SEP 5 1939 US declares Neutrality on European War

[MAJOR_Baker]

I wanted to pose a what if question. Do you think that if the US got involved in 1939 would Germany have backed down or would have been defeated easier? Also, would Japan have attacked at pearl harbor?

 

[Bringer]

I believe that if America had declared war on Germany when France and England did, Germany would not have attacked Russia.

If memory serves, America did not have a large standing army at the time and wouldn‘t have been able to field much of an expeditionary force. Germany would have swept through France and the low countries and controlled Western Europe as they did historically. I doubt Germany would have broken her treaty with the Soviet Union and attacked if America had already declared war, or at least attacked at a later point.

The war in Africa would have gone better for the allies with immediate American support.

As to the Japanese, had America declared war on Germany she would probably not have waited for such a provocation on the part of the Empire of Japan before declaring war. Japan had already demonstrated significant threat in the Pacific and a proactive America would have responded before Japan could launch a sneak attack like that. At the least, American naval assets would have been deployed further east.