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I get why people don’t buy the JFK story, even though we’ve disagreed on it before.
But Pearl Harbor? Who masterminded this, and how? Why would they need a “casus belli” other than the actual aircraft launched in anger? Wouldn’t they at least have the defenses ready to shoot back, maximizing the material gain from such a convoluted scheme?
FDR, and his administration, and anyone else who wanted to enter WW2. How is ignore warnings and set up the circumstances.
Because Americans remembered Woodrow "He Kept Us Out Of War" Wilson, and were smart enough to avoid another European land war. FDR couldn't go after Hitler just because, he didn't have the coalition or the political will.
The material gain is to drive the country into war it didn't want. The material gain is to get attacked by Japan in the Pacific, which justifies crossing the Atlantic to invade France and drive out the Germans, which is what they wanted the whole time. Germany was allied with Japan, but we squeezed Japan because we wanted to attack Germany, so when Japan predictably attacked due to the fuel blockade, we had the excuse to invade Europe.
Assuming you’re completely right about the strategy—enact an intolerable fuel blockade to “invite” an attack—the tactics are still absurd. From the moment bombs were dropped, you had a perfectly good casus belli. Why not warn the defenders and rack up some kills while you’re at it? Why not give the elusive Pacific Fleet contingency plans to capitalize on the not-so-shocking attack?
That said, we’d been fussing over Japanese aggression since before the Nazis seized control of Germany. It’s hard for me to see the equipment and oil embargoes as a diversion from existing plans.
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