Japan needed an American fleet to advance across the Pacific so that it could be located and worn down, yet the Pearl Harbor attack disrupted that expected movement. It damaged the Pacific Fleet so heavily that the United States could not immediately make the charge Japanese doctrine had prepared to exploit. At the same time, the attack did not remove American industrial or naval power from the war. Pearl Harbor was therefore too successful for the planned attrition sequence but not successful enough to solve Japan's larger strategic problem.
Notable Point · 1:18:04-1:20:25
Pearl Harbor's doctrinal paradox
In this interpretation, Pearl Harbor was too successful for Japan's hoped-for attrition sequence yet insufficient to remove American power from the war.