What would happen if Pearl harbor wasn't bombed ?

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Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US was petty much an Isolationist, non-interventionist country in the 30's. Without the Pearl Harbor attack, no telling how long it would have taken the US, militarily, to get involved in Europe. England was within a hairs breath of falling to Nazi Germany at the time.

Medusa said:

yes l know about Monroe Doctrine that was about keeping out of this war and such affairs related to teh rest of the world,a policy of isolation.

but what if nazis wouldn attack USSR ? l wonder if there was such a possibility.maybe USSR wouldnt be another world power

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What if the Nazi’s didn’t attack the USSR? That is an interesting question. Hitler did attack in June of 1941, but by that time most of Europe was under his control except England which was basically the lone holdout. Hitler had signed a non-aggression Pact with the USSR and if he abided by it, I suppose Europe was his. The U.S. was in no way ready for war in June of 1941 and Pearl Harbor hadn’t happened yet.

If Hitler didn’t invade the USSR, if he somehow was able to make peace with England which from what I read he was willing to do as he respected the English, probably them alone among the different ethnic groups of Europe. All of Europe would be speaking German today, but Hitler would have to know when to call it quits.

Or without the invasion of the USSR, he could have concentrated all his forces on England to defeat her. But if he had done this I think FDR would have found a way to get us involved in the war without Pearl to save England. Like I said early, Lend-Lease was already going on. One of Hitler subs or something would have sunk something of ours and the outrage would have begun again like before WWI. Remember with Murrow’s reporting from London during the Blitz, that had the majority of Americans sympathetic to England for their suffering.

There are so many if’s involved, as to your last question, would have Russia become a superpower? Not for a very long time I would say. Stalin in one of his purges had killed a lot of his top generals and he also placed some of his top scientists into gulags.

I think one of the more interesting questions is after Hitler invaded the USSR, he tried to get the Japanese to invade north instead of south. That is to invade the USSR from the east while he was invading them from the west. If Japan had done this Stalin would have been able to recall, move his vast numbers of troops from the east facing Japan to fight Hitler from coming at him from the West. Like I said, so may if’s.

Who knows?

The Japanese might have attacked later, after further building up their forces.

The US might not enter the war until much later, perhaps after Germany actually invades Britain, or defeats the USSR. Or both.
If Germany had a few extra years of development, they would probably be capable of bombarding mainland USA with rockets...or long distance bombers...or both...
They might even have obtained fuel supplies in Africa.

Any number of things...


Alternate history is fun, but you cannot know what might have happened.


Edit: A better question or three - what if Hitler wasn't insane? What if he listened to his generals? What if the Nazi's didn't have death camps?

Perotista said:

What if the Nazi’s didn’t attack the USSR? That is an interesting question. Hitler did attack in June of 1941, but by that time most of Europe was under his control except England which was basically the lone holdout. Hitler had signed a non-aggression Pact with the USSR and if he abided by it, I suppose Europe was his. The U.S. was in no way ready for war in June of 1941 and Pearl Harbor hadn’t happened yet. .

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The USSR would have declared war a few years later. Stalin signed the non-aggression pact to give himself time to build up his military. Had Hitler not broken the pact first, Stalin would've marched West and Europe would be speaking Russian.

polgara said:

There are always those that bait others for their own reasons - as well as those that take the bait, sometimes to their chagrin and disgust later! Human nature demands we learn the lessons about "pie-in-the-sky," the hard way, I guess.

Why was FDR so set on getting involved in Europe - I didn't know that about him. Did he hope that we might pull out of the Great Depression by making jobs in manufacturing available here to support a war effort? He did a great job prior to that by keeping men working through his alphabet agencies, and I commend him for his thinking! People never lost hope that things would get better, and they loved and respected him for that, my family included. I'm not a Democrat, but you must give credit where it is due!

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He, correctly, believed that the greatest threat to Western democracy was posed by a Nazi victory in Europe. President Roosevelt and his advisers believed it was not in the best interests of the United States to see a Nazi hegemony arise in Europe or to have the potential for a democratic international order torn apart by Imperial Japanese rule in the Pacific. His cardinal sin was overlooking the similar threat posed by the Soviet Union.

Perotista said:

FDR is considered one of the three great presidents this country has had by historians. I agree with them. I will give you my best guess coming from what I have read about him, I think FDR was an Anglophile and was determined to do all he could to keep England from falling to the Nazis. Besides he and Churchill had a real good friendship. I do not think it had anything to do with getting us out of the Great Depression or even manufacturing. Lend Lease pretty much determined we were not going to get paid. I think FDR realized Hitler could very well conquer Europe and pretty much of Asia if we didn't get ourselves involved. He did have great foresight.

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He was actually the opposite of an Anglophile. FDR was a staunch opponent of the British Empire and strongly favored decolonization. The result was that while he constantly questioned British motivations and activities he was partially blinded to Soviet machinations. This mistrust is most readily apparent in Burma, Hong Kong, and arguably in Greece and North Africa.

