<Polls were heavily against entering WW2 and only changed with Pearl Harbor>
That's an interesting bit of history, a study in how a leader of a democratic country maneuvers public opinion to go where he wants to go.
Clearly, FDR was a lot more hawkish than U.S. public opinion. The Depression was the main problem people wanted fixed, and most Americans remembered WWI as a futile bloodbath.
So, FDR orchestrated an economic embargo against Japan. Japan is a small overcrowded island, without most of the natural resources needed to feed their people and run their economy. Oil, in particular, was something they needed to run their warships, and had to buy from foreigners. Oil has been coming up, as a reason for war, for a long time. The U.S. public didn't realize where this was heading, so FDR could do it.
So, Japan had a choice: go to war to seize oil fields, or bow to U.S. demands that Japan withdraw from China and give up all ideas of Empire. And if they were going to go to war, they had to do it quickly, before existing oil stocks ran out.
So they did, and we were in the war, and FDR had what he wanted. Our nation believed we had been subject to an unprovoked attack, and was outraged, and fully supported the war. Very cleverly done. |
