Any board opinions on this: If Japan had not attacked the U.S. fleet in the Pacific, when, and why, would the U.S. have entered the (European aspect of ) WW II?
Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
If Japan Had Not Attacked U.S. Pacific Fleet/Isolationism
Collapse
Unconfigured Ad Widget
Collapse
X
-
Roosevelt would have manufactured a European attack just like he did w/ Pearl Harbor. We were going to fight in that war, he just needed a way to sell it to the people. Knowing the Japanese had designs on Hawaii, he opened the door and let them take it. It would have been more difficult, but a European scenario could have been arranged.
Comment
-
I'd guess mid-1942, when it was obvious that not only were Japan and Germany collaborating, but that they couldn't be resisted without our help. Everyone remembers the famous, "we have woken a sleeping giant" statement, but clearly Pearl Harbor was the most bone-headed military move since Priam let that horse in. Six months later Germany and Japan would clearly be on their way to, if not victory, a much more extended war.
Comment
-
Read Fateful Choices by the noted British historian Ian Kershaw. (sub-title: "10 Decisions that changed the world, 1940-1941"
From near the end of the Tokyo '41 chapter:
<<.. But fear of war did not equate with opposition to the concerted and forthright rejection of policy choices that were seen to bristle with danger. For no faction of the elites could there be a retreat from the goals of a victorious settlement in China and successful expansion to establish the 'Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere'--or, in other words, Japanese domination of the Far East. These aims had not just become an economic imperative. They reflected honor and pride, the prestige and standing of a great power. The alternatives were seen as not just poverty, but defeat, humiliation, ignominy and an end to great-power status in permanent subordination to the United States.>> bold mine.
The final graph:
<<Ironically, when that terrible war was finally over, Japan found herself more dependent economically upon the United States than had been foreseeable before the conflict, deprived of great-power status, shorn of all military capability, but, over time, enjoying a prosperity unimaginable to the citizens of the country in the troubled and turbulent interwar era.>>
Comment
-
With the Lend-Lease Act and armed convoys of American ships to and from England the US was already tacitly at war even before Pearl Harbor.
Had there been no Japanese attack Americans still would have done whatever it took to defend the UK. In this regard, the most important event of the period was Hitler's surprise attack on the USSR. If he hadn't been so arrogant and stupid as to open a two front war, perhaps no amount of American effort could have saved Britain.
Comment
-
Re: If Japan Had Not Attacked U.S. Pacific Fleet/Isolationis
Originally posted by bijancAny board opinions on this: If Japan had not attacked the U.S. fleet in the Pacific, when, and why, would the U.S. have entered the (European aspect of ) WW II?
Comment
-
Originally posted by bad hammyWhen England went the way of France . . .
Comment
-
Originally posted by jazzcyclistOriginally posted by bad hammyWhen England went the way of France . . .
Comment
-
Originally posted by jhc68perhaps no amount of American effort could have saved Britain.
Comment
-
Originally posted by MarlowOriginally posted by jhc68perhaps no amount of American effort could have saved Britain.
Comment
Comment