“I’m no apologist for the Japanese, but Theodore Roosevelt’s deal with the Japanese after the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 has to be included with any discussion regarding the Panay (and even Pearl Harbor). Japan never imagined they could beat the US in a war; they had to hope for a diplomatic resolution before they were destroyed by us.”
That is a false statement. The individuals responsible for promulgating Japan’s strategic policies did imagine and specify the conquest (invasion and occupation) and defeat of the United States as one of its strategic objectives. This strategic objective was simply not envisioned by most Japanese war planners as a realistic objective for the immediate step of capturing and defending the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The conquest of the United States was planned to be the step to be taken after the conquests of Manchuria, China, the Soviet Union, and Oceania or Oceania and Soviet Union had been accomplished. The negotiated peace with the United States following the successful defense of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, its defensive lines, and reorganization was to be followed by an assault upon North America. The assault upon North America and South America was to be with or without cooperation with Germany. Asia was to be divided between Germany and Japan along a treaty line in Siberia.
I don’t believe that for a minute; there simply weren’t enough Japanese to possibly administer such an empire. I hear the same stuff about Hitler wanting to “take over the world”, yet a simple examination of his war machine makes it very clear that was never a realistic goal. It was a military based on projecting maximum force over relatively short distances; the USSR itself was far too much real estate to cover. Anyone with global ambitions would at least have more long-range four engine bombers and aircraft carriers; Germany was lacking both. Their few long-range planes were never used much.
The Japanese surrendered with over a million armed men in China; there was simply no way for them to advance meaningfully beyond their “co-prosperity sphere” in Asia. Many of their troops in Alaska eventually committed suicide when they realized they were cut off and had no prospect of victory - or even a return to Japan. Since they had been fighting in China in the 1930s, I’m sure they were well aware of their limitations by 1941.