United States

I’ve seen very few games where the USA had to actively declare war on all three axis powers in turn 3 income phase, because usually you will be at war with Japan already and then you can declare war on Adolf and Benito.

Does anyone here think that the US would have declared war on Germany in WW2 if Germany hadn’t declared war on the U.S. after Japan bombed pearl? Personally I don’t think the public would have allowed congress to declare war against Germany, but it is an interesting debate to be had. Because the public sentiment at the time was to be isolationist and stay out of the war. When Japan attacked the U.S. then congress passed the vote going to war against Japan, but do you thing the U.S. would have declared war against Germany too if Germany hadn’t declared war against the U.S.?

@theROCmonster:

Does anyone here think that the US would have declared war on Germany in WW2 if Germany hadn’t declared war on the U.S. after Japan bombed pearl? Personally I don’t think the public would have allowed congress to declare war against Germany, but it is an interesting debate to be had. Because the public sentiment at the time was to be isolationist and stay out of the war. When Japan attacked the U.S. then congress passed the vote going to war against Japan, but do you thing the U.S. would have declared war against Germany too if Germany hadn’t declared war against the U.S.?

Yes, I do think the US would eventually be dragged so much into the war in the Atlantic, that they finally had to formalize it with a DoW. German subs were attacking US ships already, some US naval vessels were escorting Allied ships already. In the Atlantic US and Germany almost was de facto at war. Like WW1, I think it was only a question of time before the US had to do something. Ad pressure and begging from UK and Soviet, and I think it would have been impossible for the US to stay out of war with Germany as long as Germany was allied with Japan.

I’m reading some revisionist history here.

Emplacing an oil embargo on Japan for murdering Chinese civilians by the bushel is hardly “enticing” Japan to attack the US on purpose.

From Japan’s point of view, it did not “have” to attack the US, but BELIEVED that they would eventually go to war with the US due to their war aggression. They’d been better off not doing so because America came at them with extreme vengeance. The power of the US was so great that one Japanese admiral described it as going to war against the world. In Pittsburg, PA, home of the Pittsburg Steelers football team, named after the steel manufacturing, more steel was produced in just that one area of America than Italy and Germany combined!

Since Japan lost a source of oil, they decided that they would seize other locations that contained oil like Java or Borneo. Doing so would essentially be “attacking” another western nation. Still, they could have done that without also simultaneously attacking the US at Pearl Harbor. The US public sentiment was really against going to war anywhere.

There was some limited activity in the Atlantic, but not widely publicized amongst the US population. And it wasn’t “war” like another poster suggested. They were naval operations which protected US Shipping from submarine attacks. The US did have a right to remain neutral and sell or provide war materials to whomever it wished. That in itself may be helping the war capabilities of an ally, the UK, but doing so is not in and of itself an act of war. Defensive naval operations is not essentially war. These types of actions happen daily out on the vast expanse of the ocean’s navigable routes and are not considered “acts of war.”

Good summary, Ichabod.  That matches most of what I read.  Sadly there are few people left from the Greatest Generation who can clearly remember that era and were old enough to understand the global situation that led to WW2. My grandfather was Pacific island hoping in the US Army and it was such a brutal fight that he could only continue with life by completely suppressing all memories of the war atrocities.  I was able to get brief glimpses of his recollection of the late 30’s and early 40’s.

I don’t think that many people in the US government understood that the embargo would inevitably lead to a Japanese DoW, and not many people in the Japanese leadership understood that war with the United States would lead to inevitable defeat by a manufacturing juggernaut and surprisingly determined military.

http://www.americanforeignrelations.com/E-N/Embargoes-and-Sanctions-World-war-ii.html

@Ichabod:

I’m reading some revisionist history here.

Emplacing an oil embargo on Japan for murdering Chinese civilians by the bushel is hardly “enticing” Japan to attack the US on purpose.

