Elusive Victories_ The American Presidency at War-Oxford University Press (2012)

132 e lusive v ictories Paris and the treaty debate in the Senate. Yet, as we’ve seen, a president’s leverage over other politic ...

133  on december 7, 1941, franklin D. Roosevelt suddenly found himself the leader of a nation at war—the wrong war. Japanese st ...

134 e lusive v ictories More than any other American wartime president, Roosevelt con- sciously tried to retain his freedom of a ...

f reedom of a ction 135 years, American mobilization produced both an unequaled military force for waging global war and suffi c ...

136 e lusive v ictories 1937 that became the pretext for invading China. Despite its swift defeat of the Nationalist armies unde ...

f reedom of a ction 137 Wilson had erred in 1914 by not intervening early to head off violent confrontation.  Initially, Roosev ...

138 e lusive v ictories Public timidity was something European dictators had come to expect from the political heads of the majo ...

f reedom of a ction 139 politician, the result of hubris born of the electoral landslide of the previous year, and he would exer ...

140 e lusive v ictories vox populi served as an excuse when he preferred inaction. A case in point: when the British pressed him ...

f reedom of a ction 141 Within the ranks of the administration itself lay a third impediment to the president’s freedom of actio ...

142 e lusive v ictories behavior, altered the language to broaden the embargo to cover all petroleum products, added scrap iron ...

f reedom of a ction 143 and his military advisors, who had regarded the French army as the fi nest in the world. More than that, ...

144 e lusive v ictories Germany and Italy. Accordingly, the British drew major formations from Australia, New Zealand, and India ...

f reedom of a ction 145 Th e war between Germany and the Soviet Union also had important repercussions for the Far East. Japan h ...

146 e lusive v ictories Yet much as the president wished to hold open all possibilities, each step, even some designed to avoid ...

f reedom of a ction 147 States. In late 1940, Admiral Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, proposed and endorsed Plan Dog, a ...

148 e lusive v ictories occupation of southern Indochina in July 1941, Roosevelt ordered a freeze on all Japanese assets in the ...

f reedom of a ction 149 For the most part, though, events framed and limited Roosevelt’s options, narrowing his freedom of actio ...

150 e lusive v ictories his command are suffi cient and ready to wage war successfully. For a major military confl ict on a glob ...

f reedom of a ction 151 Roosevelt respected the willingness of a relatively junior staff offi cer to speak freely, and thus bega ...