US and WW2

[Auteur]

By 1941, fascism was a potent threat to the world. Germany, with the backing of others in Europe, including Italy, Spain, Hungary, Rumania, bulgaria, and, initially the Soviet Union (before they themselves became a target), had rampaged through Europe and seized considerable power. Japan was on a similar course in the far east. The only free world nations resisting at that point were those of the British Empire/ Commonweath.

It was a tenuous situation, one of course changed by Pearl Harbour. But here is a question: If Japan had taken a more cautious route, and not attacked Pearl Harbour,or touched US colonies in the far east, would the US have still intervened in WW2? At what point in time? There were many in the US that were isolationist, others distained the old European colonial empires, and would not have been sorry to see them go. FDR himself played with the idea of limiting Britain in the future by way of how the war was played out. There were also some on the right wing that favoured Germany.

The US may have seen advantage in seeing the old Europe go down, while they remained safe behind two oceans, and would have had time to build up a strong military at leisure. Perhaps they saw dealing with Nazi Germany as not a big problem.

On the other hand, facing a much more powerful Germany some years down the road, with control of much of the east, a powerful navy with aircraft carriers (planned), long range bombers (conceptualized), and possibly atomic weapons, would have been a collossal problem, although perhaps not clearly envisioned at the time.

 

[westwall]

Yes. Roosevelt was positioning the US for war. We almost declared war on Germany after Erich Topp, commander of U552 I think it was, torpedoed the USS Reuben James which was escorting a convoy at the time...

 

[Camp]

Advanced thinkers knew war was coming, but they had do deal with domestic politics that prevented them from taking actions that would have prevnted or lessened the scope and level of the coming war. What would have happened if America had geared up for war in 1938 or 39? Would Hitler have changed his ambitions if America had placed a few hundred thousant troops and some airbases in England? Would Japan have attacked if our Pacific bases had been reinforced and properly equiped? If we would have developed advanced aircraft and other weapons would it have had an impact?
People question why we have troops stationed all over the world today. They question why we supply foriegn aid in the form of advanced aircraft and weapon system to countries all over the world. I think we do it because we learned a lesson from WWII. Isolationism and burying your head in the sand is not a good policy.

 

[oldfart]

By 1941, fascism was a potent threat to the world. Germany, with the backing of others in Europe, including Italy, Spain, Hungary, Rumania, bulgaria, and, initially the Soviet Union (before they themselves became a target), had rampaged through Europe and seized considerable power. Japan was on a similar course in the far east. The only free world nations resisting at that point were those of the British Empire/ Commonweath.

It was a tenuous situation, one of course changed by Pearl Harbour. But here is a question: If Japan had taken a more cautious route, and not attacked Pearl Harbour,or touched US colonies in the far east, would the US have still intervened in WW2? At what point in time? There were many in the US that were isolationist, others distained the old European colonial empires, and would not have been sorry to see them go. FDR himself played with the idea of limiting Britain in the future by way of how the war was played out. There were also some on the right wing that favoured Germany.

The US may have seen advantage in seeing the old Europe go down, while they remained safe behind two oceans, and would have had time to build up a strong military at leisure. Perhaps they saw dealing with Nazi Germany as not a big problem.

On the other hand, facing a much more powerful Germany some years down the road, with control of much of the east, a powerful navy with aircraft carriers (planned), long range bombers (conceptualized), and possibly atomic weapons, would have been a collossal problem, although perhaps not clearly envisioned at the time.

Some really good questions. As I see it, in Japan the main dynamic was the split generally along the lines of the Army vs the Navy. The Army had ambitions in China and needed raw materials from southern Asia, especially oil and rubber, to continue that conflict. The United States was the primary obstacle to this and had also instituted an embargo on metals against Japan. The Navy was divided into two camps; the majority feared war with America as unwinable and a minority sided with the Army on the theory that war with America was inevitable and time was not on Japan's side. I cannot conceive of a situation where Japan did not go to war with the United States. The question is rather when and how.

The original Japanese plan was to swiftly destroy the American Pacific fleet, establish a defensive perimeter, and eventually negotiate concessions regarding raw material access. Suppose that the Japanese Navy could have persuaded the government to put off an attack for say, six months.

American public opinion was not ready for a war. FDR was trying to move America toward active participation in the war but with little progress. Absent Pearl Harbor, I don't see any America joining the war in 1942. And of course, America had a Europe first policy.

