AH challenge: US first strike against Japan a la Pearl Harbor

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have the US attack first in a strike at Japan similar to Pearl Harbor. Any PoD after November 11th 1918 is allowed.

Discuss :D.
 
In order to have something like that happen you would need a very aggressive US. Perhaps a US that never returns to isolationism and some how ends up fighting it out with Japan over China or some such thing? Or is that too much of a stretch?
 
I dont really know, must likely what Brothertoall said, maybe US never went back to Isolationism, deciding to intervene in foreign events, if that really happened we might have had an earlier American presence in the European War.

but sticking to the topic, It probably wouldnt good for us.
 
The problem is that by 1918 the US already had everything in the Pacific Rim that it wanted. Open Door in China, Philippine Islands, Guam, Hawaiian Islands, Samoa and a scattering of other islands.

There was the real fear of war with Japan in the 20s and 30s, but I don't believe a first strike was ever contemplated. About the only thing I can think of is if the Japanese ruthlessly murder a large number of Americans and Europeans, perhaps missionaries in China. And then the US gains word, through broken Japanese codes, of an impending attack. This could be enough for the US to strike first to end the threat.

Benjamin
 
Yeah, I don't think it could happen unless something like what benjamin said hapenned. The only way the US makes a first strike is if they intercept plans for the Japanese first strike.

The US was just way too isolationist at this point in history. They made an exception for WWI, but they weren't even considering doing that again anytime soon. Churchill was trying his best to drag the US into WW2 kicking and screaming, but it still didn't work until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The only way to get the US to strike Japan first is to remove the Americans strong isolationist tendencies, and to do that you have to go back far before 1918.
 
Huey Long comes to power? Or the Silver Shirts? And the nation dislikes European-Japanese Fascism as a result of some event?
 
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