Well?
Before anyone tries to twist this out of context, I’m not for a moment accusing the US of actually starting WWII or anything like that. Nor am I arguing that US involvement wasn’t crucial to the Allied victory.
However, what I am saying is that the American attitude of “We saved everyone else in WWII and you should love us for it!” overlooks the fact that the US trade embargo on Japan was one of the many factors leading up to the War. And the US wouldn’t have even been fighting Germany if not for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.
As to the tangent point: If Country A is being an asshole (by invading China), and Country B says “Knock it off or we won’t give you oil and steel and rubber anymore”, I don’t think it’s especially fair to be surprised when Country A presents (in their view) legitimate reasons for being assholes, Country B disagrees and cuts off trade of the stuff vital to a modern economy, and Country A then invades neighbouring countries to get the stuff anyway.
That doesn’t make Country A right (far from it) but I don’t think it’s entirely fair for Country B to claim that they “Saved” everyone when they get involved in what becomes a World War.
Now, in Europe, yes, the US really did more or less Save Western Europe From Fascism, coming in to a conflict they really had no particular need to be involved in. No-one is really disputing that. But in Asia, whilst US was instrumental and vital in preventing the implementation of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, I can’t help but feel the Japanese might not have been so eager to implement said Sphere if they were able to get the resources they needed via peaceable trade.
I’d have to agree with AClockworkMelon that the US treating Japan like they were assholes when they were acting like assholes doesn’t lay the blame of the war on the US. If someone’s misbehaving and you take measures to prevent or lessen that misbehavior, that only gives you greater clout to say that you were the one to save the day, even if your preventative measures weren’t successful and you had to (later) turn to more stringent methods.
Added text to clarify the thread title.
That’s like saying that the police should take credit for some of my murders because it was their manhunt that drove me onto the road where I went on to kill people.
Sure it does. Things were looking bad and the US saved the day. Note I don’t go around claiming that because my nation saved the day years ago that Europe should show me any deference. The retards that do say that are assholes.
The US population at the time were largely isolationist. The people didn’t want to get involved in a war. I can’t blame them. But by cutting off oil the US government was taking a stance, “Your invasion of China is bad. Knock it off.” By refusing to fuel Japan with the oil they needed to wage a longterm war against China, the US, as well as Britain and the Indies, were taking steps to save the day. Then Japan decided to wake a sleeping giant and the actual day-saving began.
Sage Rat has got it right.
Well, it won’t be long before nobody in America will have saved Europe’s backside.
I seriously find this line of thinking to be truly bizarre. I feel grateful to those people who are still alive in America and Europe who fought in WWII. But I don’t feel grateful to the USA itself, I mean it’s just a country, it isn’t an entity to feel gratitude to. It is run by different people to back then. That’s like people in the USA feeling grateful to Britain for actually starting their colony. You could all have been French or something if it wasn’t for us!
There’s absolutely no reason for Europeans to feel grateful to the USA, even if it did all the work 65 years ago. It makes just as much sense as someone in Britain thinking 'damn right they fought for us, they used to belong to us. Americans might view themselves as saviours, but Britons view them as horribly late. I don’t think it really matters today what we think about it, when most of us weren’t even around back then.
Keep in mind the thread is about how responsible the US is for WWII. Martini is claiming that by putting an embargo on Japan because of Japan’s war of conquest in China, the US is (at least partially) to blame for Japan invading the rest of Southeastern Asia.
The thread is not for a debate about whether Europe owes the US anything or whether Americans should view themselves as saviors. As it happens, San Fransiscop, I agree with you. But chest-thumpers on both sides (particularly the American side) might slip in and distract us from the real issue.
Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States was one of his many strategic blunders, and fundamentally was a major victory for the Allied cause. However, by 1941 the United States was far from truly neutral; the U.S. was doing just about everything short of open war against Nazi Germany, and by the time Pearl Harbor was attacked the U.S. was already essentially in an undeclared naval war against Germany in the North Atlantic.
