Q: Why no Japan First Movement?

We all know that FDR had already decided upon a "Europe First" policy before his country even entered the war, and that he meant to hold to that policy; focusing on the Pacific Theater at Europe's expense, much less a separate peace with Germany, was out of the question for him.

What's interesting to me is: (a) there were plenty of factors that easily could have, and arguably in most circumstances would have, led a large section of the American voting public, leaders, etc. to resist these priorities, pushing hard for their country to throw everything she had into breaking Japan; and (b) this did not happen, due to a number of courses of events and/or other contingent factors.

These (a and b) are what I'd like to discuss in this thread. As an example, might the GOP have taken to criticize Roosevelt getting "distracted by Europe" when trying to unseat him in 1944? And depending on how strong such a movement gets, what is the effect on the US war effort?
 
Interviewing Date 12/12-17/41
Survey #255 Question #6
Which country is the greater threat to America's future — Germany or Japan?
Germany........................... 64%
Japan.............................. 15
Equal threats........................ 15
No opinion......................... 6
It was generally believed that Germany was a greater threat because of its more potent industry and military, its much greatr threat to key US allies and the severe strategic consequences were it able to subject those allies to its will and to assimilate their industries and resources.

Japan, in comparison, is isolated and weak. You can add in memories of WW1 and a chunk of racism too, but the end result is that, no matter how you look at it, Germany is a much more potent and immediate threat.

I don't know how you alter this. Even if you chill relations between the US and UK, Germany is still the greater threat to the US. You need irrational US political and military leadership.
 
I'd guess there was no "Japan First" movement because that wasn't necessary. Because Japan was the bigger direct threat, resources would have flowed naturally in that direction. It took a dedicated "Germany First" movement to change that. And there certainly was pressure for more resources being allocated to the Pacific Fleet from the military commanders.

As to why no political movement to reverse that policy occured, the answer is also that it wasn't necessary. Had the US been unable to win in both theaters simultaneously, there might have been a struggle for priorities. As it was by the time there could have been a struggle, the US was already winning, so why would e.g. the Republicans have fought over it? The strategy was apprently working, there was no political capital to be gained in that fight.

I also suspect that it took quite a while until the american industry was even capable of pouring significant resources into the european campaign, since the entire strategy had to be planned first. So by the time the resources were actually split, the Pacific had already been stabilized sufficiently.
 
No German DoW

One thing that could have added difficulty to the Germany first idea was if Hitler did not declare war on the US. This would have left the impetus to go after Japan. When FDR went before Congress he asked them to acknowledge that a state of war existed between the US and Japan and did not include Germany and Italy.

I still think that FDR would have tried to get at Germany first but in this situation there would have been some diplomatic and domestic problems.

Another factor was the state of the US fleet. Until the carriers especially the Essex class started appearing, the US would have a difficult time trying to take the war to Japan. This would probably have the action take place as it did in OTL.
 
A close look at "Plan Dog Memorandum" which deeply influenced the choice for Japan first has a clue. Written by Admiral Stark in 1940 the Dog Memorandum examined the five Rainbow plans proposed jointly by the Chiefs of Staff of the Navy & Army. Stark described how the USN would not be ready for sustained offensive operations that would defeat Japan, until the naval construction program just starting in 1938-39 was complete in 1943.

The core of that construction program, the logistics components were not even designed in 1940 when Stark wrote the memorandum. i.e: the ship building capacity required did not exist in the US in 1940. Ship yard capacity had to be doubled simply to accommodate the cargo ship capacity needed for a Pacific war. the specialized support ships needed for the fleet train, the mobile advanced base, were not yet under construction, nor was the manpower mobilized & trained.

Stark identified all this and pointed out that in the Atlantic & Mediterranean the US could depend in a large part on a existing and robust British Commonwealth infrastructure as a starting point. That and the shorter distances made it easier to build up combat power in the ETO. That is the US could build up more combat power in Europe faster than it could against Japan.

This problem alone made taking down Germany first more attractive. But, there were the other good reasons already described here.
 
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