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I’ll pose the question in this post title, but to put a twist on it I’ll ask if the U.S. should have stayed of the war if the Japanese did not attack first. While it is true that Hitler had been planning on invading America eventually (see the post on Hitler’s Lost Plan), I don’t know that that was known by U.S. intelligence at the time.
Remember, since the birth of the United States, Europe had seen many intra-continental squabbles, and I don't think that intervention in foreign wars was a policy standard as it seems to be in modern times.In short, no. Even if Japan hadn’t attacked us, they were too serious of a threat to our interests and territories to be ignored forever.
As to Germany attacking us: good luck, Krauts. Germany's Navy couldn't even defeat Britian's, let alone launch an invasion of a country the physical and popluation size of ours. Hiter could conceivably have invaded and conquered England, but that's a whole different ball of wax than crossing an ocean to subdue a nation that is the most fiercely independent on earth. (and huge and rich to boot)
Roosevelt was an interventionist and wanted to get involved in the war precisely because he understood the threat Hiter and Tojo posed to the rest of the world. Congressional and popular opposition prevented him from doing so until we were attacked directly, however. We didn't support Stalin because we liked him, we supported him because we hated Hitler and as a prelude to direct involvement. Likewise, supporting Britian may have assauged our conscience, but we didn't HAVE to do it. We did it because we couldn't at that point get into the fight, so to speak. Even if Hitler hadn't declared war on us, I believe Roosevelt would have found a way to get us into the fight in Europe, by hook or by crook.nemesisenforcer wrote:Even if Hitler hadn’t declared war on us, I believe Roosevelt would have found a way to get us into the fight in Europe, by hook or by crook.
So does that mean you're one of those people who believes that FDR knew about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor but let it come so that the U.S. had a reason for going to war? At least, I think that's what the theory says (don't quote me on it).
I wonder how successful an attack on America would have been. Hypothetically, if Germany had kept its truce with the USSR and had defeated Britain, what would its chances have been then? I saw a show on the History Channel a few months ago about the Japanese development of biological weapons in Manchuria, headed by some scientist whom I believe the U.S. got after the war to work for America. I think that the Japanese were building some advanced bomber which would have been too fast or could go at too high an altitude for our fighters, and that if it had come to fruition in time it could have bombed San Diego. Think of that, as well as an attack on the East Coast by Germans/Italians, and it's not a pretty sight.
That said, this little thing called the Second Amendment would at least have prevented any easy land campaign for the enemy.I say that the U.S would have still gone into the war, because if Hitler would have counquered all of Europe within Time he would have been an enormous threat.
Phidippides:
The Pearl Harbor theory you were talking about is nothing but Revisionist History at its finest. Pearl Harbor was a fateful event that triggered the mobilization for all out war. The American people were primarily pacifistic still remembering what happened to Europe in World War I. Americans were more worried about the Great Depression than Europeans, Chinese, and Japanese armies beating each other 's brains out. But when news of Pearl Harbor reached American homes, all that mentality went out the window. Comics soon cropt up depicting the Japanese as monkeymen wearing glasses and buck teeth and a racial hatred against Tokyo was born. Many Americans did not understand what Hitler was all about nor did they know what he intended to do with the Jews.....of course (sadly) many Americans remained disaffected by Europe's convulsions and disinterested in the plight of the Jewish people. I am not bashing America when I say that we engaged in a racial war to the death with Japan. Read Studs Terkel's The Pacific War to see just how racial the Pacific Theater became.DonaldBaker wrote:Many Americans did not understand what Hitler was all about nor did they know what he intended to do with the Jews…..of course (sadly) many Americans remained disaffected by Europe’s convulsions and disinterested in the plight of the Jewish people.
You could very well be right about this in general terms, but I don't think the holocaust was known about around the world until after the war was over and the atrocities were uncovered, such as during the Nuremburg trials. In fact, I would expect that prior to and during the war, it may have been known that the Jews were the political enemies of the Nazis, but the existence of death camps and genocide was news to the Allies (as in the movie Band of Brothers (based on a true story) which contains an episode where American troops come across a concentration camp).
I have visited the Dachau concentration camp, and one of the things I learned there that struck me was that the German residents of Dachau were not completely aware about what was going on in the camp. While they had somewhat of an idea (and can perhaps be blamed for wilful ignorance) I don't think that even they knew the full scope of activities there.Had the US not got involved when we did , it was probably a matter of time before they brought it to us. Hence the attack at Pearl Harbor , I’m sure another member of the Axis would have conjured up another plan to attack us.
America should have entered the war because no matter who won (Germany or Russia), freedom was going to suffer for the rest of Europe. At least we saved Western Europe from the thrawldom of Soviet occupation.
Ralph McGill who wrote for the Atlanta Journal during that time period advocated supporting Hitler for a while and Stalin for a while until they wore themselves out.
