Could the Pacific War have been avoided?

 

This thread belongs in the Modern History sub-forum

 

 

2) Any move by the Japanese in SE Asia would mean war. The japanese would have been extremely stupid to conduct an action which was certain to bring the US to war and not at least try to neutralise the Pac Flt, hell if they could have gone to Scarpa Flow and sunk the British Grand Fleet they would have done so. What began the war was not Pearl Harbour, but the events in E Asia that Pearl Harbour was designed to make easier.

Burma has the largest field formation, the Burma Area Army.

 

 

Look at it from a general's or president's perspective (a good president that is, like FDR (second best U.S. president after Washington I would say), not someone like Obama, or Bush, or Carter, or even Kennedy for that matter). If you know that a nation has warred other nations before then it is likely to do so again (why stop when you have been undefeated, it was true for Japan and it was true for Germany), if your interest conflict then that nation poses a threat to you. Then you know war is inevitable, the only thing you don't know is when it errupts. Your interests conflict with Germany because it is not a democratic nation and that nation poses a threat to your main trading partner. Your interests conflict with Japan because of access to resources. Even if the resources are at different locations there may still be restricted access, because you still have to transport it. The problem and blessing for the United States is that it is locked between two oceans and it is a problem when you need to transport oil, because then the dillema arises where do you hold port? If you then lose Indonesia and Thailand you lose half your supply of oil. Tanks and aircaft need oil (lots of it) and you know war is likely, if your supply is down, then you will be weak and fighting will be harder, with more casualties and a greater likelyhood that you may lose the war. This is why operation market garden failed (they had no access to oil, because they had no access to Antwerp). So if you are president and you know you must fight anyway, then fight when and where it serves you best. Bush (junior that is) understood where to fight (I know its cryptic for someone who has no clue what the situation is of Iraq and Afghanistan and I doubt there are many who do understand it), but not when to fight. Kennedy understood when to fight, but not where to fight. Carter understood neither and Obama is probably the same as him.

 

Site and situation matters people, more so in war then it does in peacetime. Remember your Sun Tzu, locked in on hostile ground, you should fight, because doing nothing will lead to no avail, only to your demise.

 

FDR understood all of it. Had he not understood it, then many of us would not have been here in the first place and the world would have been a hell, a living nightmare. Had FDR not understood it, there would be no New York city. California and Alaska would have been Japanese, Eastern Europe a wasteland, England torched soil and the British islands a cesspool of Nationalists, Western Europe under tyrranical rule. Russia under tyrranical rule and plagued by war. Africa a genocidal wasteland, the middle east a wild west, Latin America a haven for despots and Asia and Oceania the domain of the Japanese emperor.

 

Site and situation has repercussions upon repercussions. FDR's vice-president Truman really did understand it as a domino effect, because it is a domino effect. The U.S. congress did not understand it, but FDR did understand it. FDR probably understood it, because of his family's history. Know how the Roosevelts made their money?

 

basically you can sum it up by quoting Kennedy

Roosevelt declared war on Hitler, but the declaration of war needed to be ratified first by congress, which was problematic, because the support for it was marginal it could go either way). When Hitler heard about what Roosevelt did, he made a formal declaration of war to the United States, that is what ultimately pushed the United States in the war. Roosevelt was a clever man, even if the Japanese had not attacked Pearl Harbor, you can be sure that Roosevelt would find a way to push congress towards war. He didn't like it, but Roosevelt knew he had to.

 

Afterall what future scenario is better for the U.S.? A world under genocidal and tyrannical rule and a country all alone with no trading partners and no access to resources, or a free and democratic world and a U.S. with many trading partners and good access to resources?

 

If you have any common sense and morality, you would say it is the latter.

 

it said declare, it did not say formal declaration of war that was ratified by congress.

 

I can say I declare war upon you, but it does not mean I am actually at war with you.

 

gcle2003 you just made the same mistake Hitler made in 1941. Remember Roosevelt studied law, Hitler was but a mere bum with poor artistic skills.

 

article 2, section 3 reads:

 

"he shall recieve ambassadors"

 

which is exactly what he did between the 7th and 11th of december

 

Hitler beat them to it, because FDR provoked him (its easy to do that to a psychopath I suppose). The point is FDR had to do that because of the isolationists attitude of the U.S. FDR knew he only could get enough support, if Hitler proclaimed state of war first.

 

This is what I feel makes a good and strong leader. Knowing and acting upon something you know to be the right course of action when everyone else disagrees with you even though they are wrong from every strategic point imaginable and you are not wrong, shows a great sense of character and intelligence. FDR and Washington were one of the few presidents who had those qualities, it is what made them great statesmen.