Now I forget, is Baldwin a good guy, or just somebody's stooge?
In either case, this piece well reflected the focus of top US official attention, and explains the efforts President Roosevelt was making behind the scenes, to draw the Japanese' attention away from Siberia.
I believe he is a straight shooter, making the best analysis he can given the information he has. I haven't read every column he has written (by a long shot) but it seems like he gets is right - as shown by later events - more than he is off the mark. He was a little late to the party in the run up to Barbarossa, but he didn't have access to the intelligence that governments did.
How about his estimate of air power though. Was the Brewster Buffalo really a match for what the Japanese had? I thought the Buffalo was obsolete by now.
I can see that the sanctions on petroleum products going to Japan might be expected to draw their attention back to the south.