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Comment by doctor_eval | Hacker News Reader

I honestly thought it was well known that the US in particular wanted a war with Japan but domestic politics prevented outright aggression.

Instead, IIRC, the US blockaded oil deliveries to Japan to the extent that the Japanese economy was within a month or so of collapsing. The Japanese - who had been invading other asian countries - were left with little choice but to attack the US to stop the blockades.

My understanding is that the US goal was to avoid Japanese hegemony in Asia. Certainly, the idea that the Japanese attack was a “surprise” was a convenient myth. The form of the attack, maybe, but not the expectation.

I don’t have references handy. This is just from memory.

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The US didn't want a war with Japan, but also didn't want Japan to control the entire Pacific.

The US blockaded oil deliveries to Japan in response to their invasion of Manchuria, and was willing to remove the blockade if Japan withdrew.

I'm not sure you could say the US "wanted" war any more than you could say Ukraine "wanted" war with Russia.

My understanding was that there was a strong appetite to attack Japan in the US government, but that there was no domestic support, so US goals had to be achieved using other means. I might be wrong about this, but that's what I recall.

As far as I can see, there is very little to compare that situation and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

From what I gather, Japan's attack did come as a surprise. The two parties were at odds, but not to the point that a war was an immediate concern.

No doubt some in the government wanted to attack, no different than you could find who want to attack Iran in today's government, but it's not the US government's position. FDR was definitely more interested in getting involved internationally, but the Republicans were staunchly isolationist.

The comparison to Russia and Ukraine is there. Russia preemptively attacked Ukraine because it wanted to prevent NATO from getting a foothold in it's sphere of influence. Japan considering the Pacific Ocean and namely the resources in South East Asian there's, so preemptively attacked the US to prevent it from opposing it's control over the Pacific.

> the Republicans were staunchly isolationist

They were except for their nominee running against FDR in 1940. His interventionist stance (and otherwise complete lack of political experience) made FDRs victory all but assured.

I’m not sure how you have a base so aligned on a topic that gives them an excellent chance on defeating the incumbent nominate a political nobody who holds a dissenting opinion. The same nobody who went on to serve in FDRs administration.

The Washington Naval Treaty was a middle finger to Japan and a massive blow to the credibility of the democratic pro-Western government.

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