From Japan’s point of view, it did not “have” to attack the US, but BELIEVED that they would eventually go to war with the US due to their war aggression. They’d been better off not doing so because America came at them with extreme vengeance. The power of the US was so great that one Japanese admiral described it as going to war against the world. In Pittsburg, PA, home of the Pittsburg Steelers football team, named after the steel manufacturing, more steel was produced in just that one area of America than Italy and Germany combined!

Since Japan lost a source of oil, they decided that they would seize other locations that contained oil like Java or Borneo. Doing so would essentially be “attacking” another western nation. Still, they could have done that without also simultaneously attacking the US at Pearl Harbor. The US public sentiment was really against going to war anywhere.

There was some limited activity in the Atlantic, but not widely publicized amongst the US population. And it wasn’t “war” like another poster suggested. They were naval operations which protected US Shipping from submarine attacks. The US did have a right to remain neutral and sell or provide war materials to whomever it wished. That in itself may be helping the war capabilities of an ally, the UK, but doing so is not in and of itself an act of war. Defensive naval operations is not essentially war. These types of actions happen daily out on the vast expanse of the ocean’s navigable routes and are not considered “acts of war.”

You are absolutely right about Japan and its atrocities in China.

However, once the war vs the “western allies” started it was hypocrisy for Britain/France/Netherlands to complain about Japan essentially taking over their colonies as the new colonial power (under the guise of the “greater eastern asian co-prosperity sphere” or whatever that propaganda thing was called).

Still, Japan was by no means an innocent nation being bullied by big bad USA, it was in fact doing some serious bullying (mostly in China) itself.
I won’t claim that USA/Britain/France/Netherlands etc have/had a clean history (the former with manifest destiny and the latter with colonization) but in terms of World War II only two nations decided that killing people by the boatload was a swell idea (Germany/Japan) and in Germany’s case even an explicit war aim.
Sure the Soviets weren’t exactly nice to people whom they suspected of disloyalty but it was little compared to the industrial level genocide that Germany perpetrated or the casual mass killings done by Japan.
The Soviets lost 25-27 million people in the war, China lost 10-20 million and there is a very clear reason for that as I expressed.

“Does anyone here think that the US would have declared war on Germany in WW2 if Germany hadn’t declared war on the U.S. after Japan bombed pearl? Personally I don’t think the public would have allowed congress to declare war against Germany, but it is an interesting debate to be had. Because the public sentiment at the time was to be isolationist and stay out of the war. When Japan attacked the U.S. then congress passed the vote going to war against Japan, but do you thing the U.S. would have declared war against Germany too if Germany hadn’t declared war against the U.S.?”

1. Yes; it was essentially already in an undeclared war by supplying weapons to some favored powers but not others

2. The citizens of the US are very myopic and self-interested, so Wilson/FDR had to create tripwires and silent provocations in order to draw the US down the slippery slope and the public’s buy-in has to be manipulated rather than stated rationally as it constantly is…

3. but the leaders of the US were not that myopic;  they cynically but wisely waited for the other powers (enemy and friend) to bleed each other for 2-3 years before even beginning that next phase of the war (TWICE IN FORTY YEARS), this was a massive geopolitical coup that in one generation made the US the premiere superpower.  Non intervention would have abandoned an entire hemisphere to either the Germans or the Russians and overconcentration on the Monroe Doctrine would have left America relatively isolated and weak, hiding behind its “water walls” (oceans)

4. There were so many casus belli (such as german subs beginning to openly attack US warships before the declaration because the neutrality was not being observed eg US ships intervening in german attacks on UK shipping) that no Lusitania was needed to vote for war, the answer would eventually be that the sinking of some US ship or violation of principle activated “official” war regardless of any vote or decision (though congress would dutifully validate that either before or after the fact as it has often done)

5. The military junta decided to attack the US not because of any specific provocation or plot, but instead because they recognized correctly that a fair chance of victory by military means was about to slip away, forever.  They believed that after 1942, Japan would have lost the initiative and (very) slight material and technological edge that it had secured by the late 30s after literally 30 years of shipbuilding and diplomatic wrangling, and they were right.

