What if the USA enters WW2 in September 1939?

[John T]

...

 

Second, and somewhat less obviously to those who only observe post-war US foriegn policy, is how one might define "the rest of the allies" in the context of the pre-WW2 world. The US had no allies. The US wanted no allies. Reaching all the way back to the nation's first president, US foriegn policy detested and rejected the formation of alliances, most notably the formation of alliances with European powers. World War 1 was the first case of the US becoming involved in a war with "allies", and the immediate post-war gamesmanship of the British and the French convinced most in the US that it was a process the nation should not repeat. So who were these "allies" that the US might have gone along with?

 

-Mark 1

 

Yes and the sentiment where shared by the small Neutral states of Europe.

The experience of WW1 where that alliances where something that dragged you into others wars.

And Leauge of Nations showed that a security organization needed more mutual liabilities

than anyone where ready to give at that time.

 

Cheers

/John T.

[Jim Martin]

The problem here is twofold.

 

First, and most obviously again, is what do you define as items "of military value"? Engines? Trucks? Oil? Coal? Iron ore? Food? Cloth?

 

What was left for the US to trade in, if none of these "dual use" products were to be sold?

 

Second, and somewhat less obviously to those who only observe post-war US foriegn policy, is how one might define "the rest of the allies" in the context of the pre-WW2 world. The US had no allies. The US wanted no allies. Reaching all the way back to the nation's first president, US foriegn policy detested and rejected the formation of alliances, most notably the formation of alliances with European powers. World War 1 was the first case of the US becoming involved in a war with "allies", and the immediate post-war gamesmanship of the British and the French convinced most in the US that it was a process the nation should not repeat. So who were these "allies" that the US might have gone along with?

 

-Mark 1

 

Yep, given how the French and Brits played stupid games at Versailles, the average American Joe might be forgiven for feeling that all those American boys hadn't died for democracy after all, but instead for French and British imperial ambitions.

 

Screw that.