Did we really practice isolationism in 1940?
We allowed fighter pilots to fight in China against the Japanese, with US warplanes. They were ‘mercenaries’ but it looks provacative. (Flying Tigers)
We Escorted transport ships carrying supplies and war materials to Britian. The first US ship lost in WWII wasn’t from the Japanese, it was torpedoed by a Uboat as it did convoy escort. (USS Reuben James)
That suggest considerable amount of involvement without getting ‘involved’. The people of the US didn’t want to be in the war, it took a giant nudge of a sneak attack of Pearl Harbor to push it all the way, but it wasn’t really isolationism either.
As far as delay...take a hard look at US military expenditures after the British declaration of war in WWII ( Sept. 1939). The US basically started war footing at that time with production. We delayed combat, not production mobilization, IMHO.
History isn’t always as clean as they teach you in class. The US wasn’t ‘isolationists’ entirely, and we didn’t delay after the invasion of Poland.
We were never ‘neutral’ during both World Wars.
We needed the Royal Navy to guard the Atlantic, while we were beefing up our presence in the Pacific, after the Spanish-American War, when we got the Philippines. We knew we were on a collision course with Japan, even then.
The majority were isolationist, when the assumption was it would just be another stalemate like WWI was.
That changed once the Nazis conquered France, and that’s when people realized that s___ was getting real.
Actually, the biggest isolationists were the Communists, after Stalin and Hitler became best buddies.
Isolationists prevented assistance to Britain for most of that time. The Lend-Lease compromise wasn't passed until March of 1941.
Who taught you history?
The Flying Tigers didn't commence operation against the Japanese until two weeks after Pearl Harbor.
The first ship lost to enemy action by a WW2 opponent was the USS Panay, sunk by the Japanese in 1937.
From the U.S. Naval Institute account of the incident:
"The isolationist mood of the United States precluded any strong and decisive action following the Panay incident. Roosevelt’s Quarantine Speech in Chicago in October of 1937 resulted in a negative reaction from the isolationists who wished a strong implementation of the Neutrality Acts of 1937; and after the Panay incident, wanted a complete withdrawal of our naval forces, Marines, businessmen, and missionaries from the Far East."
Nothing positive was done, and on December 7, 1941. . . . .