The strike Pearl Harbor did achieve all of Japan's objectives: it prevented the US Navy from rushing to the Philippines' defense or otherwise thwarting their 1941-1942 conquests in Australasia. The IJN was still planning on having their decisive battle strategy, in which the US Navy would be decisively defeated in a pitched battleship battle, where carriers would not matter because carriers are not effective ships of the line, instead being good for scouting missions or harassing of incoming forces.

Ironically, they still held to this strategy in 1944, and attacked the US Navy in the Battle of Leyte Gulf to force their missing decisive battle, using their carrier fleet entirely as a decoy force. Even after there had been only one battleship action in the entirety of the Pacific war to this point, with all other major naval battles involving only the carriers on one or both sides.