Could the Pacific War have been avoided?

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Originally posted by shugo

true in every sense, but I do think judging from FDR's character and his insight and  knowledge of geopolitical strategy, that he would have acted regardless of wether Pearl Harbor happened or not.

Then again Pearl Harbor was inevitable, since a north strike was out of the question (it simply was not in the Japanese strategic interest to do so).

It reminds me of a quote of Napoleon were he mentioned after the battle waterloo, the he never was a master of the situation, but rather that the circumstances were master of him.

You can't place Japan on another part of the globe. Japan is located in Asia on the Pacific and that determines what neighbours they have deal with. It is that situation what made it unavoidable. 

To be fair, from the Japanese point of view they felt they had little choice but to expand or be consumed. They had watched as the great power in the region China had been reduced to a helpless state by the European powers and the opening of Japan by Perry had been a rude shock. The U.S. embargo of Japan meant it had a limited amount of time to find new sources of raw materials and maybe that was Roosevelts' intention. He had already been doing everything he legally could to get around U.S. laws restricting its' involvement in the war in Europe. Things like physically pushing warplanes bound for England across the Canadian border where they were then flown on to the conflict theatre.

Edited by DukeC - 05-May-2009 at 18:28