Well, I did find the link first, but you did the hard work of cutting and pasting the most relevant paragraphs, which I was too lazy to do.:smack: So Kudos!
In the interest of playing Mueller’s advocate:
- IF you believe that Japan relied on the “one time only” element of surprise to be able to successfully strike the US homeland, and
- IF you believe that redoubled investments in the US navy and air force would have made subsequent strikes even less likely to be successful, and
- IF you believe that the US could have conceded Asia to Japan in the same way that Eastern Europe was conceded to the Soviets (i.e. deemed not worth fighting a huge war over)…
…then the US could have done something along the lines of declining Japan’s invitation to war. Admittedly big “ifs” to submit to a board that seems to be in unanimous agreement that Mueller is flat out wrong and may even be stupid.
Anyway, I think the cliche you mention excludes a vast middle territory between fighting and surrendering, such as, if not quite “shrugging it off,” applying pressure in other ways. Mueller may be off-base when it comes to Pearl Harbor, but the broader point is that not every provocation requires the maximally aggressive response. In some cases, the response turns out to be more costly than doing nothing, or doing something short of the most aggressive response possible. I’m sure Austria-Hungary thought it was a great idea to declare war on Serbia to send the buggers a message - oops.
Dont get me wrong- I gots no beef with the USSR and now Russia emphasizing and glorifying their contributions to WWII. The USA and the UK have done the same. Watch any USA or UK war film and you’ll think that the “other two” were more or less along for the show. Hell, John Wayne won WWI all by his lonesome, no? 
But neither the USA or the UK actually claimed they won the war by themselves. Sure they glorified their part and even sometimes downplayed the others, but it took the Cold War Soviets to simply deny the other Allies significant participation. This was pure Cold War propaganda and most realize it. But a few have swallowed it hook line & sinker.
Not exactly - the Japanese leadership was acting under an incorrect assumption that they would get stronger due to expansion, and the US ended up destroying them.
As far as the thesis of the OP, ISTM that the first objection I can see is fatal enough. Which is that anything other than all-out war was politically and psychologically impossible. If FDR had suggested anything resembling “aggressive containment” and waiting until the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere fell apart, he would have been corrected by the virtually unanimous chorus from Congress, every state, and 95+% of the American people of “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
December 8, 1941 was not a time for half-measures, nor were any dates until September 2, 1945.
Regards,
Shodan
It was a team effort in fighting ignorance. 
It’s funny, but everyone seems to know that a lot of the American assertions of winning the war by ourselves were overblown (this wasn’t the official US line btw as far as I know, unlike the USSR’s claims), but not a lot of folks seemed to realize that the Soviets were doing pretty much the same thing wrt revisionism. It really was a team effort, with each of the allies contributing key things that made it all possible. Take away ANY of the 3 major allies (UK, US and USSR) and I think the final outcome wouldn’t be nearly so cut and dried. None of them did it on their own, just like they all relied on the others doing their part to win the war as relatively quickly as it was won.
Theoretically, you could just “not fight.” Not surrender, but not actively engage in combat operations. That’s somewhat what we’re doing with ISIS. Air raids, yes, but no ground combat engagements. Of course, this only works with small, distant, weak enemies…
Actually, no we haven’t. You’ve repeatedly dodged the actual point, which is that the Soviets stopped the Germans on their own, without the benefit of lend-lease, and attempted ludicrous mental gymnastics trying to claim that the Soviet winter '41/42 counter-offensive was a failure.
So it was general winter that had caused one in five German soldiers sent East to become a casualty by November 1, 1941, before winter had even arrived? Blaming the German failure on the winter is a rather shallow pop history explanation that demonstrates a lack of understanding of what was actually occurring. For all of its success Barbarossa did not come cheap. From Moscow to Stalingrad:
And you are using this to claim that lend-lease aid, which didn’t begin to start until November, five month after Stalin’s breakdown on the aftermath of the invasion, is all that kept him from going bonkers? Seriously?
And yet again, you are completely missing the entire point. Would you care to show me where I made this claim? Or would you like to perhaps address the actual point, which is that the German advance was stopped, thrown into retreat, Germany lost a large amount of ground, any threat to Moscow was removed, the German army suffered losses so bad that it was only able to conduct an offensive on the southern 1/3 of the front in the coming summer of '42, Army Groups North and Center were in fact never to go onto the offensive again, and Stalin somehow managed not to go bonkers all before lend-lease aid even began arriving?
