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What the hell WAS their end-game?

Except for WWI and WWII, nearly all the wars in human history have ended up in a peace treaty, not the virtual elimination of one of the 'defeated' enemies. Japan did not invade Russia in the 1904 war, yet won it decisively and achieved regional hegemony. Prussia defeated France in the late 1800's wars without occupying Paris. Their 'end game' was a negotiated peace with a relative advantage over the status quo ante.

Nations go to war for one or both of two reasons: They think they can get away with it (achieve something for a relatively small price) or they think they have nothing to lose (their nation faces destruction anyway).

For the Germans, they thought they could get away with it. Time and again, they moved aggressively and in conflict with treaties and the 'Western powers' did nothing. And they thought they had nothing to lose because Hitler believed that the Aryan peoples needed 'living room' or they would wither within the too-small, too-few-resources space left over from the Treaty of Versailles. If he took Lebensraum from Russia then England and France would accept it. And he was nearly right. When the Battle of France ended, the French army still had more troops under arms and more tanks than the Germans had. So he 'got away with it' against the French, and thought the British (typified by Chamberlain) would not destroy another generation of their young men for France or Poland.

The Japanese were the same. They thought the Western powers were weak and decadent as shown in the war with Russia, the Panay incident, and the way the other nations did nothing when Japan invaded China. And if they did not get control of critical resources their civilization would either collapse or be relegated to third-world status forever. So, they had nothing to lose.

In both cases, their 'end game' was a negotiated peace that provided critical resources they needed to survive as an industrialized nation. History said that should have been achievable. It was not, but that was their plan.