Can’t believe I didn’t pick up on this: You’re right, of course. German subs attacking ships carrying American civilians didn’t help.
Whilst all this is true, I believe the US would have been quite content to remain a Pro-Allied Neutral “Arsenal Of Democracy” until much later in the proceedings than was historically the case, had Japan not attacked and forced both Hitler and Roosevelt’s hand.
Forgive my ignorance but how did Japan’s declaration of war force Hitler’s hand?
Japan and Germany were allies (as part of the Tripartite Pact, which also included Italy), and with Japan declaring war on the US, Germany was obligated to follow suit, despite Hitler’s unhappiness with the situation.
Huh. Never figured Hitler for an honorable guy who absolutely never broke his promises.
I was surprised too (from a historical perspective), but the Tripartite Pact included a number of smaller countries by late 1941, and Germany and Japan generally had good relations- the last message ever received by the Fuhrerbunker was from Japan, basically saying “Good Luck And All The Best, Signed: Your Friends Japan”.
Hitler evidently valued Japan’s friendship enough to keep his word with them, as strange as that may seem.
The only thing I can think of was that Hitler expected Japan to crush the United States and he thought he was choosing the winning side.
That’s my understanding of events too.
Hitler had a perfectly good legalistic out under the terms of the Tripartite Pact: “[Germany, Italy and Japan] further undertake to assist one another with all political, economic and military means when one of the three contracting powers is attacked by a power at present not involved in the European war or in the Chinese-Japanese conflict.” (Emphasis added.) Since Japan initiated armed conflict with the United States rather than the other way around, Hitler was really not obligated to go to war on behalf of any ally with which he had made a nominally defensive treaty. He probably thought, “Oh, hell, those damned Americans are already shooting my U-boats on sight and aiding my enemies in every way they can short of actually dropping bombs on Berlin. Might as well just get it out in the open and get on with it.” Of course, this drastically underestimated the industrial (and hence military) capacity of the United States; but the U.S. was hardly the first enemy that Hitler drastically underestimated.
As to the U.S. continuing on for a considerable period of time beyond December 1941 as a technically non-belligerant “Arsenal of Democracy” in a world without Pearl Harbor: Well, that’s obviously getting into alternate history scenarios. No one can say for sure one way or the other. I would point out that by the fall of 1941, German U-boats were torpedoing U.S. Navy warships, and the U.S. Navy had in turn adopted a “shoot on sight” policy towards German subs. Furthermore, things had only gotten to that point by around September 1941; it’s not necessarily the case that the U.S. and Germany would have been able to continue with hostilities at that level indefinitely without someone getting pissed off or miscalculating and the conflict escalating to formal war.
Even without Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, it’s plausible to imagine the U.S. openly entering the war against Germany not too far “behind schedule”–clashes over U-boats being the main factor which eventually got us into the first World War.
This is not to deny that Pearl Harbor was a huge psychological factor in uniting the U.S. (while an Alternate History World War II without it might see a deeply divided U.S., with draft riots and peace protests), and declaring war on us and thus allying themselves with the people who had carried out a “dishonorable sneak attack” on us meant Hitler’s Germany (and Mussolini’s Italy) put themselves right in the sights of a united and pissed off American public.
He hoped that by declaring war on the US, Japan in turn would declare war on the USSR and attack them. Hitler was unaware that Japan had already tussled with the Soviets in Manchuria in 1937 and had their noses bloodied. They were no keen on doing so again anytime soon.
To open up a whole other can of worms: let’s not forget the astonishing sacrifices of the Russians in defeating the Nazis. Some would argue they had the Germans on the run & pretty much beaten, while the western front was really only a sideshow largely initiated to keep the Soviets from gobbling up all of post-war Europe. Don’t get me wrong, as an American I’m as proud as anyone about D-day, the battle of the bulge & so forth, but the Russian losses, both military & civilian, are staggering in thier scale in comparison to ours, something that maybe got a little lost in the Cold War view of history.
So, they were willing to fight to the very last man - the reason the atomic bombs were dropped - but they were scared of the Russkies?