I totally agree with you that any containment effort would not have been effective. What I was asking, though, was how even ineffective containment efforts would not lead to war anyhow? How would you do such a thing purely defensively? Would you not try to bomb airbases?
That’s undoubtedly true, but Mueller’s thesis isn’t really that alternatives to war were politically feasible, but merely that they were in his estimation wiser and more cost-effective.
The broader argument across much of his oeuvre is that policymakers should devote much more energy than they do to managing the risk of overreaction to crises, including by refraining from throwing fuel on the fire of public opinion. So he’s really criticizing the politics of US foreign policy rather than trying to operate within it.
First of all- can you stop with the personal attacks? Stuff like *“ludicrous mental gymnastics” *"rather shallow pop history explanation" is childish and does not lend to a serious debate. Stop it. Either you can conduct a serious debate or you need to stoop to childish histrionics since your points are so weak. Which is it?
Yes, like I said General Winter stopped the Germans. The USSR was lucky, and Winter stopped the German blitzkrieg. This allowed the Soviets to regroup and even launch a mild but generally ineffective counter-offensive.
“On 20 December, during a meeting with German senior officers, Hitler cancelled the withdrawal and ordered his soldiers to defend every patch of ground, “digging trenches with howitzer shells if needed.”[75] *Guderian protested, pointing out that losses from cold were actually greater than combat losses *and that winter equipment was held by traffic ties in Poland.” wiki
And yes, the Nazis had high casualties- they lost 800,000 men during Operation Barbarossa. The Soviets lost 4 *million. *
It wasnt lack of Lend Lease that caused Comrade Stalin to go bonkers for a few days- it was the surprise and the fact his errors made it worse. BUT, what I was saying is that Stalin *was unstable *and constantly demanded assurances and aid from the Allies. If Russia had been alone, without any help or even possibility of help? He would have collapsed. And the general moral of the Soviets too. Knowing you have allies and help is on the way is very significant.
- The surprise allowed the Japanese to attack at very little cost to them. It would have been worse for us if the aircraft carriers had been at port also, especially since it turned out that aircraft carriers were more useful than battleships in the war to come. It is not like there has never been a successful non-surprise attack, after all.
- Ships take a long time to build. By the time they would have been built the unopposed Japanese would have taken the entire Pacific. One defeat would have let them blockade Oahu.
- Eastern Europe was not as strategic as Australia. In any case, the more or less peaceful containment of the Cold War was predicated on no direct attacks by one party on the other. If the Russians had launched a Pearl Harbor-like attack on us (or us on them) we’d be singing “We’ll All Go Together When we Go.”
We could have - but we’d be at best an irrelevant power and at worst occupied or a puppet state. Since we don’t have him here, can you explain in some detail how containment would have worked?
No one is saying there should be a maximum response to all provocations. I think many of us would agree that stopping where we did after repelling Iraq from Kuwait was wise. Even if the Maine had been blown up by the Spaniards, our reaction would have been a bit extreme.
Haven’t had time to read the whole thread, but here are my initial impressions:
The author of the book is projecting modern geopolitical realities back to the pre-nuclear world stage. The modern gridlock of cold war, containment and frustratingly unwinnable guerrilla conflicts is a direct result of a world with nuclear weapons. Before August 1945, wars solved things. Just why would anyone in the US have wanted to forego a war against Japan- to save money?? Going to war gave us what we wanted: to remove a threat to America and crush those responsible for attacking us. As far as a “cold war” strategy goes, many opine that it was the American embargo of selling steel to Japan that convinced the Japanese leaders to go to open war. A cold war only stays cold as long as both sides refrain from fighting; Japan opted to go hot.
Pearl Harbor wasn’t just a singular provocation, it was the opening move in an attack against American possessions throughout the Pacific: The Philippines, Guam, and others. Americans were being killed and imprisoned, and we were going to respond with sanctions?? IIRC, the vote in Congress to go to war was near-unanimous, save for a single die-hard pacifist who opposed it on principle. It’s unimaginable that any administration would have counseled NOT going to war.
Finally, it is only with 20/20 hindsight that we know that crushing Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany opened the way to the even worse Soviet and Maoist regimes. A handful of people, most notably Harry Truman before he became vice-president, claimed to see little to choose between Hitler and Stalin, but they were the minority. Communism hadn’t been completely discredited yet, and the entire Left would have united to excoriate anyone who opposed going to war against the fascists.
