“a truce with Japan (letting them keep their Asian conquests) might have made sense since Hitler was much more dangerous”
A truce before Pearl Harbor would have been even better. I realize Japan was the out and out aggressor, that the oil embargo was not an act of war, and that what they did to China and the Pacific rim was inconscienable. But why we cared so much about China and what we were doing with our fleet in the Pacific remains a mystery to me.
I suppose that after WWI, or perhaps even the Spanish-American war, sticking our noses in other people’s business was inevitable. We were always an imperial power on our continent, and maybe it was only a matter of time before we stretched that out by steps to the Western hemisphere and the entire globe. But I keep thinking there must have been a time to stop and say no more, that’s enough.
I am bolstered in this opinion by the not entire but partial futility of trading the Nazis in Europe and Japs in the Pacific for commies in both.