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To: Zhang Fei

I don’t think the Japanese had a choice about going to war with the US.
The embargo on oil and scrap steel was absolutely devastating to the Japanese economy. They needed to grab resources like oil, rubber, and iron, and force us to end the embargo.
It just didn’t go very well for them. The US had more industry on just the West Coast than existed in all of Japan, and the Japanese never managed to exploit their conquests very well.


54 posted on 01/29/2021 8:19:21 AM PST by Little Ray (The Government is always its own largest and most important Special Interest. .)
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To: Little Ray

When Britain also declared War on Japan, now the US was freed up to give Britain all the supplies she needed, both for Europe and Asia.

Hitler knew that for all intents and purposes, when the US declared war on Japan, it pretty much was a declaration of War on Germany.

Even had Hitler not declared war on the US, it only would have been a matter of time before Germany sunk a US vessel, providing the Casus Belli for the US to declare war on Germany.


58 posted on 01/29/2021 8:21:52 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Little Ray

[I don’t think the Japanese had a choice about going to war with the US.
The embargo on oil and scrap steel was absolutely devastating to the Japanese economy. They needed to grab resources like oil, rubber, and iron, and force us to end the embargo.
It just didn’t go very well for them. The US had more industry on just the West Coast than existed in all of Japan, and the Japanese never managed to exploit their conquests very well.]


All war is economically devastating. That’s why, in antiquity, the initial stages generally involved large-scale slaughter. The Mongols took 60 years to pacify China. The Manchus took close to 40 years. The Japanese wanted to speed up the timetable. Subtraction by addition. Turned out disastrously for them. Again - there’s nothing new about conquering China. The Japanese somehow decided that they’d go about it differently - do it better than it had ever been done before, by adding to their adversary count. Daring, but extremely risky ploy that came to grief. Even the Romans did not attack multiple additional kingdoms while fighting Carthage, and at that point, they weren’t exactly new to the game of empire.


95 posted on 01/29/2021 9:07:20 AM PST by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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