-Caveat Lector-
I don't think serious scholars, after 60 years of hindsight, believe that
FDR and other top level members of the government and Pentagon felt that our
entry into WWII was avoidable. Though the romantic view is that America was
an isolationist state through the 1930s and leading up to WWII the reality
is far different.
America began the road to an international power and eventually a super
power with her defeat of the Spanish in the Spanish American War and through
that victory the gain of the terrortories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the
Phillipines etc. At the beginning of 1898 the fleet of the United States
Navy consisted of six battleships, two armored cruisers, thirteen protected
cruisers, six steel monitors, eight old iron monitors, thirty- three
unprotected cruisers and gunboats, six torpedo boats, and twelve tugs.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt (stick that one in your
conspiracy theory pie) organized a Board of Auxiliary Vessels which,
utilizing material in the department's war plans, prepared a list of
suitable private craft that would meet the Navy's expanded needs. On 9 March
Congress passed a $50 million emergency defense appropriation bill, and the
Navy Department began to acquire vessels. By the end of the Spanish American
war, the navy had purchased or leased 103 warships and auxiliaries. Another
twenty-eight vessels were added from existing government organizations
including revenue cutters, lighthouse tenders, and the vessels of the Fish
Commission. After the war auxiliary vessels such as colliers, refrigerator
ships, and distilling ships became a permanent part of the fleet.
Even before the war America had begun to embark on the road of
internationalism, rapid growth in overseas markets and a foreign policy
aimed at U.S. control of communications across the isthmus of Central
America drove the country towards naval expansion. America's growth on the
international stage continued up to and through WWI with the increased
internationalism of US Business (Ford, IBM, etc.) and our entry and
contribution to the allied victory in WWI. With the outset of the depression
most Americans (as did most people in all countries) turned inward and
narrowed their view to their local situation instead of the international
stage. However, our government continued to expand our international role.
The new terrortories in the South Pacific required the military to expand
its role in the Pacific and build new bases to protect these new American
interest. This coincided with the rise of Japanese militarism, nationalism
and expansionism. Havng felt that its nation was treated as a second tier
power in comparison to the Western powers Japan's nationalistic leaders
began to develop a plan to unify all of Southeastern Asia under a Greater
East Co-prosperity Sphere which would place Japan at the top of the colonial
areas to the south. The Japanese motive was to create an Asian bloc that
would be organized and defended by Japan. The "New Asian Order" which the
Co-prosperity Sphere would promote would contain three essential goals,
common defense, political independence, and the integration of economic
systems. Thailand, Korea, Indochina, the West Indies, the Philippines,
China, and Taiwan, were among the essential countries the Japanese hoped to
incorporate into the New Asian Order. The raw minerals especially, oil and
coal were needed to fuel Japan's war machine. It also needed to secure
petroleum, copper, rubber, tin, and iron to compete with the West. In 1940
Japan only produced one-thirteenth of the coal and steel that the United
State produced.
During the late 1930s Japan began to make the necessary miltiary moves to
start the New Asian Order sending troops into China and French Indochina
which raised the condemnation of world powers. This condemnation came in the
form of an embargo on Japan, specifically coal from the United States. This
caused a serious strain on relations between the two countries, though
relations had always been tenous at best, with the Japanese seizure of
German possessions in 1917, the US establishment of a base at Caveat in the
20s and Japan's invasion of Manchuria during the 30s.
The main military goals of Japanese expansionism was to gain the oil fields
in the Dutch East Indies and and to hold them by using the central Pacific
islands as a defensive ring.This strategy left the US bases in the
Phillipines right in the center of this defensive ring. Japan knew that the
United States and the other Western powers would not stand idly by while
Japan invaded and conquered their colonies and possesions. The American
Pacific Fleet was seen as the largest threat to this Japanese expansionism
and its security,
The pre-war plan was to grab the oilfields, then make the American Fleet
fight its way across the Central Pacific to a final decisive battle in the
Philippine Sea. Japan would face the US 9 battleships with their own fleet
of 10 battleships. Subs would attack the US fleet all the way across the
Pacific, and would hopefully whittle away at the American battleline so that
the numerically superior but qualitive inferior Japanese Fleet would prevail
in the great decisive battle. If they won, they kept the new empire. If they
lost, it was all over. They were sort of betting the whole war on one coin
flip.
The attack at Pearl Harbor was a way to greatly improve the Japanese chances
of victory. The attack would remove the US Pacific Fleet from the war,
allowing the Japanese to grab their empire without interference. By the time
the US Fleet recovered, the Japanese would have had time to dig in and
establish a virtually impenetrable ring of defenses. The Americans,
suffering from an early demoralizing defeat and committed to defeating
Germany first, would soon tire of the bloody war as they tried to crawl
across the Pacific. The Japanese outposts would have to be taken one at a
time, so that the American fleet could safely traverse the Pacific for the
great decisive battle. If the Americans were bled enough, peace terms would
be reached long before the American Fleet could get close enough to Japan to
force a decisive battle. If there were no decisive battle, then the Japanese
would not have to risk loosing it. With a little luck, the Americans would
not even fight, as they would have no way to threaten Japan directly and the
American public would not want tens of thousands of American men dying on
some little islands that no one ever heard of.
Both sides therefore viewed war not as a question of if but when. Most at
the Pentagon at the time believed the first blow would come against the
Phillipines in either 1942, 43. The idea that Japan would have the
capability or daring to launch an attack against Hawaii was never taken
seriously. The government realized that war with Japan and probably Germany
was inevitable. By 1941 Britain was the last power left in Europe that could
stand up to Germany and though we had economic and other interest in
Southeast Asia our ties with and economic reliance on Europe was much
greater. The United States had already openly violated every international
neutrality law by adopting a short of war policy to aid Britain. Unlimited
credit and war materials were given to this beleaguered nation, and her
warships were refitted and repaired in US yards. By contrast, the US Navy
was instructed to treat any Italian or German warship operating in the
eastern side of the Atlantic as hostile. War with Japan was not seen as a
back door way to get into the conflict in Europe. It was something that our
government realized was inevitable and once we were at war with Japan,
because of the tripatrite treaty (Japan, Itlay and Germany) Germany and
Italy would declare war on the US and we would be in the European war.
> ----------
> From: Nessie
> Reply To: Conspiracy Theory Research List
> Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 10:10 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [CTRL] FDR Unmasked
>
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> The trouble with the "scorpions in a bottle" metaphor is that they would
> not have killed each other. One would have killed the other. Then the
> world would have had to deal with a totalitarian state that reached from
> the Atlantic to the Pacific.
>
> <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
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> with
> major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and
> thought.
> That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
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>
> Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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