Is there anything to back up Mearsheimer's claims that Roosevelt pushed the Japanese to attack the United States and tried to get the US into WW2?
Upvote:0
There are backups to this claim, but I did not see the video so I will only consider the wording and not the context of the video.
Yes, Roosevelt had willingness to contest the projects of Japan in Asia. This translated in some economic and diplomatic actions:
- Oil embargo
- Stop of Chinese supplies
But no, Roosevelt had enough with the war in Europe and was not willing to involve in a Pacific war by "pushing the Japanese to attack the Americans".
Upvote:1
The thing to keep in mind with the Pearl Harbor was allowed to happen conspiracy theory - which is directly related - is that it only really looks good now.
That's not to say that the White House might not have expected some kind of attack from Japan — possibly against U.S. bases in the Philippines. Roosevelt had been tightening the screws on Tokyo to hinder the Japanese conquest of China, "instituting a full embargo on exports to Japan, freezing Japanese assets in U.S. banks and sending supplies into China along the Burma Road," according to the State Department.
Citino says Roosevelt believed those economic restrictions could get Japan to reduce its ambitions in Asia.
"Sanctions are better than war — if you have time to let them apply, and if there's somebody sensible on the other side." But Roosevelt "was wrong in that assessment," Citino says, and the Japanese were mistaken in thinking they could remove the threat from the U.S. Navy to their operations in the Western Pacific. The U.S. didn't think the Japanese would retaliate militarily. And the use of then-new naval weapons such as aircraft carriers was still being explored. No one had sailed a fleet of carriers 4,000 miles across an ocean to raid an enemy's fleet while it sat at anchor.
For their part, the Japanese did not think the U.S. would have the stomach to rebuild its Navy and then launch a bloody fight, island by island, across the Pacific.
These kinds of bad assumptions and poor intelligence start wars, Citino says — an understanding that seems so obvious today even as the conspiracy theories outlive the eyewitnesses to the battle.
In 1941, the world's navies still had the expectations that battleships were the decisive naval weapon. The Japanese did, that's what the Yamato class was for. The Germans did, that's why they neglected their U-boats. Yes, there was Taranto but hey, obscure stuff involving the Italians. The British did, hence the debacle at Java Sea.
Allowing most of your Pacific fleet battleships to be sunk to start a war would have been a massive gamble to any navy at the time. Nor was the situation of the US Navy's carrier fleet all that enviable against the Japanese carriers and better aircrafts. Midway's victory was far from guaranteed and until then the USN was the underdog.
Also, minus Hitler's helpfulness in declaring war on the US - he did not even bother to get the Japanese to declare war on the USSR - a war with Japan would not automatically have led to the US entering the war against Germany.
More post
- 📝 Before 1980, was there ever an attempt to evangelise for Orthodox Christianity?
- 📝 M-1 rifle ammo and grenade invasion ration
- 📝 What happened to all the nuclear material being smuggled after the fall of the USSR?
- 📝 Is there any valid basis for this claim that German Emperor Wilhelm II and the Hohenzollern family had Jewish blood?
- 📝 Long time to reach news in Thirty Years' War
- 📝 When was the first documented mention of mechanically generated electricity?
- 📝 What evidence is there to suggest that 'fear of the bomb' is culturally specific?
- 📝 When did the socialist movement start becoming noteworthy in Russian history?
- 📝 Was the Minoan civilization warlike?
- 📝 What's so special about the Aerodrome?
- 📝 Were there communes in Imperial Germany?
- 📝 Why are the historical large cities in the southern US not the large cities in the South today?
- 📝 What proportion of the Arab population of Palestine pre-1948 came from families that lived there before 1880?
- 📝 When would the Japanese have been able to recognize their archipelago?
- 📝 Was swordsmanship important in the American Civil War?
- 📝 How difficult was Muraviev's amassing of troops for the forcing of the Treaty of Aigun, and what effects on development did it have?
