[Wallace T.]

Whether or not FDR and his advisers wanted the Japanese to start a war to get America involved in World War II, the fact is that the Japanese did bomb Pearl Harbor. As for the United States, while our record in the Pacific was less than perfect, the Philippines, our primary colony, was on its way to independence at the time of the Japanese attack. As to Roosevelt’s judgment in favoring American involvement, consider the fact that had Japan conquered East Asia and Indonesia/Malaysia and Hitler created a German dominated Europe, these superpowers would have been a proximate threat to this hemisphere. Because Germany and Japan retained elements of capitalism, their economies would have been far stronger than those of the USSR and its satellites. As a result, they would have been more formidable enemies than the Communist bloc was.

[Andrew Byler]

Many would argue that America’s primary Pacific colony has always been Hawaii.