Has anyone read Day of Deceit by Robert B. Stinnett ?? It lays the blame on FDR for Pearl Harbor. I have mixed feelings about it but if the copies of documents are accurate FDR must have had some prior knowlege of the impending attack if not the scope of it. According to the book Adm Husband Kimmell and Gen. Walter Short were kept out of the intelligence loop in the period prior to the attack but were made scapegoats after the attack. Good read whether you believe all of it or not
Herman H, BuggfuzzThis is the problem with history; it is easily analyzed in retrospect but at some point must be lived in the present. To Americans living in the 30s and 40s, I’m not so sure that joining a war in Europe would have been viewed in terms of global politics and security. With the Great Depression and economic isolation of the era, the average American citizen would not have concerned himself much with European wars which had been going on with some frequency for the past…2000(?) years or so (on the other hand, WWI wasn’t that far behind, but the basis for American involvement in that war is beyond me right now).
Had all of Europe fallen to the Nazis, would the American attitude have changed without Pearl Harbor?The American government would have understood the seriousness of what a Hitler dominated Europe would mean. I think FDR would have steadily made his case to go to war with the American people, and at the same time, he would have been picking a fight with Hitler. It wouldn’t have taken much to pee off the Nazis leader. FDR was nobody’s fool, and Churchill would have made darn sure America got involved one way or another. The Japanese just made it so much easier to go to war.
1. It was undoubtedly a good thing that Hitler’s advance across Europe was stopped.
2. The Japanese side of the war, and the use of the bomb, will always be more controversial than the war on the German "front."
3. One effect that the attack on Pearl Harbor had was to remove America from its isolationist attitude. The signifigance of this effect should not be underestimated. How different would modern history have been if the American people continued to feel that all outside political involvement was dangerous and scary? Would any of our more current wars and police actions and military aid programs have ever happened, without the catalyst of a dramatic example of our vulnerability? If America had remained an isolationist state, would the UN even exist? Would the Vietnam War have ever happened? What about our involvement in Yugoslavia and the Balkan states? I think that the dramatic shift away from Isolationism was one effect of Pearl Harbor with incredible long term political signifigance, perhaps only second to the use of the bomb, and its impact on international relations.
what do you think?
❓jonnyjmboy, welcome to the forum.
I agree that it was good that Hitler's advance was stopped in Europe, particularly since we now know he had written of his plans to invade the United States after his warring in Europe was done (see my post on Hitler's Lost Plan). I also think that the pre-WWII isolationism tainted world economic growth. Especially during the Great Depression, countries became more concerned with domestic production and therefore raised tariffs, which effectively denies the efficient allocation of resources (read: bad news) for countries in the long run.
As far as your other questions, countries tried out the League of Nations prior to the UN, and no, I don't think that the Vietnam War would have happened if America kept her isolationistic tendencies through the 1960s. The Domino Theory was really based on a proactive approach to world affairs - similar to Bush's proactive approach to fighting terrorism (fighting the terrorist "there" rather than "here").
Interesting point, though...I wonder if someone has ever mapped out the frequency of U.S. foreign military actions during the 20th Century. There would probably be a lull during the 1930s and then a jump during WWII and then a continually high rate through the rest of the century.Pearl Harbor definetly pushed us into World War II, but there was a great sense of fatigue with world politics after the war ended among America’s citizens. The Marshall Plan was instituted to rebuild Europe and MacArthur remained in Japan to rebuild it in our image. But I suspect had Americans had their way in the late 1940’s and into the 1950’s, they would have drifted happily back into isolationism with no questions asked. But what prevented this relapse was the new and even greater threats of the Soviet Union and Communist China. Americans understood that the world had now become divided into two armed camps and a line had to be drawn. Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare campaign stirred up American paranoia to where political theories such as the Domino Theory could take root in the American psyche. Americans feared the great Yellow Horde of China and the great Russian Bear woud join together and move to wipe capitalism off the face of the earth. These fears were unfounded, however, as Stalin and Mao had competing brands of communism that kept them from creating a united front against the West. But with the information available then, and the prevailing sense of paranoia, America girded itself for the impending conflict with the communist powers anywhere on the globe a threat appeared to lume omniously. When the Russians fired Sputnik into space in 1957, the fears of falling behind the Soviets technologically aggravated the paranoia to another level. The Cuban Missile Crisis then took that fear to yet another level, but at the same time both sides began to realize how foolish an all out nuclear exchange would be. So global interventionism in regional conflicts became the method of choice to fight the Cold War to prevent it from ever becoming a shooting war. So in short, Vietnam and for the Soviets Afghanistan, were the alternatives to all out nuclear annihilation. Otherwise Americans would not have cared about an obscure nation half way around the world they had never heard of except that it was unacceptable for China to gain possession of it.
Churchill wanted america in the war far sooner than they came in… Roosevelt turned America into isolationism in the 1920s – well before WW2..it was this thinking that kept america out of the war until they had no option. He wanted the Russians to sort out the Germans and Britian battling along to keep them from crossing the English channel. Britain was bombed to pieces remember – perhaps if america was there sooner then a lot of lives would have been saved.
