Erin Gaffney
Question 4
World War I was supposed to be a “War to end all wars” and as Woodrow Wilson said, this war was “to make the world safe for democracy”. This changed quickly when Japan started threatening China and the open door policy, also as the fascist Nazi party under Hitler began to rise and promised the reassertion of German nationalism and militarism. The U.S. under Roosevelt shifted from isolationism and neutrality to disengagement and then into full engagement in World War II because it was unavoidable because of the economic situation and the Fascism aggression in the Axis powers.
The first main political movement from neutrality to disengagement was caused by the negative relations between the U.S. and Japan, Fascist Germany and Italy, these negative relations were caused by the latter nations responses to bad economic conditions, and their past war resentments. After World War I, the U.S. had tried to become isolationist and avoid any wars. Proof of this idea, were acts such as the Kelogg-Briand pact. This act was to avoid any wars and it was the beginning of the movement to outlaw war entirely. Of course, this did not work because there was too much tension after World War I and the rise of the Fascist nations prevented any such pact. The first action that Japan did to threaten the relationship with the U.S. was an obvious defiance of the Open doors policy by marching Japanese troops into Manchuria in September of 1931. The reason for the invasion was the nationalists and militarists,responding to the worsening economic conditions, had convinced the emperor, that invading China and Southeast Asia was the best way to guarantee the access to raw materials such as oil tin and iron. The U.S. responded with the Stimson Doctrine that said the U.S. would honor the nine power’s treaty in the view that any territory that was taken by force would not be recognized as such. This included the Japanese territory of Manchukuo. This response was not at all effective at decreasing the Japanese power and it showed the U.S. that it was going to be hard to stop the Japanese forces while remaining a neutral nation. Germany had responded to the bad economic situation by giving rise to the Nazi party in the 1920’s. In early 1933, Adolf Hitler had control of the Germany’s government. Similarly in Italy, Benito Mussolini was asserted into power by his fascist supporters. The U.S. saw this as potential war in Europe because Fascism was now the common theme in European dictatorships that were glorifying their nation and their race through an assertion of power, which threatened Britain and France because they were known as responsible for, defeating Germany in World War I, and causing the post war depression in Germany. This only increased the isolationist view in the U.S. to stay out of war no matter what happens. This caused the rise of Neutrality acts to pass in congress because through 1938 the isolationists had majority in both parties. These neutrality acts prohibited arm shipments to nations in war and it also forbade the use of loans ad credits to nations in war. These acts satisfied the public opinion of keeping out of war and made a definite shift from disengagement to neutrality. The next big shift from disengagement to neutrality began with the U.S. supporting Britain and France’s policies of appeasements. These policies were neutral political acts because they were made in order to avoid conflict with Germany so they justified the small acts of aggression and expansion as okay just to avoid a second war. The appeasement policy was used to justify the fascist take overs of Ethiopia, Rhineland, China and Sudetenland. This was considered a neutral decision because now the U.S. was aware of a war and refusing to take sides. Roosevelt had tried to take a step away from neutrality by addressing the U.S. citizens with a speech that suggested that there was a need to “quarantine” the aggressive nations, but the extremely negative response from the citizens prevented him from taking that step. All of the political acts that Roosevelt did strongly reflected the attitude of his people. Roosevelt maintained neutrality while building up arms. Many isolationists viewed this as preparing for possible invasion of the Western hemisphere where protection is needed. These political acts brought the nation from disengagement into a neutral position in the war because all of these acts were to prevent war or U.S. entry into the war, the situation changes when Roosevelt and the nation begin to realize that war is probably unavoidable.
