PEARL HARBOR REDUX

Seventy years ago today, the Japanese Navy launched strikes against Pearl Harbor sinking much of "Battleship Row," awakening a sleeping giant and forcing the United States into World War II with catastrophic effects for the Axis powers. Countless lessons have been learned and many forgotten over that attack. Yet, seven decades later, a great deal is still to be learned from what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously named a Day of Infamy.

The first and most important lesson is that surprise attacks work initially. Very few surprise attacks have failed in achieving immediate aims. Yet, while both Pearl Harbor and Hitler's June 22nd, 1941 surprise attack against Russia achieved initial successes, the end result was ultimately disastrous. Japan had indeed launched a successful surprise attack on the Russian fleet in 1904. But the Japanese were desperate to negotiate a truce in 1905 bled by the Asian ground war against the Tsar and orchestrated by another Roosevelt---TR.

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