- 📝 In early WW2, how much of the merchant marine was American?
- 📝 How do totalitarian states/empires usually fall?
- 📝 Did Friedrich Engels support the Chartist movement?
- 📝 When and how did Thailand cease to be Siam and become the modern Thailand?
- 📝 How many times was Vaclav Havel under arrest and under what - presumably trumped up charges - was he indicted?
- 📝 Why is there a Herakles/Hercules sarcophagus?
- 📝 UK involvement in Yugoslavia during WW2
- 📝 Were bricks instead of bombs occasionally thrown out of war planes in WWI?
- 📝 What was the largest ancient theatre?
- 📝 Could the U.S. have used "Lend Lease" to force Germany onto the horns of a dilemma?
- 📝 In which places of the UK did the Vikings/Scandinavians have most frequent contact or colonies?
- 📝 Inflation rates in Spain and Portugal during the 16th century
- 📝 Were the Hashemite kings of Iraq and Transjordan considered foreign?
- 📝 What did typical mid-18th century housing look like in English villages?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Is there anything to back up Mearsheimer's claims that Roosevelt pushed the Japanese to attack the United States and tried to get the US into WW2?
- 📝 Is there any evidence to support the claim that the United States was "suckered into WW1" by Zionists, made by Benjamin Freedman in his 1961 speech?
- 📝 What led some people to (correctly) believe that there was no land under the ice cap at the North Pole?
- 📝 Is there any evidence that Cleopatra and Caesarion considered fleeing to India to escape the Romans?
- 📝 Is it true that there are more slaves in the world now than ever at one point in history?
- 📝 Has there ever been anything like the oil boom we see today?
- 📝 Is there any evidence that the Catholic Church slowed innovation during the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Is there any evidence to support the claim that the US Strategic Defense Initiative played any significant role in undermining the USSR?
- 📝 Is there any documentation that indicates the Aztecs were as violent as they are made out?
- 📝 What is the state of the art historical analysis of claims that Carthaginians discovered America?
- 📝 Is there a possibility that the Islamic civilization visited America before Columbus?
- 📝 Is there a historical source that might explain why so many countries use 35 as a minimum age for the president / the highest office person?
- 📝 Is There A Term For The Old Maps That Had Lines Connecting Pin-Wheels?
- 📝 Is there a civilization that never believed in God in the ancient times?
- 📝 Were there weapons that a private citizen could not legally own in 1789 in the US?
- 📝 Are there any historians who believe that the crusades were not motivated as a distraction from internal conflicts?
- 📝 Were there any pilots that declined to carry out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
- 📝 Is there convincing evidence that the language of Bulgars (proto-Bulgarians) was not Turkic, but Indo-European?
- 📝 Is there any country(former colony) in the world that obtained independence and then again tried to join its colonist ruler?
- 📝 In the United States government, has there been cases that electoral colleges don't vote for the candidate the majority of their state voted for?
- 📝 Is there any truth to the claim that freed slaves who moved to Liberia enslaved the local population?
- 📝 Is there any evidence besides the scriptures that the Ark of the Covenant existed?
- 📝 Are there any historical sources that support the claim that ancient high-speed archers held multiple arrows in their hand?
- 📝 Has there ever been a US election that flipped as many state seats as the 2010 midterm elections?
- 📝 Is there documentary evidence that Stalin intended/prepared to fight Germany after the Nazi-Soviet pact?
- 📝 Is there evidence that working for the Pony Express was dangerous, or not dangerous?
- 📝 Is there any science behind this graph that suggests we'd be exploring new galaxies if not for the dark ages?
- 📝 Is there evidence that the annual pilgrimage to Mecca facilitated cultural exchanges?
- 📝 Was there anything like an African-American architectural style or symbolism at the beginning of the 20th century?
- 📝 Are there any remaining existant texts that describe the styles and techniques of Medieval European swordsmanship?