8th Guards,

I welcome a debate and or discussion regarding anything WW2 as I find it very interesting. But I think you kind of side stepped the main gist of my post which was arguing against what I believe to be revisionist history (which often has a blame America first slant) saying that it was US’ fault it was attacked by Japan because it put in place embargoes just to provoke Japan to attack itself on purpose. I was countering that. Japan conducted an unprovoked attack. The other part was about saying the US was in essence already at war with Germany in which I was saying, no it wasn’t.

The US put an embargo on materials like Oil due to Japan’s murderous aggression and behavior towards China. That’s a fact. Japan was the aggressor from start to finish. Manifest destiny or colonization of other island nations being right or wrong occurred or began in a different century and or is not relevant to the comments of my post. Western allies being “hypocrites” about Japan seizing islands they “owned” and being pissed about their armed forces being attacked at places like Singapore or Borneo is also irrelevant. Again, Japan was the aggressor here. I got your moral argument point about no one should control another people’s land western allies or Japan’s ‘Asian for the Asians…’. But that is not relevant to my post. All western nations and Japan had colonies at this time except maybe Germany who was stripped of them after WWI. The US had colonies over there too, one being the Philippines which Japan attacked.

You mentioned about who was bad or lost a lot of people during the WW2 era. Don’t forget that the Soviet Union starved to death millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s on purpose and murdered several million others. � Under Lenin and Stalin they led their own version of a Holocaust which could be arguably worse than Nazi Germany’s. In terms of sheers numbers or murdered people, Russia beat Germany. Up until Russia was attacked, the Western Allies considered Russia an enemy just as much as Germany. For example, France and the UK wanted to send a contingent to fight Soviet aggression alongside Finland in 1939 (coincidentally, the German public wanted to do the same but Hitler stopped that as the Soviet Union was their “ally”). Japan likewise murdered a million civilians in the city of Nanking. That’s just one location. � This is of course is still not relevant to my post. I wasn’t commenting on who has or had a higher moral authority as a nation.

So in summary you guys are saying that eventually the US would have had to declare war on Germany because of the pressures imposed on them by submarine warfare, being allied to Japan, and our closer ties to UK/France?

@theROCmonster:

So in summary you guys are saying that eventually the US would have had to declare war on Germany because of the pressures imposed on them by submarine warfare, being allied to Japan, and our closer ties to UK/France?

Yes.

No

@Ichabod:

8th Guards,

I welcome a debate and or discussion regarding anything WW2 as I find it very interesting. But I think you kind of side stepped the main gist of my post which was arguing against what I believe to be revisionist history (which often has a blame America first slant) saying that it was US’ fault it was attacked by Japan because it put in place embargoes just to provoke Japan to attack itself on purpose. I was countering that. Japan conducted an unprovoked attack. The other part was about saying the US was in essence already at war with Germany in which I was saying, no it wasn’t.

I completely agree with it, no one forced Japan to do anything against the US Pacific fleet (or elsewhere), they had to decide between peace, war with Britain/France/Netherlands or war with the aforementioned three as well as the US. Their choice was of course #3 and it was their choice, not forced on them by anyone.

The US put an embargo on materials like Oil due to Japan’s murderous aggression and behavior towards China. That’s a fact. Japan was the aggressor from start to finish. Manifest destiny or colonization of other island nations being right or wrong occurred or began in a different century and or is not relevant to the comments of my post. Western allies being “hypocrites” about Japan seizing islands they “owned” and being pissed about their armed forces being attacked at places like Singapore or Borneo is also irrelevant. Again, Japan was the aggressor here. I got your moral argument point about no one should control another people’s land western allies or Japan’s ‘Asian for the Asians…’. But that is not relevant to my post. All western nations and Japan had colonies at this time except maybe Germany who was stripped of them after WWI. The US had colonies over there too, one being the Philippines which Japan attacked.

