I think that others will be the judge of it, and I am satisfied that they can make up their own minds.
'Kay. Whatever.
Incidentally Arthur Miller is a playwright. OMMV.
Ah, your right. I got the names a bit mixed up, it was
written by Edward Miller. Edited in the correct name.
He does not say what you claim either.
Erm... yeah he does? Miller compares the various pre-war plans to WWII and finds that the by the late-30s the USN planners got most of it right, with exceptions for the usual innovations and fortunes of war. The US Navy planners broke the war down into three phases. Phase I, where Japan would expand with little resistance. In Phase II, the USN would build up and begin attacking outlying Japanese outposts with the first attacks beginning at around six months (give or take), slowly reducing them and pushing the Japanese back into the western Pacific over the course of 18-24 months, and eventually bringing the Japanese fleet to decisive battle at an indeterminate location and destroying it. Phase III would then begin, which would be the isolation and blockade of Japan.
I basically summed up the description of Phase I and II in post 18, where I stated that the USN's " own plans called for the abandonment of the western Pacific to the Japanese, while America conducted a massive military build up and then returned a year later and started taking it all back."
"When the war began, events in the western Pacific unfolded approximately as predicted by Plan Orange. The Japanese reduced the Philippines with overwhelming sea, air and land power. Manila fell in three weeks... Bataan and Corregidor survived for five and six months respectively, rather longer than expected, but the sacrifices of their defenders were of minor military import. Manila Bay was, as [Director of the War Plans Division, General] Embick had said, was "without strategic significance."
"The Japanese conquest of Southeast Asia and the flank extensions to Burma and the Bismarck Archipelago had not been contemplated in Blue-Orange war forecasts (although they had been considered in the Rainbow Plans of 1939-41), yet the extended Phase I campaign of early 1942 was similar to the Philippines scenario of War Plan Orange. . . But Japan's long maritime lifeline was vulnerable to the interdictory response of the prewar strategy. Plan Orange was a fair template for all Phase I operations in the western Pacific."
-Edward S. Miller,
War Plan Orange, pp.62-62.
Phase II was always going to be less accurate in its predictions, since there were many variables, but historically the Marines kicked off the Guadalcanal campaign only two months later than the original estimates for the beginning of Phase II had assumed. Admiral King called this early phase the "offensive-defensive" portion of the war, where the Americans slowly attritted the Japanese until November of 1943, when they were finally able to begin the "true" offensive, and begin punching into the Western Pacific. This was the point where the US bases were established and no longer under threat and the Americans could finally attack where they chose, penetrating deep into the Japanese sphere. This was almost two years from the start of the war and again roughly matched Orange projections.
On the differences in Phase II Miller summarizes:
"In fact Japan chose to wage attrition battles throughout the war... It confounded old presumptions that it would resist lightly in fringe regions of no great importance and conserve its sting for the inner defensive zone... Japan did not rigorously horde its big ships. It willingly exposed battleships and carriers on several occasions. But the outcome of the campaign validated the prediction that Blue would prevail. Warship casualties in the Southwest Pacific were about equal, but the United States was able to restock and Japan was not."
-War Plan Orange, pp. 335-335.
The Americans had assumed the Japanese would conserve most of their fleet until the Americans were much deeper into their sphere. This is elementary strategy, whereby a defender waits until an attacker has hopefully over-extended themselves and the defender's own lines of communication have compressed increasing their own power, before launching their main counter attacks. The Americans were wrong about that but it doesn't reflect badly on the plan. The ferocious battles around Guadalcanal and the Solomon's saw the Japanese expend their best forces at the end of an attenuated logistics line where they were less effective, did not manage to change the thrust of American strategy, and served only to make the battles west easier.
By the time Phase II ended at the Philippines, it was still essentially in line with the Orange projections, although it was closer to earlier Orange plans from the 20's and 30's by then. Miller remarks on an interesting phenomenon, where as the Americans advanced further and further west and Japanese resistance crumbled, the Americans continually regressed to ever earlier versions of Plan Orange (each of which had worked on the assumption of an ever weaker foe), until by the time they were closing on Japan they were adopting plans similar to those of the Dewy-Mahan era. But by then Phase III was kicking off nevertheless.
Perhaps you are confused by the fact I suggest an IATL where the Japanese don't strike first and pull off a win by getting the USN to sail prematurely. I guess you missed the part where I stated that such an eventuality
relies on the American political leadership overriding the Navies war plan. Now I can't speak to the probability of such an eventuality, but the possibility of Washington looking askance at a plan which asks them to declare war and then sit at Hawaii and do nothing for six months while there's a seemingly (to a civilian) perfectly good base at Manilla defended by a large Army just right there under Japan's nose... well, who knows? It's possible they could have been
ordered, against all their better judgement, to sail to the Philippines in preparation for immediate offensive operations against Japan.
At that point, Japan might have had its decisive battle and its short war and it would have had it at the Philippines, relatively close to Japan where Japan had every logistic advantage and when the Americans were at the end of a dangerously long string of communication, with inadequate bases, and insufficient supplies.
Or they might not have. Roosevelt did tend to listen to his military men on such matters after all. Point is, it's a better shot then what the Japanese did OTL.