Why a third strike was not automatic

Should Japan have launched a third strike at Pearl Harbor?

It was more understandable before uncertainty set in; with carriers unlocated and defenses mobilizing, the operational risk rose sharply.

The discussion treats the third-wave debate as conditional rather than a simple missed opportunity. A follow-up attack made more sense in the assumed plan if the American carriers had been destroyed in the harbor and the first waves had suppressed resistance. In reality, the carriers were unlocated, more Japanese aircraft were lost in the second wave, and American defenses were becoming active. Launching again would leave the Kido Butai vulnerable while much of its air group was over Oahu. The missing carriers created a large search problem across hundreds of miles of ocean, so Nagumo had to decide from uncertainty rather than from the hindsight that they were safely distant.