• Treaty of Versailles
• Failure of the League of Nations
• The Lend Lease Act

Did the United States foreign policy during the 1930s helped to promote World War II. Could the United States have prevented the outbreak of World War II? If so, how? If not, why not?

Explain if the United States, despite neutrality, aided the Allies against the Axis powers

 

The U.S foreign policy in the 1930s did not promote the outbreak and cause of the second World War, rather the Axis power in Europe did. Following the 1930s economic depression across the world, many countries especially in Europe shifted their political powers to totalitarian and imperialistic governments, with the aim of expanding and recovering their economies aggressively. The US, on the other hand, chose to withdraw from foreign engagement and concentrate on its own economic problems. During the Great Depression, Americans were in favor of isolationism, believing that problems at home could only be exacerbated by engagement in international affairs. Thus, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's engagement in foreign affairs was limited, even as the gathering storm of Japanese and German military aggression dimmed global prospects for peace.

It is right to say that the US could not have stopped the outbreak of the war. Even though the US took revenge on Japan for the attack of the US Naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Roosevelt's intention was not to disrupt the world order, but to make Japan be accountable for the attack. Nevertheless, since Japan had entered into an alliance with the European powers, Germany and Italy (Axis powers), the German NAZIs, led by Hitler, intervened and declared war on the US. It was not the decision by the US to engage with the Axis powers, but it had no choice. The Germans continued their war against the US by continually sinking US unarmed ships in the Atlantic.

The Congress had passed a series of Neutrality Acts in the late 1930s, aiming at preventing any future involvement in foreign wars, by the US or its citizens. At the beginning of the second world war in 1939, the US had tried to remain neutral to prevent an arm race that could incite another world war. The US signed a number of disarmament treaties to limit the size of naval fleets among Britain, France, Italy and Japan. However, following the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the US attacked Japan in revenge. This was followed by the declaration of war on the US by Germany and the Axis, in defense of Japan as their partner. The US was forced to join the Allied powers (Britain, France, Soviet Union and China) against the Axis.