Q of the Week: Pearl Harbour?

[Leon]

After seeing the film the other night, I was wondering, if Pearl Harbour hadn't happened, would the US still have got involved in the war, and if so, what might have caused them to?

[lentulus]

They were already doing some pretty warlike convoy escort in the North Atlantic.  I think Roosevelt was just looking for a way to get the fascists to cross the line.

[Luddite]

Churchill was desperate to bring the US into the war and i think he'd convinced Roosevelt of the need for US involvement too.

The problem was US public opinion which remained staunchly isolationist despite the Anglo-American propaganda units producing films and other pressures to try and persuade American domestic audiences.

I suppose had Pearl Harbour not 'happened', some other even might have been concieved.  Trouble was it had to be an attack on US soil to change public opinion.  Losing convoy ships would simply have prompted a popular sentiment that the convoys should stop, and had the Japanese not attacked, there was no way to engineer a German attack of sufficient 'outrage' to change US public opnion.

Without an event like Pearl Harbour, the US would never have got involved in what they considered a European War.  It is likely they would have continued to supply Britain until US national interests were better served by dealing with the Third Reich, probably naturally after a change of US government.

[capthugeca]

Wellput, Luddite.

[Maenoferren]

An interesting question
In an islolationist country America 'needed, an attack like Pearl Harbour to be drawn into the conflict. Certain politicians were against support for Britain and had the attack not occurred these calls would have become stronger. Convoy losses would, as Luddite said, caused puplic opinion to turn against  their deployment. Small wonder the cospiracy theorists discuss the attack as being known about etc, etc etc

[Luddite]

Interesting indeed. 

Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbour?

Well, they were engaged in Imperial expansion to dominate south-east Asia, China and the Pacific.  The US had continued to supply Japan  oil/gasoline even after the invasion of Manchuria and French Indo-China, presumably in the hopes of facilitating the successful diplomatic 'reigning in' of Japan's expansions.

As part of this diplomatic strategy, the US moved its fleet from San Diego to Hawaii to show the Japanese that futher expansions into the Dutch East Indies or the Philipines could potentially be militarily resisted by the US.

The Japanese attacked to remove the US capacity to interfere with thier Imperial expansions.

Here endeth the very very brief history recap.

So, if Pearl Harbour didn't happen on 7th December 1941....why?

And what then would draw in the US?

Perhaps the Japanese were able to negotiate the withdrawal of the US fleet by offering some treaty or concession?  The USA was firmly engaged in this process anyway - the total surprise in the midst of seemingly successful negotiations leading to the 'live in infamy' speech - so perhaps the Japanese were convinced that the US fleet would not pose a threat and held of on the attack.

So what would draw the US in from then on? 
Some sort of confrontation with the Japanese seems likely.  Roosvelt, transparently keen to jump in and aid the British and resist the growth of the Tripartite nations territories and influence, would perhaps have moved the Pacific fleet into a position that forced the Japanese attack. 

Since the Philipines were attacked 4hrs after Pearl Harbour, perhaps this attack still goes ahead the the US fleet moves into the area in protest.

Who knows the scenarion, but i think the key thing would be that the US would have to force the Japanese to undertake a major attack in order to end the domestic isolationist sentiment.

After all, the Axis Powers had been expanding their territories and making war for 2 years before Pearl Harbour and the US had shown no inclinations whatever to get involved...whatever prompts that to change has, i would suggest, to echo Pearl Harbour - a massive, unprovoked attack on Americans and American territory...

[goat major]

ok struggling to remember anything i did at university 20 years ago but here goes......

The Japanese were totally and wrongly convinced that the US/UK had a secret pact. As Luddite points out they then went through a scenario planning exercise with such constrained logic that it produced a bizarre paranoid self defeating conclusion along the lines of

- The UK/US oil embargo (imposed because of the China war) will bring Japan to a total halt within months
- Therefore we need to seize Dutch oil assets in the Phillipines
- If we do this the British will assist the Dutch so we need to attack the British too
- This will invoke the secret US/UK pact and the US will join
- Therefore we need to attack the US

If they hadn't attacked Pearl Harbour they would have run out of oil - so they could have backed down in China to stop the embargo (unlikely) or been forced to do something else more aggressive - which could well have sparked a war with the US. I'm not sure the militaristic decision making process in Tokyo had the right mindset to find a solution to their dilemma. Did they make the right decision ? well i reckon Churchill  summed it up right......

"To have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all!...Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder."

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

The doubtful thing was wether US could decalre war on Germany, fortuneatly Hitler did it for him. And all who trhink the Oil and Scrap embargo cause the attack on Pearl Harbour are quite right.

IanS

[Last Hussar]

5-6 months before the British garrison on Iceland had been replaced by a US one, to free up the soldiers: Roosevelt was doing everything he could to get in!

[Leon]

What was the original reason for the oil embargo?  Just to try and reign in the Japanese expansion?  Because we had no political responsibility to China did we?

[Leveller Mutineer]

You also have to consider the large Italian and Irish voting blocks.  If you declare war on Germany you would have to do the same to Italy (for Italian Americans the mother country).  If you add the Irish, a lot of whom had no interest in coming to the aid of the British (for one reason or another), that's a lot of people Roosevelt would have to win over.

Of course if you were cynical you could argue that Roosevelt was only interested in entering the war against Germany because if there's one thing that a US Government couldn't abide is a united Europe.
Is there anyone that cynical? 

[nikharwood]

Is there anyone that cynical? 

Oh yes...

Not forgetting the strategic long-view that a war in Europe & South East Asia would be win-able and there would be long-term economic benefits in the rebuilding of countries; coupled with the rise & proliferation of the military-industrial complex & its associated wealth and power, this gives a further reason for actively taking a role in WW2 and being seen, by punch-drunk European allies, as the saviour. The net effect of this manoeuvre? Becoming the dominant global superpower & ideology.

Or is that just another cynical conspiracy theory? 

[Shecky]

What was the original reason for the oil embargo?  Just to try and reign in the Japanese expansion?  Because we had no political responsibility to China did we?

Yes, it was to reign in the Japanese expansion. The US and Western Europe had strong economic interests in China. For over the previous 50 years or more the US had been pushing for an Open Door Policy - preventing any one country from being able to monopolize the Chinese market. With the Japanese conquests in China locking out the US from those markets the US saw that as a threat.

[lentulus]

Or is that just another cynical conspiracy theory? 

I think a bit much, in this case.  On the other hand, if Roosevelt was acting in any other than long term US interests, he was not doing his job.  He was also (IIRC) less than a fan of European colonialism and not reflexively anti-communist so the post-war outcomes might have been different in interesting ways if he had held on a bit longer.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

At least distinguished histroian specialising in US history reckons Roosevelt was trying to provoke Japan in some way, so that the US could atleast free up some of the British troops in the far east and allow them to move ships back to Europe. Of course the reverse happened, but then in the 1930's a senior British diplomat had said in a private telegram "Americans nice enough, but I dont want to share a howdah with one on a tiger hunt". What special relationship, Great Powers have interests not freinds.

IanS