Representative Carl Vinson was Congress's outspoken proponent of a strong Navy capable of dealing with threats from both Europe and Asia. In 1934 he spearheaded legislation that brought America's Navy up to the full limit of the existing naval treaty with Japan and others. The treaty was to expire in 1936 and both America and Japan were anxious for its demise.

Japan felt that the treaty gave America enough superiority in battleships (a 5 to 3 ratio) to encourage it to attack Japan. While the treaty was in effect Japan's ship designers bent their efforts on building bigger and superior battleships, thus giving it an edge on its inferior numerical ratio with America. The result was the Musashi and Yamato, although these ships were only marginally used in combat. When the treaty expired in 1936, Vinson quickly pushed America into an accelerated ship building program. Japan too had been waiting for the fateful moment when it could release the brakes on capital ship building.

It is interesting to view the coming of the Second World War from the viewpoint of Japan's Naval General Staff and Chief of Combined Fleet. America's two ocean fleet concept was seen by Japan's military strategists as a clear sign of impending danger. Japan acted to counter the Vinson program of ship building with its "Marusan Program", the third naval expansion undertaken by Japan since the conclusion of the Washington Treaty.

Japan considered that if war with the United States were inevitable its preparations for such a war were entirely inadequate. Additionally, even if Japan were to prepare for war by accelerating its ship building program it could not economically sustain the resulting large force. The Japanese Navy was constrained by this logic to seek a peaceful, but humiliating resolution to its problems with America. These problems had arisen from the Army's expansionist program into China. Cooperation between the two branches of service was minimal and their respective military policies were based on disparate views of how Japan should secure its future. Clearly, the one need of common concern was that of oil. America was the major supplier and it reacted to Japan's intent to create a, "Greater Asia Co-prosperity Sphere" (with Tokyo at its hub), with the threat of an oil embargo.

Thus, Japan's Naval General Staff was in the grip of a dilemma: It could not reverse the actions of the Army in China, it was faced with the probable resulting oil embargo and it could not maintain a large standing fleet to keep the American Navy at bay. The only escape from its problem was to strike the American fleet in one decisive battle that would eliminate it from the western Pacific. Thereafter, Japan could seize the oil-rich areas of Southeast Asia without the interference of the American Navy. When Japan had a secure flow of oil from sources other than America it could move to a negotiated peace from a position of strength.

Carl Vinson concerned himself with the security of the United States. Unwittingly, his efforts had a severe impact on Japan's Naval General Staff planning. The Chief of the Combined Fleet was Isoroku Yamamoto, who pondered the situation and proposed that the only possible solution was an overwhelming strike at Pearl Harbor. If successful, particularly in terms of destroying America's aircraft carriers, the American fleet would be rendered harmless for enough time to allow Japan to gain its objectives in terms of a secure oil source.

Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor failed to destroy the aircraft carriers and although the planning for the raid was comprehensive it didn't provide for the destruction of America's submarine force. It was this force, more than any other factor, which sunk the tankers carrying oil from Southeast Asia to Japan. If wars are won by the side which makes the fewest mistakes, then this single oversight by Japan's naval planners may have been its undoing/