Is there anyone who would try and solve Pearl Harbour through diplomacy rather than declaring war?

Regardless of whatever the US President at the time may do, it is the US Congress who has the responsibility to declare war per Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution. And based on OTL results, there isn't a chance that the US Congress will not declare war with or without the US President's concurrence. So it would take mind control of the Congress to avoid a US DoW, not the US President.

True, and it’s a certainty that Pearl Harbor leads to a declaration of war by Congress. However, to avert war, it may be possible to avert Pearl Harbor. We know what happened OTL - the US antagonized Japan, and Japan struck back at Pearl Harbor (and other locations.) The US got pissed off and declared war, because of course they did.

However, the President will have a huge hand in what happens before such an attack. And if he tries to prevent an attack by going easy on Japan, he will either be remembered as the guy who kept America out of war or as an appeaser similar to Neville Chamberlain.
 

nbcman

Donor
True, and it’s a certainty that Pearl Harbor leads to a declaration of war by Congress. However, to avert war, it may be possible to avert Pearl Harbor. We know what happened OTL - the US antagonized Japan, and Japan struck back at Pearl Harbor (and other locations.) The US got pissed off and declared war, because of course they did.

However, the President will have a huge hand in what happens before such an attack. And if he tries to prevent an attack by going easy on Japan, he will either be remembered as the guy who kept America out of war or as an appeaser similar to Neville Chamberlain.

If a US President is trying to lower tensions with Japan, the US Pacific Fleet would probably remain out of reach in San Diego instead of moving there in May 1940. So there wouldn't be a Pearl Harbor attack at all. Nor would there be any US Embargoes or any other actions taken by the US both in the Pacific and the Atlantic.
 
Not quite comparable. US of 2001 has much more involvement in Middle East compared to involvement with Japan in 1941, and disparity of forces was also larger in 2001, making decision to go to war easier for the US.

The more obvious distinction is that no government--not even the Taliban government of Afghanistan--took responsibility for 9/11 or declared war on the US as Japan did before the US declared war on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan...r_on_the_United_States_and_the_British_Empire

Hence the case for the US going to war--or rather deciding that war with a foreign nation had been forced upon it--was infinitely stronger after Pearl Harbor than after 9/11, though it was almost certainly inevitable in the latter case as well, unless the Taliban agreed to hand over bin Laden, which it was unlikely to do. (The Taliban did offer "to hand Bin Laden over to a neutral Islamic country for trial, if there is proof of his crimes"---an offer predictably and IMO justifiably rejected by the US. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/21/afghanistan.september1111)
 
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