A lot of Americans are fuzzy on the time line. At the time of Pearl Harbor the Germans had been to the gates of Moscow and Leningrad and the winter Russian counteroffensive had not started. Many believed that Russia would be out of the war in a matter of weeks. So without Pearl Harbor the question is would Russia have stayed in the war? My opinion is that they would have and that the Germans were never as close to victory as they thought. The Soviets might have lost Leningrad and Moscow and just fallen back to the Urals.

That leaves us in summer 1942 with the Germans in control of Europe and preparing a great second offensive against the Soviets, the Japanese still arguing over war, and the United States still a neutral. It looks like a stalemate to me.

The more interesting question to me is what would have happened if after Pearl Harbor Germany had not declared war. Would America have entered the war in Europe, or waged a one-front war against Japan?

 

[bendog]

We'd already embargoed oil and steel to Japan over their moves in manchuria and china. Essentially, we forced them to take the oil fields in the Dutch East Indies on sumatra and java, now Indonesia. That required them to eliminate flank threats in Malaya/Singapore and the Phillipines. Assuming Japan "only" attacked Britian and Dutch "possessions," I can't see FDR "sitting" (-: by.

I think the notion of Japan attacking Pearl Harbor never occurred to FDR, and the Navy didn't take it that seriously. And of course the intelligence we did have was at best mishandled. Advocates of aircraft carriers being anything but ancillary to the battleship line, were looked at like kooks. And, FDR loved his navy. However, I've suspected that FDR was really baiting both the Japanese and Hitler to take a shot. It could be our lackluster warning about Japan's imminent plans came from not wanting to give the pacifists more opportunity for calling FDR out about trying to get us in the war.

Our war plans envisoned the Japanese invading the Phillipines. We'd do a delaying action there, and the Fleet would mount a resupply effort and engage the Japanese battleship line, which was generally inferior to our Nevada, Penn, NM, Tenn and Colorado classes. Plan Orange

It's interesting to speculate what would have happeded if Hitler hadn't declared war on us first. I assume we'd eventually have been pulled into Europe. Obviously, FDR would have used every bargaining chip he had (and then cheated too) to keep Britian from going under.

 

[regent]

We'd already embargoed oil and steel to Japan over their moves in manchuria and china. Essentially, we forced them to take the oil fields in the Dutch East Indies on sumatra and java, now Indonesia. That required them to eliminate flank threats in Malaya/Singapore and the Phillipines. Assuming Japan "only" attacked Britian and Dutch "possessions," I can't see FDR "sitting" (-: by.

I think the notion of Japan attacking Pearl Harbor never occurred to FDR, and the Navy didn't take it that seriously. And of course the intelligence we did have was at best mishandled. Advocates of aircraft carriers being anything but ancillary to the battleship line, were looked at like kooks. And, FDR loved his navy. However, I've suspected that FDR was really baiting both the Japanese and Hitler to take a shot. It could be our lackluster warning about Japan's imminent plans came from not wanting to give the pacifists more opportunity for calling FDR out about trying to get us in the war.

Our war plans envisoned the Japanese invading the Phillipines. We'd do a delaying action there, and the Fleet would mount a resupply effort and engage the Japanese battleship line, which was generally inferior to our Nevada, Penn, NM, Tenn and Colorado classes. Plan Orange

It's interesting to speculate what would have happeded if Hitler hadn't declared war on us first. I assume we'd eventually have been pulled into Europe. Obviously, FDR would have used every bargaining chip he had (and then cheated too) to keep Britian from going under.

Perhaps the question today is do the American people believe that Hitler was our war?

 

[bendog]

As the father of a recent HS graduate, I think many people under 50 may consider it irrelevant. It was of course "our" war. One can debate whether the soviets or nazis were more depraved. The end result was both Germany and Japan economically dominated their respective "continents" in exchange for guaranteeing personal liberty and at least nominal democracies. (Japan was pretty much one party for decades)

The Cold War was "won" by having China become the most dynamic market economy, and the soviets teeter on third world status saved only by nuclear warheads and petroleum and natl gas reserves.

My kid didn't have the absurd school nuclear war drills of "duck and cover" under our desks, but I'm not sure she has it better. 40 years ago this would never have been a question.

Fatherland was sort of on point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatherland_(novel)

A tv movie too with Ruger Hauer.

