We did not choose war willingly, the japanese govt made the choice for us when they attacked pearl harbor.
"At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.
Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.
The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.
The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles. "
Does any of it excuse the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?
I think the answer is no, despite my great respect for General Butler.
Many of the things he suggest merely re-align incentives. So if the Senators and Corporate CEOs really think that Japan is a menace to be dealt with, then they should be putting their money where their mouth is, rather than having the moral hazard of benefiting selfishly from unnecessary wars.
>US Ambassador Grew in Japan kept Roosevelt fully advised of her precarious economic situation and urgent need for imports. Chief of Naval Operations (NCO) Stark had warned the president of the danger of imposing an oil embargo on Japan. Stark had "made it known to the State Department in no uncertain terms that in my opinion if Japan's oil were shut off, she would go to war." He did not mean "necessarily with us, but … if her economic life had been choked and throttled by inability to get oil, she would go somewhere and take it … and if I were a Jap, I would" do the same.[1]
You can google many papers about this.
The saddest thing about WWII is that the people who started the war, by funding it, were never brought up on charges at Nuremberg. Prescott Bush and Standard Oil made millions off selling fuel to both sides. IBM made the punch-card based catalogue service for the Nazis. Henry Ford's company made tank treads for both allied and Nazi tanks and even built the rails leading to Auschwitz.
The reality is that there were entire industries that actively did everything they could to get that war going, in order to profit from it. People look at Hitler and forget that wars need to be funded.
I don't think Japanese imperialism can really be defended.
Of course, Japanese imperialism was very much inspired by European imperialism in… well, everything. But that doesn't make it right either, merely just as bad.
This makes it sound as if the US only acted to end competition against another Empire. Japan invaded numerous territories for access to resources and committed horrible atrocities while doing so.
The attack on Pearl Harbour may have been preemptive but the only reason for Japan to fear attack from others was due to actions of the Japanese.
Well, that might well have been the case. While World War Ⅱ did put a stop to some horrible things, I don't know if that was because they were horrible or merely because their perpetrators were a threat. I suspect the latter.
Japanese conduct during the 30s was atrocious. They tried playing by the moral code in earlier wars, the US and other Western powers repeatedly reneged on deals and forced Japan to return any possessions.
Don't act like the world would have been A- ok if we had just been ok selling gas to power genocides.
So I don't know if you count that as "little done to stop them". That was what we could do, short of war, and even that helped precipitate war.
The difference is these all took place before the war started. We sell weapons to countries all the time. That doesn't mean we wouldn't stop them if they began committing atrocities that we currently have no knowledge of.
They did in my public school.
> People look at Hitler and forget that wars need to be funded.
Your argument is confused. You point to profiteers (who were funded by the war, not funding the war), but then follow with this.
And do you know why we did that? Was that mentioned? Did they talk about Japan's war of conquest in China or the Rape of Nanking, among a thousand other atrocities?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_o...
Tensions between Japan and the prominent Western countries (the United States, France, Britain and the Netherlands) increased significantly during the increasingly militaristic early rule of Emperor Hirohito ... as part of Japan's alleged "divine right" to unify Asia under Hirohito's rule.[1]
During the 1930s, Japan's increasingly expansionist policies brought it into renewed conflict with its neighbors, Russia and China... In March 1933, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in response to international condemnation of its conquest of Manchuria and subsequent establishment of the Manchukuo puppet government.[2] On January 15, 1936, Japan withdrew from the Second London Naval Disarmament Conference because the United States and Great Britain refused to grant the Japanese Navy parity with theirs.[3] A second war between Japan and China began with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937.
Japan's 1937 attack on China was condemned by the U.S. and several members of the League of Nations including Britain, France, Australia and the Netherlands. Japanese atrocities during the conflict, such as the notorious Nanking Massacre.... The U.S., Britain, France and the Netherlands each possessed colonies in East and Southeast Asia. Japan's new military power and willingness to use it threatened these Western economic and territorial interests in Asia.
I'm not saying what Japan did was in any way noble, but it was certainly far from unexpected. The US administration knew the war in Europe was a serious problem if left unchecked, that Britain and its allies would never prevail, but there was considerable resistance to the war.
The attack on Pearl Harbor instantly catalyzed support.
This doesn't even touch on the fact that many American companies were looking at Germany as an important customer, a country spending lavishly to build up its capability, at a time when American companies were struggling.
Politics are complicated. It's rare that any of those involved in a conflict are entirely innocent.
Are you kidding me? So honor was their reason to start a war that eventually caused millions to die?
Edit: wow I'm surprised by the downvotes. Are you (who ever you are) suggesting you do agree with starting wars? I'd be very interested to hear why you disagree with me.
It disgusts me that the world has sat by during recent genocides.
I should add that I'm against starting wars but not against retaliating, even ending the war, if and when required.
Of course, such techniques would have been a tough sell in 2003. (And rightfully so.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba'athification
The argument goes that a more measured policy could still have eliminated most of the bad actors while maintaining a higher level of governance and services.
In Iraq the entire government including the police were basically disbanded without warning which lead to immediate chaos.
Plus the American involvement wasn't out of humanitarian reasons either. They only joined the war after getting attacked by Japan themselves. Which, which since I support retaliatory action if another party has already initiated war, would mean the US followed my stance on war in that regard.
Yes, war causes suffering. It can also prevent suffering. This would only be contradictory if I were for some reason arguing that all war is good, which I most certainly am not.
I would argue that the US did join the war partly out of humanitarian reasons, since the war was precipitated by economic sanctions that were enacted due to Japan's actions in China. But ultimately my argument has nothing to do with their reasons.
Because you are using the sorrow of war to justify the means of war. It's a cyclic argument with each new participant upping the stakes; each time bringing about more suffering.
In the case of the America vs Japan conflict during WW2, America's "humanitarianism" lead to two nuclear bomb being dropped causing around two hundred thousands casualties - many of who suffered long deaths from radiation exposure. Yes it shortened the war, but at what cost? We'll never know which hypothetical scenario would have saved the most lives but it's fair to say that America's involvement did contribute to large scale suffering too.
I have a feeling we might have to agree to disagree on those points though because like most philosophical debates, it's really a question of opinion and perspective rather than something that can be empirically proven. That's not to say I haven't appreciated reading your views on this topic though :)
After Pearl Harbor everything fell into place. Germany and Japan could be tackled not from a diplomatic perspective, or via proxies, but directly.
Also remember that Japan had already conquered large parts of China and trounced Russia militarily, so they were feeling confident they'd prevail in any conflict with the US. At the time the US was in the middle of a poor economic period and its Pacific navy was in sad shape, many warships were simply relics from WWI. It wasn't exactly threatening.
What Japan didn't realize was that the US would not be bullied, and instead would bite back a lot harder than anticipated.
It's a lot like how America assumed Iraq would be a cake-walk, or Afghanistan could be resolved in a weekend.
Let's not forget the context of their imperial ambitions - in the first half of the twentieth century, most of the world was still ruled by empires.
It wasn't that Japan wasn't up to no good, because they were, absolutely destroying large swaths of Asia and committing atrocities so horrifying even German observers were concerned, but that the US leadership needed Japan to attack to get on board versus Germany.
Is that what it's called when we objected to Japan's war of conquest against China? Antagonism? Fine, let it be so. Japan brought doom on themselves.
Japan did bring doom on themselves, but America kept poking the tiger with a stick until America itself got attacked, which was the goal.