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Originally Posted by Zayphod
See, that was my thinking as well (the holding Hawaii as a base, not the poison gas thing), since whoever holds it has a huge base at the half-way point across the Pacific. Look at why Hawaii was so important to the US, and you'd understand why it would have been just as important to the Japanese. With no refuling base anywhere decent in the Pacific, the US would have had to base their ships in San Francisco / Los Angeles until much, much later in the war.
Using Hawaii as a refuling point for their ships, the IJN could have pinned the US Navy back to the west coast (at least, until the industrial might of the US managed to re-build the fleet).
Once pinned against the wall, rebuilding ships would have been much more difficult, and without carriers, we never could have re-taken Hawaii. Without Hawaii, no taking Midway, and without Midway, no other islands to the west. Sort of like chess, huh?
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The Combined Fleet website addresses both of these points in a great way and presents a very strong argument, in my opinion, on why it just wouldn't be feasible. It can be found here:
http://www.combinedfleet.com/pearlops.htm
But in summary, there's no real way that the Japanese could have brought enough troops to take Hawaii, as it would have been defended by 75,000-100,000 US troops on the ground. Can you imagine trying to bring an invasion force all the way over from the home islands in numbers necessary to take the island? Don't forget that the Japanese still had their force in China to supply. They did not have an inexhausatble amount of troops to bring to bear on Hawaii. They just did not have the manpower to do it.
Part of Pearl Harbor's success is that it happened suddenly. A task force of carriers going 25-30 knots is a lot harder to find than a fleet of troop transports doing 10-15 knots. The surprise angle would have most likely been lost and the force would have come under attack before reaching Hawaii, and Pearl would have been ready.
Let's assume that they did take Hawaii. How would you keep it supplied? The Japanese couldn't even supply the garrison on Wake Island, how could they have kept men and materiel flowing to an occupying force the size needed to hold a major US possession like Hawaii? They were already working under a shipping shortage in trying to keep holdings in China, Malaysia and the Philippines supplied. Now you want to add Hawaii and its distance all the way across the Pacific into the mix? The transit time alone would exacerbate the situation. Empty ships travelling back from Hawaii are effectively out of service until they make their way back to the Home Islands.
As for the carrier aspect, Combined Fleet addresses it here:
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
In short, what it says is that the US could build carriers so quickly that they would have caught up with Japan in a relatively short amount of time. Midway and the Solomon Islands wouldn't have happened if we had lost the carriers at Pearl, but the pace at which we could have replaced those losses means that Japan would have bought themself time but that's it. They would have prolonged the war, but definately not have won it. Remember why we won the way we did: we outproduced the other side.
EDIT: Sorry...didn't realize joea had already posted this link. I still think it presents an excellent case though!