S. carriers were out to see at the time of the Pearl Harbor attacks. What was it he said, “I fear we have woke a sleeping giant” or something close to that. He knew a prolonged fight was not winnable.