Re: This month's Military Heritage magazine.

>
> This particular point is one which has immense military
> and political implications. Were the Japanese correct
> in their assumption that attacking the British and Dutch
> would mean war with the US as well?

I was always under the impression that the Japanese
assumed that the US would automatically enter the
war if the Japanese attacked Malaya and/or the
Dutch East Indies. Their transport routes home from these
resource-rich areas had to go near the US-controlled
Philippines which meant they were quite vulnerable
to American interdiction, so I understood it to mean
that both sides assumed that the US would intervene
in such a case. The US had already proved to the
Japanese that they would react strongly to such a move
by their instituting a trade embargo of oil and other
strategic materials on Japan in July 1941 in response
to the Japanese occupation of French Indochina.
--

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