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Post-World War I Attempts at Peace
After the experience of World War I, the major countries of the world tried to put some plans in place that they believed would lower the chances of having another world war. At the Washington Naval Conference (1921–1922), the world’s largest naval powers gathered in Washington, D.C. to discuss naval disarmament and ways to relieve growing tensions in East Asia. The well-meaning Kellogg-Briand Pact was an agreement to outlaw war signed in 1928 by fifteen leading nations. But how do you outlaw war? If one nation breaks the pact, the other nations have to go to war to enforce it.
According to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany owed France about $32 billion, and when Germany defaulted on a payment in 1923, France occupied a part of Germany to force payment. Other major nations panicked, worried about another war breaking out, so they came up with the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan. Both plans made some sort of payment plan that would make it easier for Germany to pay its reparations while arranging for loans to Germany. Despite all of this, global economic depression led to the rise of totalitarian leaders throughout Europe and the tensions that would lead to World War II began to arise.
Meanwhile, in the Western Hemisphere, FDR was determined to improve relations with the countries of Latin America. According to the Good Neighbor Policy, the United States would now emphasize cooperation and trade with these nations, rather than military force, to stabilize the region. The policy represented an attempt to distance the United States from earlier interventionist policies, such as the Roosevelt Corollary and military interventions in the region during the 1910s and 1920s.
Even before war officially broke out in Europe in 1939, FDR and U.S. diplomats sensed that some type of belligerence might be about to happen. Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts (1935–1937), which gradually tightened restrictions on U.S. international trade, in hopes of staying out of any future conflicts. Large groups of Americans were adamant that the United States should remain neutral, and cultural heroes like Charles Lindbergh and the America First movement rallied public support for the U.S. continuation of its historic attempts at neutrality.
Once World War II commenced in Europe, however, the United States gradually dialed back its neutrality to help its Allies, especially Great Britain. First, hoping to avoid another incident like the sinking of the Lusitania before World War I, FDR implemented the “Cash and Carry” policy, which would allow warring nations to buy U.S. arms if they paid cash and transported them in their own ships. In December 1940, in a speech on the radio, FDR said that, to give aid to the warring European Allies (Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union), the United States had to turn itself into “the great arsenal of democracy.” (An arsenal is a collection of weapons stored by a country or group.) Soon thereafter, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act (March 1941), which asserted that Congress would lend or lease arms and other supplies to “any country whose defense was vital to the United States.”
Atlantic Charter
FDR and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill got together in August 1941 to make an agreement about their goals for the war, which were eventually recorded as the Atlantic Charter. This may seem a little off, because the United States was still officially neutral at this time. It shows us the dilemma the President faced: most Americans wanted to stay isolationist, but as his arsenal of democracy speech showed, FDR recognized the importance of U.S. support for the Allied nations. Both countries agreed not to seek territorial expansion; to seek the liberalization of international trade; and to establish international labor, economic and welfare standards, and freedom of the seas. Most importantly, both the United States and Great Britain were committed to supporting the restoration of self-determination for all countries that had been occupied during the war, which would allow all peoples to choose their own form of government. This connects back to Wilson’s emphasis on self-determination in his Fourteen Points at the end of World War I.
U.S. Entry into World War II
In 1937, Japan invaded China and also planned to invade French, Dutch, and British colonies that lay unprotected in Asia. When the Japanese took over military bases in French Indochina (Vietnam) in July 1941, the United States cut off trade with Japan and placed an oil embargo on Japan. As an island nation with few raw materials, Japan found itself economically isolated, with its military aims cut off.
In response, Japanese Prime Minister and military leader Hideki Tojo ordered the Japanese navy to prepare for an attack on the United States. In a surprise attack early on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval base in Hawaii. In fewer than two hours, the Japanese had inflicted greater damage than the U.S. Navy had suffered in all of World War I.
Later that day, President Roosevelt addressed Congress, calling December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,” and Congress declared war on Japan. Germany and Italy declared war on the United States the next day, bringing the United States into the center of World War II.
