Victor Davis Hanson: America Didn’t Provoke Japan—Here’s What Really Led to Pearl Harbor

The Daily Signal

Government, Daily News, News, Politics

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

In an era of World War II revisionism, it’s worth remembering what really led to Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor 84 years ago on Dec. 7, 1941. Victor Davis Hanson breaks down the real context behind the attack, why Japan miscalculated so badly, the myths that still distort this history, and how Pearl Harbor became the beginning of Japan’s greatest strategic blunder on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.” “Why did they attack? They said that they did not want to attack. They were in the process of negotiating a peace settlement. They said that we had cut off their oil exports. And we had because we had no other mechanism to convince them to get out of China, it was not their territory, to get out of Korea, to get out of Southeast Asia, and to not absorb the Dutch East Indies. “They had refused on all of those accounts and said, yet, we will find a peaceful solution, as they planned the attack. The attack happened at seven in the morning, deliberately, on a Sunday morning when people were either at church or still asleep from Saturday night partying. And they came out of the rising sun. Two waves. And they destroyed four battleships and injured, or just—I don't wanna say injured, they were inanimate objects. But they disabled four that sunk to the shallow bottom of Pearl Harbor.” (0:00) Pearl Harbor and Revisionism (0:14) Context Leading Up to Pearl Harbor (3:53) The Attack on Pearl Harbor (5:27) Aftermath and Misconceptions (7:38) Final Thoughts 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠ 👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enabling notifications: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1⁠ 👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: ⁠https://victorhanson.com⁠ 👉The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: ⁠https://secured.dailysignal.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:30.0	Given that we're in the era of revisionism, especially about World War II, I think it's wise if we just
0:34.8	review what Pearl Harbor was about. We have had the 84th anniversary
0:39.6	of the surprise attack at 7 in the morning on December 7th, 1941. The last four months of 39, all of 40,
0:47.7	most of 41. The United States had watched the Germans absorb most of Western Europe and the Balkans and had been in Russia.
0:57.0	Meanwhile, the Japanese invaded China a second time in 1937, and they had half of what is now China under Japanese control.
1:05.0	More importantly, what is now Indonesia then called the Dutch East Indiesies and the Japanese wanted to absorb those.
1:12.3	Don't believe a lot of the revisionism that has occurred.
1:15.2	The United States did not provoke Japan.
1:17.6	Japan provoked the United States by attacking at a time of peace. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hansen for the Daily Signal.
1:35.2	This week we have had the 84th anniversary of the surprise attack at 7 in the morning on December 7th, 1941. And given that we're in the
1:49.0	era of revisionism, especially about World War II, I think it's wise if we just review what Pearl Harbor
1:55.4	was about. Remember, the United States was not at war. The war had broken out in Europe on September 1st, 1939.
	...

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