 

[regent]

As the father of a recent HS graduate, I think many people under 50 may consider it irrelevant. It was of course "our" war. One can debate whether the soviets or nazis were more depraved. The end result was both Germany and Japan economically dominated their respective "continents" in exchange for guaranteeing personal liberty and at least nominal democracies. (Japan was pretty much one party for decades)

The Cold War was "won" by having China become the most dynamic market economy, and the soviets teeter on third world status saved only by nuclear warheads and petroleum and natl gas reserves.

My kid didn't have the absurd school nuclear war drills of "duck and cover" under our desks, but I'm not sure she has it better. 40 years ago this would never have been a question.

Fatherland was sort of on point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatherland_(novel)

A tv movie too with Ruger Hauer.

That duck and cover drill was based on our knowledge of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some people, depending on the distance from the bomb center, survived with just a little cover.
During the Cuban missile crisis, on my way to work, I noted areas that might offer some cover if I saw the bomb blast. It all depended on the distance and the cover. For most however....

 

[whitehall]

It wouldn't have been hard for FDR to goad Japan into an overt act. Japan had already sunk a US gunboat flying the American Flag during their invasion of China in 1938 but FDR wasn't ready at that time so he downplayed the incident. The oil embargo would have led to conflict with Japan sooner or later so he could get into the "real war" in Europe.

 

[jwoodie]

I think our experience in WW1 would be instructive. We likely would have been drawn into the war against Germany unless it had already defeated the Soviet Union and established an unassailable position in Europe. War with Japan might never have occurred, instead being replaced by a wary truce like Japan had with the Soviet Union. More significantly, the nuclear bomb might not have been developed for decades afterwards.

 

[whitehall]

Japan was guilty of unspeakable atrocities in South East Asia and China in their ever expanding empire. At the outbreak of WW2 they controlled 1/7 of the globe. Anybody who thinks signatures on a document would have prevented a clash with the US is a fool.

 

[dilloduck]

As the father of a recent HS graduate, I think many people under 50 may consider it irrelevant. It was of course "our" war. One can debate whether the soviets or nazis were more depraved. The end result was both Germany and Japan economically dominated their respective "continents" in exchange for guaranteeing personal liberty and at least nominal democracies. (Japan was pretty much one party for decades)

The Cold War was "won" by having China become the most dynamic market economy, and the soviets teeter on third world status saved only by nuclear warheads and petroleum and natl gas reserves.

My kid didn't have the absurd school nuclear war drills of "duck and cover" under our desks, but I'm not sure she has it better. 40 years ago this would never have been a question.

Fatherland was sort of on point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatherland_(novel)

A tv movie too with Ruger Hauer.

That duck and cover drill was based on our knowledge of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some people, depending on the distance from the bomb center, survived with just a little cover.
During the Cuban missile crisis, on my way to work, I noted areas that might offer some cover if I saw the bomb blast. It all depended on the distance and the cover. For most however....

The monthly testing of civil defense sirens served as a grim reminder to what us school kids faced should the soviets decide to launch. Didn't take much common sense to realize that most of us would be vaporized. I'm glad they don't insult us with sirens and drills anymore.

 

[regent]

As the father of a recent HS graduate, I think many people under 50 may consider it irrelevant. It was of course "our" war. One can debate whether the soviets or nazis were more depraved. The end result was both Germany and Japan economically dominated their respective "continents" in exchange for guaranteeing personal liberty and at least nominal democracies. (Japan was pretty much one party for decades)

The Cold War was "won" by having China become the most dynamic market economy, and the soviets teeter on third world status saved only by nuclear warheads and petroleum and natl gas reserves.

My kid didn't have the absurd school nuclear war drills of "duck and cover" under our desks, but I'm not sure she has it better. 40 years ago this would never have been a question.

Fatherland was sort of on point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatherland_(novel)

A tv movie too with Ruger Hauer.

That duck and cover drill was based on our knowledge of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some people, depending on the distance from the bomb center, survived with just a little cover.
During the Cuban missile crisis, on my way to work, I noted areas that might offer some cover if I saw the bomb blast. It all depended on the distance and the cover. For most however....

The monthly testing of civil defense sirens served as a grim reminder to what us school kids faced should the soviets decide to launch. Didn't take much common sense to realize that most of us would be vaporized. I'm glad they don't insult us with sirens and drills anymore.

All based on airplanes delivering, now obsolete with missiles.

 

[numan]

'
So in order to counter the Nazis, the USA turned itself into a militaristic, totalitarian National Security State.

Bravo, Land of Débris and Home of the Dazed!! · ·

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