I wasn’t contesting your point. Japan chose war and in the end suffered the consequences accordingly.

You mentioned about who was bad or lost a lot of people during the WW2 era. Don’t forget that the Soviet Union starved to death millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s on purpose and murdered several million others. � Under Lenin and Stalin they led their own version of a Holocaust which could be arguably worse than Nazi Germany’s. In terms of sheers numbers or murdered people, Russia beat Germany. Up until Russia was attacked, the Western Allies considered Russia an enemy just as much as Germany. For example, France and the UK wanted to send a contingent to fight Soviet aggression alongside Finland in 1939 (coincidentally, the German public wanted to do the same but Hitler stopped that as the Soviet Union was their “ally”). Japan likewise murdered a million civilians in the city of Nanking. That’s just one location. � This is of course is still not relevant to my post. I wasn’t commenting on who has or had a higher moral authority as a nation.

Also, I wasn’t contesting that Stalin (or before him, to a lesser extent Lenin) was a criminal with the blood of millions on his hands. About 14 million deliberate deaths as far as I know (source: Bloodlands by Tim Snyder). That includes the deliberate starvation part in Ukraine (holodomor), purges, show trials, forced labor and NKVD shootings.

For Hitler the total is a bit higher than that. There’s the mass killings of Jews (holocaust), deliberate starvation/work to death of Soviet POW’s, mass shootings by einsatzgruppen (by some accounts thousands of settlements and villages across eastern Poland and the western Soviet Union were razed to the ground, occupants mostly murdered), shooting of “hostages” across the Balkans. All for a combined total of some 17 million or so. And that leaves out the # of deaths in military combat or through socalled “war deprivations” such as food supply not functioning because of the war, all in a war that for all intents and purposes Germany started. Sure, the Soviets helped them in Poland (1939-1941) but it was Germany that violated that agreement and started a genocidal war the likes of which have never been seen before or again in the industrial age. In fact, most of the 40 million deaths in the European theatre of war are caused simply by Germany getting the ball rolling in terms of war. There are some others who helped it along (Stalin among them) but there can be no doubt that Germany started it.

The Cold War has distorted the view of the war on the eastern front as well as the deprivations committed by Hitler and Stalin. For western purposes German crimes (apart from the holocaust) were downplayed as much as we could feasibly get away with, whereas the numbers killed by Stalin were exaggerated (and they were high enough even without the exaggeration). Often the Soviet casualty count of World War II is added to the numbers of Stalin which accounts for the often bandied about 35 million number.

But the point you made I do not contest. Japan started the war in the Pacific, and then they expanded it. Therefore they are to blame. They were the prime driver of that war, as was Germany in Europe.

8th Guards,

Interesting discussion on your last paragraph. Good points about numbers which is funny because the statistics can easily be changed to fit a narrative.

Thanks for further enlightening the discussion.

Ichabod

@8thGuards:

@Ichabod:

I’m reading some revisionist history here.

Emplacing an oil embargo on Japan for murdering Chinese civilians by the bushel is hardly “enticing” Japan to attack the US on purpose.

From Japan’s point of view, it did not “have” to attack the US, but BELIEVED that they would eventually go to war with the US due to their war aggression. They’d been better off not doing so because America came at them with extreme vengeance. The power of the US was so great that one Japanese admiral described it as going to war against the world. In Pittsburg, PA, home of the Pittsburg Steelers football team, named after the steel manufacturing, more steel was produced in just that one area of America than Italy and Germany combined!

Since Japan lost a source of oil, they decided that they would seize other locations that contained oil like Java or Borneo. Doing so would essentially be “attacking” another western nation. Still, they could have done that without also simultaneously attacking the US at Pearl Harbor. The US public sentiment was really against going to war anywhere.

