FDR's oil embargo on Japan, "mistakenly" enacted by Acheson while FDR was meeting with Churchill to discuss the Atlantic Charter, was meant to protect the USSR from Japan. The possibility that they would strike south (and against US forces in the Philippines) was a calculated risk, but at the very least they could not strike north like they had in 1939. FDR knew we* needed the USSR to do the heavy lifting on the continent, so they had to survive. That the Japanese attacked us* wasn't necessarily a surprise, but that they attacked Pearl Harbor was definitely a surprise.
Good thing the Soviets hammered the Japanese in eastern Siberia in 1939.
Yeah, at a time when they weren't getting their shit pushed in by the Wehrmachtthe Finns
Comments