Germany/Japan alliance in WWIi

Germany didn't have a tactical alliance with Japan, it was primarily a gesture of solidarity to a) encourage the Americans to send resources away from Europe and Africa (more US resources in North Africa or Spain would have been really bad, and Italy would have been the new home of Chef Boy "Argh" Dee as the US Navy claimed a spot for the Mediterranean Naval HQ.

Germany also wanted to have a little buddy waiting on Russia's Eastern Front for Operation Japankrebsscherenrusslandzerquetschung (The Japan-crab-claw-Russia-crushing).

Japan also wanted the US to split resources. Their plan was to sink the carriers at a time when the US had to choose between building new carriers to help their European allies or build carriers to defend rubber trees.

Missing those carriers should have resulted in the attack being called off. They chose, poorly.

The Tripartite Pact of September 1940 was less about three military heavyweights joining in solidarity and more about a bully picking tossers (I meant toadies but I like the autocorrect word) to stand as tough guy cheerleaders to make everybody look tough. Italy misunderstood the assignment and put on the Alec Baldwin Armorer Presents West Side Story using a McDonald's map of Europe to sketch battle plans in crayon while overlooking that a country surviving 3,000 years of war is probably pretty good at it.

Meanwhile Japan is yelling from 6,000 miles away with no megaphone "hang in there buddy! Thoughts and prayers! If you have any steel, oil and rubber to spare we're be grateful! We have these pig dog Americans right where we want them!"

Things Germany Missed. In 1939 Japan messed with Russia and got punched so hard batman style interjections appeared in the sky. Borscht! GAZ! Czar! Japan crawled home while growing tails they could tuck between their legs and swearing they would never throw samurai at red bear branded l hornet nests again. Germany, knowing they would eventually need help against Russia sent a telegram reading "hey, we just signed the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1939, -isn't that funny-? (Those last words are a direct quote from an online "girlfriend" telling me she met a guy and got married a week later) "Didn't you get the invite? Stay beautiful, we'll call you when we need a favor later on, you'll love it. Muarsch muarsch, all my love, Vlad."

I've seen better strategic planning.

Things Japan missed: the US committed to building 24 Essex class carriers and dozens of Independence class light carriers. Nobody in the world imagined that the US could produce a bomber an hour, every 7 hours for a liberty ship, every 20 hours for a destroyer, 3.5 hours for a cargo ship, and a new sub hitting the water every 4.5 days. US tanks could be loaded two at a time onto transports and be fixed in the field. The Japanese were powerless against these heavily armored cross breeds between dribbles and the mine? seagulls in Finding Nemo. For every sortie in FO land the Japanese tried the US had 3 FO responses, along with stupid, absurd luck: we beat Midway primarily socially awkward cryptologist Lieutenant Commander Joseph Finnegan tefused to forget or throw away even the most trivial message and correctly identified Midway as the target because based on a weather spotter patrol using it once.