The Falklands comparison and Japan's blue-water reach

Japan's roughly 4,000-nautical-mile approach to Pearl Harbor is compared with the Royal Navy's projection of war over about 7,000 nautical miles during the Falklands War. The technologies were different, but fuel, replenishment, and organisation allow a blue-water fleet to cross enormous distances. Under the naval treaty system, Japan possessed the world's second-ranked navy, while Britain and the United States were nominally joint first. A navy of that scale had the institutional capacity to plan a long-range carrier operation. Assuming Japan could not reach Hawaii because American planning concentrated on the Philippines confused an expected threat axis with a physical limit.