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Major Problems -- Essay #1
The subject at hand is a comparison of publicized views of two acclaimed scholars (Bruce Russett and
Gerhard Weinberg) regarding whether the United States had sufficient justification to approve entry into and
undertake active military participation in World War II.
In summary, these are the two opposing views:
Bruce Russett
It was possible for the United States to avoid actual military participation in the war against Germany
and its allies. Neutralization of Hitler and his counterparts could have been accomplished by continued direct
financial and material support of Great Britain and Russia, global isolation of Germany at sea and in the air, and
aggressive diplomatic and global financial moves. Eventually a continental stalemate would have developed,
with Germany having to modify its national expansion goals and at least partially return occupied lands to their
former free status.
In Asia, a less stringent approach to dealing with Japan with respect to embargoed critical raw materials
could have calmed that nation in terms of concerns for future growth and stability, and reduced the need for
Japan to militarily control more of Asia. Such moves by the USA might could have avoided forcing Japan to
attack the US (Pearl Harbor was chosen as a potential disaster to fully disable US Pacific naval power). Without
Pearl Harbor, continued negotiations with Japan could have reduced the US national support for actual entry
into the war.
Clearly, there was ample political pressure in the United States to counter the expansion of German and
Japanese aggression. However, the attempts by Great Britain to achieve peace by granting Hitler early
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annexation demands (Austria, Czechoslovakia) looked promising at first, and gave the American isolationists
more room to criticize the Roosevelt Administration’s apparent desire to be more directly involved.
Arguments by isolationists tended to emphasize the geographic advantages for the U. S. and any fears of either
Germany or Japan to successfully attack the country directly.
In retrospect, the fear that America would be left alone in the world against two great victorious
empires in Europe and Asia seems terribly exaggerated. 1
In a general sense, this was probably not an unreasonable position in 1940. There were certainly many
Americans who did not at all feel a duty to fight in “another EuropeanWar”.
Gerhard Weinberg
The United States could not avoid ultimately having to join its allies in the global conflict against
aggression both in Europe and in Asia. There was evidence by 1940 that Germany had for some time harbored
thoughts of a naval offensive against the United States, that would follow the fall of Great Britain and Germany’s
complete European continental control. The Japanese had other motives, basically rooted in a combination of
beliefs in Japanese superiority and anger against the USA for strangling Japan in terms of embargoes of critical
raw materials and other goods.
When in 1940 Japan and Germany made an agreement of mutual support, though it was warm and cold
at times through 1941, it was clear that a potential ring of enemies both east and west would be formed around
the previously invulnerable, geographically protected USA.
Though Japan was going through the motions of diplomatic negotiation throughout 1940-1941, the
decision was already firmly made, with Germany’s approval, of war with the USA and the European Colonial
powers (Great Britain, France, and Netherlands). The stance of the Japanese was not unclear to US operatives
1
Bruce M Russett, No Clear and Present Danger: A Skeptical View of American entry into World War II,
(New York: Harper and Row), 1972, 1977.
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and politicians, but the difficulty for Japan to actually harm US assets was believed to be a true obstacle to any
actual major attacks.
In September 1940 the Japanese government decided to ally itself with Germany. Now was the time to
move into alignment with Germany To seize all of Southeast Asia, quite possibly adding Burma and India
and the islands of the south Pacific. If that meant war with the United States, so be it. 2
Pearl Harbor provided not only an unforeseen shock to Americans in terms of its boldness and its
“infamy”, but it was an emotional jolt that began to mold Americans together in a unified mindset to not only
defend the nation and assist allies, but to conquer those aggressors making this necessary.
Which View is More Justified?
Weinberg is more convincing.
By 1940, with Germany in control of continental Europe and at England’s door, even isolationists in the
USA were nervous about Germany’s victories and the harsh occupation policies of Hitler’s regime. And the
Japanese were proving in China that their ideas of expansion involved a lot of dead Chinese. The belief that
some held (as Russett does) that different negotiating postures with Germany and Japan would satisfy their
more aggressive leaders became almost impossible to defend. Weinberg points out that the evidence was
already there, for those who would open their eyes, that Germany and Japan, though with different motives and
specific objectives, were intent on territorial domination.
What motivated Japan to strike throughout the Pacific in 1941? In the case of the U. S., Japan believed
that the unprepared nation would find dealing with Japan too costly in terms of lives and treasure. This would
aid give Japan advantages in negotiating some favorable armistice. Again in the Pacific, European colonial
2
Gerhard Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1994).
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powers would be quick conquests for Japan without assistance from the Pacific Fleet. Great Britain, even with
assistance from Australia, could not adequately defend Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Germany was also getting what it had hoped for. With the US military wrapped up in Pacific fighting it
would allow Germany more time to both defeat Great Britain and fully exploit the occupation of continental
Europe while planning to take on the other great continental power -- Russia.
Pearl Harbor alone was not as harmful to the US in terms of overall naval power – as the Japanese had
hoped. Still, rapid surrender of US and European colonial holdings early in the war allowed Japan to
dramatically enlarge its own sphere of influence and lines of defense.
These successes unfortunately are
believed to have strengthened the Japanese national militaristic spirit and convinced that country to press on,
even though military leaders were very cautious. Ironically, the success of Japanese assaults throughout the
Pacific in late 1941 (not just Pearl Harbor, but in the Philippines, Guam, Singapore, Hong Kong) enraged the
American citizenry sufficiently to offset any remaining isolationist sentiment.
In the process, of course, thanks to Hitler immediately moving to declare war on the U. S., and a strong
feeling in favor of supporting Great Britain and the overrun nations, the Americans were naturally drawn into
the European conflict as well.
In this context, Weinberg successfully defends his claim that full entry into the war was inevitable.