Pearl harbor got the US off its war time ass. but Pearl harbor wasnt planned out of nothing and for nothing. The US had blockaded japan and the resources it needed to fight china and japan did what it needed to to force the US into the war. a war over raw materials in the pacific.
otoh, japan pretty much got its ass handed to them at midway and the war was a bad idea from then on for japan.
“The US had blockaded Japan”
We and an economic embargo against Japan for such items as Oil, steel, scrap metals,etc.
A blockade would have involved U.S. Navy ships steaming outside Japanese harbors physically preventing ships from entering or leaving.
You make it sound like China invaded Japan. Japan was in expansionist mode and invaded China and Manchuria. China was a US ally and so we stopped selling Japan oil and raw materials. Not sure we ever blockaded them prior to our entry into the war. The Japanese did not bomb Pearl Harbor to bring us into the war. The bombed Pearl to cripple the Pacific fleet so they could run wild in the Pacific with little opposition. The Battle of Midway was supposed to be another Battle of Tsushima where they would destroy the American naval presence in the Pacific and force us to sue for peace. It didn’t work out that way obviously.
Pearl harbor wasnt planned out of nothing and for nothing.
As I recall, China did not attack and invade Japan slaughtering its inhabitants but rather the opposite. The U.S. did tell them not to do that. Was that wrong of us?
As for the Feds telling the states what to do, when it comes to slavery, Lincoln acknowledged that he had no power to limit slavery in the states where it existed, but threatened slavery by insisting it not expand into the territories. Southerners began secession upon Lincoln’s election and most had ‘left the Union’ before he took office.