What if Japan invaded the Netherlands and Britain but not the US?

precisely, so why wouldnt the US people and government take an even stronger approach when these acts of agression take place against their closest allies? its one thing to attack China in the 1930's, its entirely another thing to attack Western powers.





Now now, dont be silly. You know as well as I do that there is absolutely no way to prove this one way or the other. I can suggest points that would be used to argue for it but its impossible to prove.

You can argue that continued pressure from their allies to get up and do something would persuade them, coupled with internal perssure by the public to help allies who were attacked without provocation.
Or the risk to their overseas interests would likewise serve to motivate them, as there is a very good chance that ordinary Americans in the area would get caught up in the fighting.
And at the end of the day the potential loss of national pride and prestige if they didnt do anything would likewise serve to get them off their asses. Politicans are very reactive when it comes to their pride and image....

None of this can be proven however. And I am not saying that a declaration would come as quickly as it did in OTL, or that it would be easy, only that it WOULD come. Either that or the Japanese would launch their inevitable attack on US territory and then a declaration would occur.


Poor choice of words on my part. By "prove" I just meant provide a few reasonable arguments, which you did.

Do you happen to know where I could find statistics of isolationist Senators and Representatives in Congress and isolationist lobbyist groups? I'd rather not go through the hundreds of Congressmen to find individual political views. That's where I see the main opposition coming from and, if they had even a sizable minority, the odds of a declaration of war minus-Pearl drops dramatically.
 
This one is tricky and clearly the Japanese didn't consider it a good option as they went with the attack on Pearl/direct war with the US option.

A Japanese attack on Indochina/Malaysia/Dutch East Indies would have had to anger the US public greatly for Roosevelt to get a declaration of war but that doesn't mean Roosevelt wouldn't take action. I could see the US Pacific Fleet moving to Subic Bay in the Phillipines. That wouldn't have gone over well in Tokyo.

Another option the Japanese might could have tried was just an occupation of Dutch East Indies for the oil. Of course that might result in Britain and the US both declaring war; but even if it just meant Britain declared war, wasn't like the British forces in Asia at that point would really scare the Japanese all that much.
 
Well if the US maintained a massive embargo because the Japanese were invading China, its quite logic that the fact that invades 2 or 3 other countries would force US to do something "a bit more drastic".

After all this was expected in Washington as Japan next move ...
 
Interesting response.... Not sure it would work though as even a man with a gun can have a sudden attack of moraility a shoot you for what you did. Not to mention that once you have finished beating up the kid then the guy with the gun then only has 1 person to shoot anyway. At best you are delaying the inevitable.

Congratulations you just outsmarted the Japanese general staff
 
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