Yes, the Japanese were kicking butt all over Asia, I think FDR hurried the war along with his actions. I doubt we could have stayed out of it and let everyone slug it out. Now we best learn Chinese instead of Japanese or German, or we may need to learn Russian.
I don’t like FDR mainly for his social policies here in the US and I believe without him this country would never have accepted creeping socialism. You may well be right and I wrong but it is sorta like global warming, no matter how much evidence to the contrary I will hold on to my beliefs about FDR. One other thing, I have often felt the real start of Big Government was based on the regimentation of Americans by the military of both soldiers and civilians. That generation that served accepted the idea that the government always had the best interests of the common man at heart. My father was one of them and he could not believe the government would, as he said it, ‘take bread off a man’s table.’ He believed it until a few short years before his death. It was a hard lesson for him.
If FDR could have started the war as Governor or Sec. of the Navy he would probably have to help out Uncle Joe.
But WWII was going to happen. Japan wanted to be the big dog in the Pacific. There were three places left in 1941 they had to take out to do that, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii.
Hawaii was the logical place to start. Take out the US Fleet and we would not be able to stop them from taking control of the entire Pacific. They had been planting colonies colonies in North America and South America for the past 50 years to facilitate their take over. We would have objected to their taking over the west coast of Canada or Peru and that was their goal.
FDR and his policies did a lot of damage to the country but acquit him of starting WWII. It was going long before he was in any position to push anything.