There’s an assumption on this thread that if the US hadn’t declared war on Japan, they would have been more likely, not less, to attack us again and again. If anything ISTM the opposite is true. Japan launched a surprise attack out of desperation, because they knew they were outmatched industrially and felt the need to get a head start, however insignificantly in the scheme of the larger war. If the US had taken a more restrained approach to dealing with Japan, they might have left the US alone. Especially after we had built up a fleet capable of repelling future attacks.
Yes, but that’s true regardless of how the US responds. The US fleet was woefully inadequate on December 6 and on December 8.
Why? (Curiosity, not snark.) ISTM the US could have obtained yin from Bolivia, iron ore from Brazil, and had the ability to produce synthetic rubber. I’m not understanding the must-defend-at-any-cost nature of Australia or other US interests in that region.
Again, on December 8, the events at Pearl Harbor were a sunk cost. You’re assuming that no matter what there would be more attacks to come on the US, but I don’t see any reason to make that assumption.
The US was in no circumstance going to be occupied. A Japanese attempt at an amphibious invasion is probably the greatest gift we coul have asked for. As for irrelevancy, what does that mean? The cause of maintaining relevance could be used to justify any foreign intervention under the sun. More relevant is to ask what precisely our national interests were and whether an apocalyptic battle unto death with Japan was a good trade.
'Aight, because the good doctor isn’t here and his paper is woefully vague on the subject, I don’t know what containment would have entailed. But my read of it is:
- maintaining robust defenses around Hawaii, the US mainland, etc.
- maximally damaging international economic sanctions against Japan–no oil, no rice, no trade
- working to isolate Japan diplomatically
- material support to the Chinese and any regional resistance movements
- building up the US navy and constraining Japan’s freedom of movement in the Pacific as much as we could
I realize these aren’t satisfying measures, but Mueller’s argument is that Japan was setting itself up for long-term failure independently of anything we did. We just had to forego the emotional rewards of national vengeance and wait it out.
Ok, as long as we agree there’s a middle area between total war and surrender.
I still reject the argument that lend-lease was critical to the Soviet Union. It was certainly useful to the Soviets but not critical. And by that I mean that I believe they would have won the war without lend-lease.
Let’s say as a ballpark figure that 25% of the Soviet Union’s supplies during the war were given to them by lend-lease (I don’t think it’s that high but let’s say it was). That means that the soviet Union was still producing 75% of the supplies it needed for the war. And I think it could have produced more if it had to. And a decrease in supplies would have had no effect on things like manpower.
Arguing that the loss of lend-lease would have led to a Soviet defeat is arguing that the Soviets were close to the edge. I don’t think it was that close. I think the Soviets could have fought the war with ten or even twenty percent less strength than they had and still won the war.
What are you talking about? We didn’t declare war on Japan. Japan declared war on the United States.
I agree that Japan had no plans to invade the United States. Why do you keep bringing that point up? Japan had no need to invade the United States. It only wanted the United States to leave it alone while it conquered Asia and the Pacific. And your strategy was we should have done that.
So let’s say we had sat back and let Japan do what it wanted. They weren’t able to invade North America in 1941. But after they finished occupying China and Southeast Asia and India and Australia and Siberia? And finished building up their army and navy with all the resources they gained form these conquests? Within five or ten years, Japan would have been a stronger power than the United States was. Sometime around 1948, Japan would have been strong enough to invade the United States if they had wanted to.
You talk vaguely about containment but you seem to have no idea what that would be. What would you envision the containment of Japan to have been? Stern looks? Sending American ships into Japanese waters with orders to not shoot would have just sent those ship to their doom. The Japanese had no problem shooting at American ships.
And if we had embarked on a policy of containment why would they sit back and take it, especially given their strength? I’m sure they’d stop taking Pacific territories once they got them all. Doolittle bombed Tokyo, why wouldn’t the Japanese bomb Seattle to warn us away from interfering. And, as others have noted, they declared war on us.
Yamamoto knew they were outmatched. The government I’m not so sure about.
Aggressively blocking their expansion gave us time. And under your scenario Midway wouldn’t have happened.
Because a lot more than 350,000 would have died for one thing.
How many non-Americans have to die before our Professor friend would risk one American life? Not to mention the very people at risk were willing. My father went. He waited until he got drafted, but he never ever said he regretted going to Europe to fight.
You’ve been reminded again and again of the Philipines. Why do you keep ignoring the inconvenient fact that the Japanese did not make one single sneak attack, but attacked us on a wide range of fronts.
