“Did FDR Provoke Pearl Harbor?”
The cruise of the Great White Fleet under Theodore Roosevelt’s administration was partially a message to check Japanese expansionism. The Japanese were determined to dominate Asia- they proved that by thrashing China in 1895, and then Russia in 1905, their seizure of Germany’s Asian possessions in WWI, and then their expansion into China after 1931. Opposition to this expansion- and that was the general thrust of US policy beginning with T.R.- pretty much set Japan against the US, regardless of what FDR thought or did.
The Japanese considered TR to be an honest broker as a result of his efforts to end to Russo-Japanese war. TR was the only statesman with good relations with all the leaders of the WWI beligerents at the beginning of the war. Too bad he wasn’t elected in ‘12, if there was anyone who could’ve brought all sides together and averted the tragedy of WWI, it was TR.