How much longer would USA stay neutral if Japan had no declared war on USA?

[Clandango]

The 14 part message before Pearl Harbor was Demarche that amounted to a declaration of war. The message arrived after the Americans decoded it and read it during the attack. Japanese typewriters were slower than their American Kanji counterparts. I cover this in "Those Marvelous Tin Fish."

You may want to link to where. Anyways, I am linking the translated text of message the Japanese sent to their embassy. While people can perhaps say it suggests the Japanese would get violent, that could be with the benefit of hindsight. I imagine diplomatic things could be rather long winded. Really, them saying they don’t think peace talks that had the Americans trying to get the Japanese to wind down there war in China if they wanted to be able to import goods that could be used for war isn’t the sort of thing most would consider grounds for attacking multiple other countries at once. Plus I suppose it would still mean they did sneak attacks on all the other countries they attacked in December anyways.

HyperWar: Japanese "14-Part Message" of 7 December 1941

The full text of the Japanese 14-part message delivered to Secretary of State Cordell Hull on the afternoon of December 7, 1941 -- after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Note that the text does <b>not</b> declare war, or even break diplomatic relations -- it merely declares an impasse in the ongoing...

www.ibiblio.org

 

[wcv215]

The 14 part message before Pearl Harbor was Demarche that amounted to a declaration of war. The message arrived after the Americans decoded it and read it during the attack. Japanese typewriters were slower than their American Kanji counterparts. I cover this in "Those Marvelous Tin Fish."

Would you care to point out where in that message are the words, "The Empire of Japan declares war on the United States", or an equivalent?

 

[McPherson]

A Demarche is an ultimatum.

 

[wcv215]

A Demarche is an ultimatum.

An ultimatum delivered after an attack is not a declaration of war.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Japan had entered into two wars with China, one with the Russian empire, and invaded/occupied Korea. What sort of documents did they deliver indicating the they 'declared war' to those nations?

 

[McPherson]

An ultimatum delivered after an attack is not a declaration of war.

According to the botched Japanese plan, the Demarche was to be issued about 45 minutes before the Vals pushed over to drop bombs on Hickam. It would technically be a declaration of "do or else" legalism. The Japanese would claim the Americans broke off negotiations and hence the Japanese attack was justified by American action to threaten Japan as in the FDR letter on Indochina the IJG had received the day prior. That was a Demarche of intent as well. However the American Demarche became triple justified by Pearl Harbor as even if the Japanese Demarche had been delivered as planned, the act of war was violating the U.S. sea frontier a when day before when the IJN entered US waters around Hawaii. The IJN has no business being there. There would only be one reason. Conspiracy to wage aggression against the U.S.. That was a specification of the charges at the Tokyo trials.