I'm going to make myself unpopular again (why not, no sense doing things by halves).

The Japanese came from two small islands and they were very aware that they were vulnerable, having seen the size of the Western forces in the first world war and having had a history of fighting off invaders, including the famous mongol invasions in the 13th century thanks to fortuitous typhoons destroying the invader's fleets. They were (and remain)intensely driven by loyalty and duty to the group. In other words, they were intensely eusocial, perhaps more than any other ethnic group on earth, because of their isolation which meant that their gene pool was very uniform. as a result they had a very strong ingroup/outgroup differentiation (still do, but it's weakening) and they had an exaggerated willingness to sacrifice themselves for the group's benefit.

They decided to try to protect the home islands by creating a buffer zone and because they considered the Western cultures effete because of their willingness to accept capture they thought that if they carried out their plans quickly and ruthlessly they could then arrange a peace on their own terms and hold their gains.

They simply didn't understand that the West was just as eusocial, but because we had been rubbing up against each other for millennia, we were more pragmatic.

And they did something our culture regarded as unacceptable - they attacked Pearl Harbour on the sabbath and they did it without warning. Just another thing they couldn't have understood because they don't have the concepts in their culture. they just saw it as a striking while the iron was hot.

As history has shown though, the Japanese are thoroughly good people to do business with because of their sense of duty and personal obligation. They're not us, but we still have more in common than different.

I agree with Antiseptic's analysis of Japanese historico-cultural attitudes and resultant actions, altho 'two small islands' is numerically inaccurate.

Tonyo

Thanks Tonyo. I simplified the geographic situation out of consideration for my audience.

Antiseptic,

You seem to be as ignorant of Japanese history as Islamic history.

1."having had a history of fighting off invaders" - in reality, the Japanese also have a history of invasion and aggression against Korea and attacks on Russia and China, long before Pearl Harbor.

2. "they had a very strong ingroup/outgroup differentiation (still do, but it's weakening)",

LOL, that's PC for racism and xenophobia.

3. "....the Japanese are thoroughly good people to do business with because of their sense of duty and personal obligation." You wouldn't have liked to "do business with them" during WW2. You should investigate how the survivors of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima have been treated by the rest of Japanese society.

Anti, I'm not really certain whether or not you're serious, your smug ignorance seems rather overdone, whatever, you're often amusing.