Hector

Yamamoto's famous diaried remark as he approached Pearl Harbour that he feared he was awakening a sleeping giant (the US) was not just idle musing nor pre attack jitters.
Losing the war was something Yamamoto had studied for some 15yrs. Yes, 15 years.

In the early 1900's an alcoholic Fleet street journalist called Hector Bywater was a journalist for a naval warfare journal.. He was such an expert on warships that he could, from just a silhoute, reel off the detailed characteristics of any ship and how it would fare in combat against any other silhouettes..If anyone was ever gifted in naval stategy he was.
An Englishman with a penchant for language he would read bedtime stories in German to his children. His fondness for the German language enabled him to be an outstandingly successful British spy in Germany during WW I

So talented was he in naval warfare, estimating outcomes by analysing the factors, of tonnage, armour, speed and gun size etc, as well as money invested and the direction of political wills and ambitions of various Governments he had a very accurate insight into the worlds strategic weapons situation. And the likely outcomes of conflicts between power blocs.

So much so, that he wrote a book in 1922- published 1925 on naval strategies which quickly became a bestseller, in fact a virtual textbook for every naval academy in the world.
Meaning every naval Officer cadet in the world carried this book for the next 20 years.

A major portion of the strategy book dealt with the emergence of the rising power of Japanese militarism in the Pacific after the stunning defeat of the Russian Navy by the Japanese in 1905.
Hector Bywater, in his strategy novel, by simply listing the resource factors involved, in a highly convincing way, predicted with stunning accuracy the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. He even predicted the casualties to within 50 !. He then explained convincingly, that Japan really didn't have a chance of final victory, the industrial might of America, and it's natural resources, sheer size etc, made it unbeatable . Thus even the most stunning Japanese initial victories would have no effect on the war outcome. Japan must lose. It was inevitable.
The precise way that Japan would inevitably lose was shown by a convincing naval strategy account of island hopping, actually closely adhered to by US military commanders, in WW II, bringing US military might to bear directly on the Japanese homeland.

Yes,in the 1930s US Naval commanders in WWII, all carried the 1925 Hector Bywater naval stategy book. Predicting the inevitable Japanese defeat. So did Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

So did Yamamoto.

Since 1922 Yamamoto carried the book wherever he went. Once he actually met the journalist Bywater, and was so afraid of Bywater's deep understanding of the Japanese mentality, seriously considered having the journalist assassinated. Another likeminded Bywater associate somehow fell out of a window in the prime of his life.....

Needless to say, the attack on Pearl Harbour was only a surprise to the unschooled general public.
En route to Pearl, Yamamoto's fleet was broadcasting interfleet messages uncoded via radio signals that went round the world.
And some old US ships were left in the harbour to be sunk, and the brand new Fleet of carriers just happened to be out on a Sunday steam, safely far away, from the 'sneak' attack.
Ha ha.

Now, back to psychopaths on the world stage.
Yamamoto with his deep understanding of the strategy obviously knew Japan would lose. And mentioned some doubt in his diary, the famous remark.
He could have opposed the venture vigorously, but he would have been trying to convince a psychopathic militarist government that was seriously locked in to numerous misunderstandings of the world outside Japan. A badly crippled mindset.

Example- even after the first atom bomb, a not insignificant part of the Japanese government, wouldn't entertain surrender. Even after the second atom bomb. The emperor finally intervened to force surrender on the Government. The last two weeks of the Japanese bunkered government's proceedings mentioned hardly a word about the war.

So what could Yamamoto do, but play out his tragic role?

How could all of this happen?

Around Japan the destruction of much civilization and human life was largely due to this clique of psychopaths who rose to the top of their power pyramid as per 'Twilight of the Psychopaths' you may have already looked at on the FOOD page.