Was Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor the dumbest move in military history?
Dumb, yes. But not even close to the dumbest one in World War 2, let alone throughout history.
It’s stupid mainly because the Japanese totally misunderstood the American mindset, but the attack itself was competently executed. The dumbest military move in WW 2 is “generally everything Mussolini did”. At the very top is the invasion of Greece:
You might notice that the Greeks actually pushed the Italians back into Albania. Mussolini overestimated the competence or willingness of his troops and dismissed the ability of the Greeks to fight. In the end, he had to beg for Hitler to bail him out. The Wehrmacht was far more competent and eventually got the job done.
Although debatable, Hitler later blamed this fiasco for pushing back Barbarossa by a few weeks. The rest is history.
He also made the same mistake in North Africa by trying to invade Egypt. The British kicked his forces out and counter-invaded Libya. Again, it was the Germans (this time, Rommel) to the rescue.
But then Rommel, who was never great at logistics anyway, got screwed over when Barbarossa started and he ran out of tanks.
Barbarossa was also pretty dumb considering the goals were unrealistic and the Germans had the French to learn from just over 100 years prior. But like Pearl Harbor, at least it started out well and there was a time where the Soviets were in danger of losing everything.
