I admire your positivity on this.
There are some things I would like to underline about this, though.
We are no longer protected by the lack of technology like back in 1941.
For the sake of brevity I kept my reply rather short and over simplified. It was not positivity on my part but actual factual history, again over simplified. We can read the words of Yamamoto as well as other military minds of Japan at the time. They where well aware that Japan could not win a contracted war as they could not match the US industrial base nor did they have the resources that the US did.
In fact that is what the war was about to them to secure resources to be empowered in the modern age, to secure empire. So their plan day one from Pearl on was to in your words, shrink the Pac to a lake.
The lack of technology was us. The Brewster Buffalo was absolute trash against the A6M Zero. The F4F Wildcat was our best chance but it was inferior. One of the best books I ever read is "The First Team" It is about the Naval War from Pearl to Midway. Written from interviews of the men who fought the battles.
The book introduces you to Jimmy Thatch who invented the Thatch weave as well as other Naval aviators that won the day at Midway. You read of the heartbreak of brothers in arms lost the cold hard fact that they were fighting from the point of inferiority and vulnerability. Yet they knew that the weight of a country was on their shoulders. They had that American spirit, that improvise, adapt, and overcome mentality.
It is spirit that has been bred into us while Europe and other supposed sophisticated societies of this world will mock it. It was them that bred it into us their mocking of our gun ownership and how primitive we are. It was them we have to thank for that American spirit.
During the colonial days Europe was at war on every front against each other. Spain was attacking homes and settlements of English colonists. We asked the crown for help the crown let us know that they were unable to send help. They informed us that we were going to have to arm ourselves and defend our homes and families. So born was that American spirit that still beats in the heart of many of us today.
So my attitude was not one of positivity in my reply back to you. It was actual history again way oversimplified. It was the short telling of that American spirit and how even though we were on the side of vulnerability we refused to stay there. Not unlike those that stood on the untenable ground of inferior and vulnerable, yet demanded that they be able to self govern. This is now and always will be America's secret weapon and the x factor for any hardship we find ourselves in.