The fault lay mainly with pre-war IJN doctrine, in which all arms were dedicated to the concept of the "One Big Fleet Battle" One result was an almost complete neglect of minesweeping and antisubmarine warfare; this cost both the IJN and the Japanese Merchant Navy dearly. The other result was that the IJN submarine arm concentrated on hunting and sinking enemy warships rather than systematically attacking Allied merchant shipping. The only REAL attempt to systematically destroy Allied merchant shipping was in March 1942, when Java fell and IJN submarines were active in the Indian Ocean. But even in this instance, one gets the feeling that the subs were mainly there to destroy the remaining Allied warships and Allied merchantmen were attacked because "There are no warships around around so we might as well sink that tanker/cargo ship that's creeping up on the horizon".
A systematic assault on merchant traffic off the US Pacific coast starting on Dec. 7th would have paid dividends- witness the slaughter operation "Paukenschlag" caused off the US Atlantic coast. But the idea didn't occur to ANY senior IJN admiral- they were, to a man, wedded to the "One Big Battle" concept and fortunately for the Allies remained so until the very end.
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