There was some limited activity in the Atlantic, but not widely publicized amongst the US population. And it wasn’t “war” like another poster suggested. They were naval operations which protected US Shipping from submarine attacks. The US did have a right to remain neutral and sell or provide war materials to whomever it wished. That in itself may be helping the war capabilities of an ally, the UK, but doing so is not in and of itself an act of war. Defensive naval operations is not essentially war. These types of actions happen daily out on the vast expanse of the ocean’s navigable routes and are not considered “acts of war.”

Sure the Soviets weren’t exactly nice to people whom they suspected of disloyalty but it was little compared to the industrial level genocide that Germany perpetrated or the casual mass killings done by Japan.
The Soviets lost 25-27 million people in the war, China lost 10-20 million and there is a very clear reason for that as I expressed.

Are you serious?!?!?!  The Soviets, under both Lenin and Stalin, killed millions - more like tens of millions - before WWII even started, over eight million Ukrainians alone in the forced famine, millions more by firing squad, slave labour camp, and gulag.  Not to mention the bungled invasion of Poland by Lenin and the even more bungled invasion of Finland by Stalin. Just because the “intellectual” class doesn’t talk about it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

@StuckTojo:

@8thGuards:

@Ichabod:

I’m reading some revisionist history here.

Emplacing an oil embargo on Japan for murdering Chinese civilians by the bushel is hardly “enticing” Japan to attack the US on purpose.

From Japan’s point of view, it did not “have” to attack the US, but BELIEVED that they would eventually go to war with the US due to their war aggression. They’d been better off not doing so because America came at them with extreme vengeance. The power of the US was so great that one Japanese admiral described it as going to war against the world. In Pittsburg, PA, home of the Pittsburg Steelers football team, named after the steel manufacturing, more steel was produced in just that one area of America than Italy and Germany combined!

Since Japan lost a source of oil, they decided that they would seize other locations that contained oil like Java or Borneo. Doing so would essentially be “attacking” another western nation. Still, they could have done that without also simultaneously attacking the US at Pearl Harbor. The US public sentiment was really against going to war anywhere.

There was some limited activity in the Atlantic, but not widely publicized amongst the US population. And it wasn’t “war” like another poster suggested. They were naval operations which protected US Shipping from submarine attacks. The US did have a right to remain neutral and sell or provide war materials to whomever it wished. That in itself may be helping the war capabilities of an ally, the UK, but doing so is not in and of itself an act of war. Defensive naval operations is not essentially war. These types of actions happen daily out on the vast expanse of the ocean’s navigable routes and are not considered “acts of war.”

Sure the Soviets weren’t exactly nice to people whom they suspected of disloyalty but it was little compared to the industrial level genocide that Germany perpetrated or the casual mass killings done by Japan.
The Soviets lost 25-27 million people in the war, China lost 10-20 million and there is a very clear reason for that as I expressed.

Are you serious?!?!?!  The Soviets, under both Lenin and Stalin, killed millions - more like tens of millions - before WWII even started, over eight million Ukrainians alone in the forced famine, millions more by firing squad, slave labour camp, and gulag.  Not to mention the bungled invasion of Poland by Lenin and the even more bungled invasion of Finland by Stalin. Just because the “intellectual” class doesn’t talk about it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

I believe 11-14 million under Stalin. Makes him one of history’s worst criminals, but still far less than Hitler with 30 million plus in the war he started and escalated (thus most victims in Europe can be assigned to him). Hitler is responsible for more Soviet deaths than Stalin is, even if the latter was complicit in Poland 1939-1941). Please don’t cite Cold War propaganda numbers.

A new generation of German historians also keeps finding that the Wehrmacht was far more aware of war crimes (and participated therein) than previously known. Throughout the Cold War Germany was allowed to uphold the “clean Wehrmacht” myth (and Soviet deaths in WW II were all counted as “killed by Stalin”) but that has by now utterly fallen apart.