In my opinion we would have got involved sooner or later. Hitler's main ambition was global domination and he saw the USA in the way of that, so he concentrated on building a huge navy as well as an air force. If Japan would have never been brazen enough Hitler would have taken his foolish exercise to "awaken a sleeping giant." eventually in some way.

Take note:

To overcome these practical obstacles Hitler built up the German navy and began work on a long-range bomber -- the notorious Amerika Bomber -- which would be capable of flying to New York and back without refueling. Although the bomber proved difficult to construct, Hitler embarked on a crash building program of superbattleships promptly after the defeat of France. In addition, he began accumulating air and sea bases on the Atlantic coast to facilitate attacks on the United States. In April 1941 Hitler secretly pledged that he would join Japan in a war on the United States. This was critical. Only if Japan declared war would Germany follow.

As long as Germany had to face the United States essentially by herself, she needed time to build her own blue-water navy; it therefore made sense to postpone hostilities with the Americans until Germany had been able to remedy this deficiency. If, on the other hand, Japan would come into the war on Germany's side, then that problem was automatically solved.

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Soviets would've defeated nazis with or without US help (why is this not an option? stalingrad practically determined the outcome). As for japan, they were in a cold war already and being blockaded. To call pearl harbor "evil", well, they were desperate for oil and figured a war was inevitable. Same with calling the atomic bombs "more evil", you can disagree of course but there was strategy and military reasoning behind all of this. It wasn't done just for fun or complete genocide like what was going on in europe.

If you ask me FDR's "cardinal sin" was not helping to end this genocide sooner, never mind pearl harbor

Minor title quibble: Pearl harbor was not "bombed", but rather "attacked". Strafing and torpedoes took part in the destruction.

spud_meister said:

The USSR would have declared war a few years later. Stalin signed the non-aggression pact to give himself time to build up his military. Had Hitler not broken the pact first, Stalin would've marched West and Europe would be speaking Russian.

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Maybe, it is hard to say. Stalin may have been happy with half of Poland, he always had this nasty habit of killing off all those whom he thought might challenge him. He may never have had the military and the leaders to challenge Hitler. Who knows?

Sherman123 said:

He was actually the opposite of an Anglophile. FDR was a staunch opponent of the British Empire and strongly favored decolonization. The result was that while he constantly questioned British motivations and activities he was partially blinded to Soviet machinations. This mistrust is most readily apparent in Burma, Hong Kong, and arguably in Greece and North Africa.

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True, FDR did not like colonization. Be that English, French, Dutch or who ever.

If Ron Paul had his way we would've never gotten involved in Germany's war, because it was "none of our business." And there wouldn't be a Jew left alive today.

None of the above.
USA would have become involved anyway, and the war would still have ended with Germany defeated and the USA and Soviet Union becoming the 2 world superpowers.

Quag said:

None of the above.
USA would have become involved anyway, and the war would still have ended with Germany defeated and the USA and Soviet Union becoming the 2 world superpowers.

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nostradamus ?:lol:

Slyhunter said:

If Ron Paul had his way we would've never gotten involved in Germany's war, because it was "none of our business." And there wouldn't be a Jew left alive today.

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many of them were already gased..it was a little late in my opinion

Medusa said:

nostradamus ?:lol:

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Nah just read a lot of history.

Quag said:

Nah just read a lot of history.

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l am joking

Medusa said:

l am joking

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Its ok people have confused me with Nostradamus before.

Excuse me, but the fact of the matter is that Pearl Harbor was bombed and we all know what the final results were in WWII.

Quag said:

Its ok people have confused me with Nostradamus before.

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coffee cup reading is associated with me too :mrgreen:

shrubnose said:

Excuse me, but the fact of the matter is that Pearl Harbor was bombed and we all know what the final results were in WWII.

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excuse me but we already know this

laska said:

Not sure what would have been the outcome but i

t was evil for Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor, and it was more evil that the U.S. dropped those two atomic bombs on two cities.

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Yeah, but it's already happened and you'll never put that toothpaste back in the tube.

Medusa said:

excuse me but we already know this

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That's pretty much exactly what I said.

Perotista said:

Maybe, it is hard to say. Stalin may have been happy with half of Poland, he always had this nasty habit of killing off all those whom he thought might challenge him.

He may never have had the military and the leaders to challenge Hitler. Who knows?

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It's all over with, but I believe that Russia would probably have defeated Germany without the USA's help.

laska said:

Not sure what would have been the outcome but it was evil for Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor, and it was more evil that the U.S. dropped those two atomic bombs on two cities.

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NO, it was stupid for Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, BUT, they were desperate and foolish to have tried to take on the world's most powerful nation (counting the potential, of course).NO, again, our atomic attack, was NOT evil, but necessary.