How long did it take the US to join both world wars again?
I thought one of the US's biggest problems was rushing to intervene militarily in others' affairs without at least a proper assessment of the situation?
Nazis running riot around the world wasn't enough evidence that maybe they were the baddies?
Seems much more clear cut than some Vietnamese farmers wanting self-determination after decades of colonial rule
The early stages of World War II was kind of confusing and not at all clear cut 'good vs. evil' as it was after the invasion of the USSR. England had sort of fueled the flames of the Poland/German conflict by telling the Poles not to negotiate and Russia had an alliance and understanding with Germany to carve it up in 2 zones. Most countries in western Europe remained Neutral but Germany feared the Brits would be able to built bases and send their navy there to blockade Germany as they had in WW1 and thus conquered the Nordic and low countries before England could. Like in Germany before it, a 'civilized' Nazi take-over was still seen as less of a threat than communism in most countries. Even before the war there were many German collaborators in countries like France and Holland including politicians, industrialists and members of the royal family. Up until the war broke out Jews that had fled Germany were rounded up in Holland and send back. The Queen had ordered a concentration camp to be built before the Germans invaded.
When the Germans attacked Poland, the English did little to stop it. The French launched an 'invasion' into Germany but then retreated.
The anti-Nazi coalition didn't take shape until the British Empire decided against an armistice and instead fought on alone against Germany after the French were defeated.
As the English grew desperate and started to lose the air war because Germany had almost taken out most of their airfields, they started to attack German cities.
This prompted the Luftwaffe to stop attacking British airfields and instead they launched retaliation raids on London and other cities. Giving the brits time to rebuild their airfields.
Germany bombing innocent English speaking peoples really hit home in the US, even more so when German U-Boats attacked US ships. Those attacks made the US decide to help England and later the Soviet Union with supplies and other military aid.
In that already tense situation the Japanese launched the attack on Pearl Harbor. Even at that point the US didn't want to declare war on Germany as it would divert resources from their war against Japan.
It was Hitler who decided to declare war on the US after the US declared war on Japan, perhaps hoping that the Japanese would also declare war on the Soviet Union in return.
During the war the US military leadership was always fed up with Churchill, who kept pushing Roosevelt to help in Africa, Europe and other places while they wanted to win the war in the Pacific first.
Churchill had always hyped up the evil barbarism of Nazi Germany but even he couldn't imagine what they would actually find after the war.
People sometimes blame the US for joining late but I don't think that is fair considering many in Europe also didn't realize how evil the Nazi's were until they attacked the USSR and got the Holocaust into gear.
