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Pearl Harbor and the Capacity for Surprise

It’s a shame that the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor received so little public attention. We are living in an era that holds some unpleasant resemblances to the period before the Japanese attack. And we are losing the capacity for surprise that could help us anticipate or avert a similar catastrophe in the future.

First resemblance: In three separate theaters, the United States faces formidable adversaries with aggressive territorial designs.

Last time: Germany in Europe, Japan in Asia and Italy in the Mediterranean and Africa. This time: Russia, which may soon invade Ukraine in almost cheery defiance of the Biden administration; China, which is building a war machine to seize Taiwan and, if necessary, defeat the United States in open warfare; and Iran, which has turned Lebanon, Syria, parts of Iraq, Gaza and Yemen into client states or satrapies while getting closer to being a threshold nuclear state.