What if the U.S. lost Midway?
What if the U.S. lost Midway? Whether or not Hawaii could be occupied, defeating Japan would be a much more daunting task after a defeat at Midway. The United States would have had to build a new Pacific carrier fleet, almost from scratch, and start a potential island-hopping campaign much further east than the Solomon Islands.
Did Japan think they could beat the US?
For 2,000 years Japan had never been defeated. There was no word for surrender in the Japanese dictionary. And although the Japanese government never believed it could defeat the United States, it did intend to negotiate an end to the war on favorable terms.