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They would have the easiest time getting in. Any other country would have to amass a fleet of ships to bring men and materials here. Those countries, on our borders, could use an overland route, like the British did during the War of 1812. Through Canada.
True, but if we assume that threat is roughly the combination of means, motive and opportunity, the Canada and Mexico ICMS and aircraft carriers, I also suspect the sea doesn't represent as much of a problem.
Isolationism only works if you can effective isolation yourself. Which was possible in WW1, because it was practically impossible to strike against the USA (because of the water and all). But through the 1930s it became increasingly possible for a power to strike against the USA, which gave the USA an interest in playing power politics and maintaining the balance of power.
Also consider that during the war the level of technology exploded and those oceans were no longer the protection they had been. Even without a direct invasion either Japan or Germany could have inflicted a major amount of "softening up" on us if they had had the time and we had sat back and had given it to them. The Japanese had the "ballon bombs" which were utterly low tech, but if combined with deadly biological warfare (which was tested on islands on pow's and in China) they could have played havoc easily. There was a family recorded as offical war casualties from one of these which had been sent up experimentally with an explosive. Imagine an outbreak of plague or one of the other weaponized diseases they were working on and what it would have done to not only our society but our ability to aid anyone or fight back.
The Germans were limited in their development of advanced weaponry with longer ranges only by their resources. The need to take the Soviet Union was in part because of the resources it contained. Had they been able to perfect some of it and been able to launch from sea, they could have carried on bombing of American cities with the V2. And there is no reason why they would not have found land routes, especially Mexico. We no longer sat protected from the designes of others by a lot of ocean by the time WW2 was begun, even if the technology had not yet caught up.
And would we want to be the one place they hadn't been in a world where Japan had taken the far east and Germany everything west of that? We would have had to work *with* the leaders of these states, ignoreing the atrocities that were already known, and hope they were happy leaving us alone.
Who, in a history forum, is so bereft of critical thinking that he simply repeats what he was taught even when others show him that what he was taught was wrong? I am stunned. You cling to demonstrable falsehood 'because you were taught it'. I can think of reasons to engage in voluntary error, but that is the worst I have ever seen.
Just because you were taught something does not make it correct. How did you even get in here without realizing this?
How have you "shown" anything? By simply posting the opposite? I have no reason to trust the validity of your source, whereas what I read in history class is something I can track down and show anyone else. Things posted on a computer are ephemeral and there is no guarantee of their truth--just look at Wikipedia.
The contradiction lies in how you answered one post saying that it was OK for Germany to declare war on the USA since we declared war on their ally.
Yet in another post you said the USA was wrong for going to war with Germany despite the fact that they declared war on us because they weren't invading our soil.
Germany WAS attacking our allies though, so your justification when it pertained to Germany and their allies, somehow suddenly didn't apply to the USA.
Quite the contradiction.
Given their own viewpoint, it was understandable. If they had an isolationist viewpoint, it would not be.
It's all a matter of how you view things. Reality is subjective.
Also consider that during the war the level of technology exploded and those oceans were no longer the protection they had been. Even without a direct invasion either Japan or Germany could have inflicted a major amount of "softening up" on us if they had had the time and we had sat back and had given it to them. The Japanese had the "ballon bombs" which were utterly low tech, but if combined with deadly biological warfare (which was tested on islands on pow's and in China) they could have played havoc easily. There was a family recorded as offical war casualties from one of these which had been sent up experimentally with an explosive. Imagine an outbreak of plague or one of the other weaponized diseases they were working on and what it would have done to not only our society but our ability to aid anyone or fight back.
The Germans were limited in their development of advanced weaponry with longer ranges only by their resources. The need to take the Soviet Union was in part because of the resources it contained. Had they been able to perfect some of it and been able to launch from sea, they could have carried on bombing of American cities with the V2. And there is no reason why they would not have found land routes, especially Mexico. We no longer sat protected from the designes of others by a lot of ocean by the time WW2 was begun, even if the technology had not yet caught up.
And would we want to be the one place they hadn't been in a world where Japan had taken the far east and Germany everything west of that? We would have had to work *with* the leaders of these states, ignoreing the atrocities that were already known, and hope they were happy leaving us alone.
The difficulty I think people have is separating intention from possibility and capability.
Germany may well have not had a policy, or intent to attack the USA. But the fact is that a Germany that controlled Europe and Russia would be a Germany that had greater resources, population, military might and technological know how than America. This would also be a threat, intentions aside.
p. 432-37, Toll, Ian W., Six Frigates. W.W. Norton, 2006.
p. 242-43, Canfield, Leon H. et al, The United States in the Making. Houghton Mifflin, 1946.
If you reject those, then you can choose to maintain your great and strident ignorance of the subject--I don't mind if you do. Or, if you prefer, you can go consult nearly any military historical atlas that will bear out the above. What I'm describing is knowledge as accepted as 'Japan bombed Pearl Harbor,' not some debatable uncertainty. It's so widely available you couldn't miss it without prodigious effort. Either way, I have done all the research on your behalf I plan to. Maintain that black is white all you choose.
I never said that they didn't. They were ALLOWED to do so by our government.
You steadfastly maintained that the British took an overland route to Washington DC from Canada when they burned it.
It's been proven that they came by sea and NOT overland from Canada.
Now you are saying you agree with the factual information that they came by sea....but that our government allowed them to do it?
I guess it depends on your definition of "allowed" because we certainly attempted to stop them...thus the Battle of Bladensburg where the US forces were defeated by the British.
Stop, before you lose brain cells (as you tried to encourage me to do, and I stupidly didn't take your advice). This is like trying to convince a creationist of evolution or an evolutionist of creation--can't be done. You are not dealing with solid process integrity here. When someone figures they are allowed to randomly morph their past posted stances, all they are trying to do is divert you by sending you scurrying back into them to prove them wrong, at which time they will ignore you and do it again anyway. Wires are loose. Nothing but harm to your intellect can occur here.
You steadfastly maintained that the British took an overland route to Washington DC from Canada when they burned it.
It's been proven that they came by sea and NOT overland from Canada.
Now you are saying you agree with the factual information that they came by sea....but that our government allowed them to do it?
I guess it depends on your definition of "allowed" because we certainly attempted to stop them...thus the Battle of Bladensburg where the US forces were defeated by the British.
There are two different things being discussed. One is the British route into the U.S. during the War of 1812, and the other is the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The one that was allowed to happen was the attack on Pearl Harbor because FDR wanted to galvanize Americans into supporting a war. American lives were lost, and that would inspire the nation to retaliate. Had Pearl Harbor been warned of the attack, instead of being kept in the dark, the outcome would have been different, and the people would have been more diffident towards supporting a war.
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