You said we would be fine with natural resources from South America. How would they get to us with German and Japanese subs sinking shipping? Shelling of US cities is okay with you? Of course we would not have the era of post-war prosperity that we had. What if the Japanese had developed the bomb? A pacifist US sure wouldn’t.
And, no, intervention is a bit different from self defense and fighting back against a real attack.
You see, that is precisely written from the viewpoint of someone who has lived his whole life in a superpower. The Japanese would be able to get all the raw materials they needed in the zone of domination. How would a country which refuses to stand up to an attack have any diplomatic clout at all? If a small country was threatened by Japan, they obviously couldn’t count on us to defend them.
And I’m still curious as to how any military efforts at containment would not have led to total war in any case. We might be turning the other cheek - they wouldn’t be. You claim that Pearl Harbor was the result of our economic pressure on Japan. Then you propose a solution of increased economic pressure with the assumption that there would be no more attacks. A bit logically inconsistent, I think.
In the long run we are all dead, and who knows what would be around to take over when they got around to collapsing? A democracy?
It appear that Muelleris happy to sacrifice the lives of millions, or tens of millions, for his self-righteous policy. Life under a totalitarian occupier is no fun. I’ve been to the Occupation Museum in Estonia which describes life under the Russians. Prof. Mueller should visit some time. It might open his eyes.
Mueller and Charles Lindbergh would have been the best of buddies. As many people as died in the war, more would have died under his immoral peace.
In addition to the above – Japan entered with the idea that they could win a ‘short war’ against the United States but not a long one. With that, I see no reason to think Japan was willing to just attack us once then stop. Another unprovoked attack against the Pacific fleet would have certainly further Japan’s goal of a quick war.
It was around 25%- higher for some things.
http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/articles/geust/aircraft_deliveries.htm
*In addition to the aircraft deliveries American Lend-lease deliveries to Russia included also more than 400.000 trucks, over 12.000 tanks and other combat vehicles, 32.000 motorcycles, 13.000 locomotives and railway cars, 8.000 anti-aircraft cannons and machine-guns, 135.000 submachine guns, 300.000 tons of explosives, 40.000 field radios, some 400 radar systems, 400.000 metal cutting machine tools, several million tons of foodstuff, steel, other metals, oil and gasoline, chemicals etc.
Regardless of Soviet cold-war attempts to forget (or at least diminish) the importance of Lend-lease, the total impact of the Lend-Lease shipment for the Soviet war effort and entire national economy can only be characterized as both dramatic and of decisive importance. The outcome of the war on the East front might well have taken another path without Lend-lease.
Lend-lease aircraft amounted to 18% of all aircraft in the Soviet air forces, 20% of all bombers, and 16-23% of all fighters (numbers vary depending on calculation methods), and 29% of all naval aircraft. In some AF commands and fronts the proportion of Lend-Lease aircraft was even higher: of the 9.888 fighters delivered to the air defense (PVO) fighter units in 1941-45 6.953 (or over 70%!) were British or American. In the AF of the Karelian front lend-lease aircraft amounted to about two-thirds of all combat aircraft in 1942-43, practically all torpedo bombers of the naval air forces were A-20G Bostons in 1944-45 etc.*
I used 25% as an overall figure for a reason. The Soviet Union would have been able to change its wartime production around if it had needed to.
For example, suppose the Soviets built 22,000 fighter aircraft and 106,000 tanks during the war. And they received 10,000 fighter aircraft and 12,000 tanks from lend-lease. So they had a total of 32,000 fighter aircraft (31% lend lease) and 118,000 tanks (10% lend lease).
Now let’s say lend lease hadn’t existed. The Soviets wouldn’t have still produced only 22,000 fighter aircraft. They would have diverted some of their tank production to fighter aircraft. Say they built 6000 more fighters and 6000 fewer tanks. So without lend lease they would have had 28,000 fighter aircraft and 100,000 tanks - around 85% of what they had historically.
That still would have been enough to defeat Germany. Soviet wartime production alone was bigger than German wartime production. Adding American wartime production to Soviet wartime production was just a bonus for them not a necessity. Soviet production without lend lease was 150% of German production. Soviet production with lend lease was 250% of German production. But either way, Germany was going to lose the supply war.
Except that Soviet production was boosted by Lend lease raw materials, and even whole Lend-lase factories. Not to mention, those goods would not have been able to get to the front as the USSR had a severe shortage of rolling stock, which Lend-lease supplied- and that takes a long time to manufacturer and worse- make the factories which made the rolling stock.
Soviet production without lend lease was NOT 150% of German production.