Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

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Unlikely But Possible

© Final Sword Productions LLC 2003

FDR is one of those Presidents that history will never fully manage to describe.  Even half a century later his Presidency inspires endless controversy in almost every aspect. 

Part of this was that he lied about everything, even to his closest advisers.  He would tell contradictory things to various advisers, playing them off against each other so that every decision ended in a conflict to be resolved in his office.  He was a brilliant politician but a sloppy administrator.

However certain facts are clear in outline.  He definitely raised the shattered morale of the American polity.  Whether his economic policies got the economy moving again or he was fortuitous in his timing 1933-36 saw a major upswing although still far from full recovery.  He won a landslide in 1936 of epic proportions.  He successfully preempted true radicals, taking many into his administration, but also keeping the US from getting a true Left Party with any real chance at office. The US was the only 1^st world nation to avoid such a development. 

However events began to spin out of control in the 2^nd term.  Pulled by a left  that  wanted  still more statism and social intervention and a center-right that had gone as far as it wished to, FDR’s straddle came apart.  Many measures were overturned by the USSC.  FDR’s attempts at court packing and then party purge not only failed, but also lost him his majority in the House.  By the end of 1938, a conservative coalition had formed in the House that would essentially rule that body till 1964 regardless of who had the nominal majority.   A fair number of historic Democrats [southerners, westerners, ethnics who were Democrats for reasons of past history] would be elected as Democrats but would fashion legislation on most issues in conjunction with the GOP’s conservative Middle Western base.  Also the economy tanked badly.  Finally he allowed a major addition to the neutrality acts to pass that would hamstring his later maneuverings in the run-up to war.

The jury is still out on what happened next.   FDR’s defenders claim that he was forced by a world gone mad to set domestic reform aside to become a world leader.  His detractors on the paleoconservative right [some of whose arguments were seized after 1945 and especially after Vietnam by the anti-imperialist left] see FDR turning to world affairs as bigger stage to play on then a stalemated domestic political scene.  Both seem agreed that domestic and foreign policy were never linked. 

Yet the possibility for linkage was there.  In OTL it was the massive Anglo-French war orders post Munich and especially post-Poland coupled with ever escalating US rearmament that finally ended the recession of 1938-39 and ultimately brought the Depression to an end.  All I am proposing is that FDR be shown that it was possible to do this before the political debacle of 1938.  The link is the spillover of a different foreign policy on economics and the further ripple effect of a different economic 1938 on the politics of the year.

The missing piece was my old favorite chestnut, the Panay incident.  On December 12^th, 1937, Japanese aircraft bombed the USS Panay, a navy gunboat in the Yangtze squadron.  The ship was anchored up river from Nanking in a position known to the Japanese command and with a big American flag prominently displayed.   The planes straffed the sailors after sinking the ship.  By chance there was a newsreel crew to record it all.  

In OTL FDR helped the Japanese to smooth over the incident. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ships/dafs/PR/pr5-sinking.html

We will now presume that he did exactly the opposite, but with the aim of strengthening his hand domestically.  He does not accept the Japanese apology pending a US court of enquiry.  He insists that Japanese officers be brought under the jurisdiction of the court and accept its verdict.  He also shamelessly plays the race card. US hatred of Orientals [the Sherlock Holmes Yellow Menace] goes back to the 19^th century and the California Gold Rush.  The Japanese military in China were beyond Tokyo’s ability or inclination to control at this point.  There were a constant stream of incidents against US citizens and property to provide fresh headlines.

The aim is not to force a war but rather a war scare.  Have what in OTL became the Vinson naval expansion act put through as soon as Congress can be recalled to DC.  Ask to have the National Guard federalized for 90 days domestic duty for ‘refresher training’.  Ask to raise the manpower of the Navy and Army to bring all units to full strength.  Ask for money to modernize the army and National Guard’s equipment and facilities. 

Allow Congress to put ANY restrictions they want on overseas deployment but ask for separate strength increases to properly garrison the Philippines, Hawaii, Alaska, Wake, Midway and the other Pacific possessions.  In effect do a massive Keynesian pump priming.   FDR’s normal press foes were also major supporters of Chiang’s government in China.  These moves would split the isolationist block in Congress.  A Pacific showdown simply wasn’t as unpopular as another European war.

When the isolationists propose new neutrality legislation take an active interest in shaping it.  Beyond the ritual denials that FDR will never do a 2^nd AEF, get across to the public that with Europe drifting towards war a potentially vast market for American food, manufactures and raw materials is opening up.  Have the sympathetic elements in the press point out what Allied war orders did for the US economy between 1914 and US entry.   Play up the rise in farm prices, factory orders…Then offer a technocratic solution.  US will not trade directly with the prospective belligerents [Germany, Italy, UK, France, USSR, Poland] except for the cash and carry provisions actually adopted.   However point out that the US has historic ethnic ties to both Eire and Scandinavia [just coincidentally two major isolationist ethnic blocks].  Ask why the US should give up trade through those nations.   Offer that while cash [or reasonable assets put up as surety] to avoid the war loan problem is necessary, there is no reason why the expanded US Navy should not be able to convoy US merchants ships to Irish and Scandinavian ports. 

Let the Isolationists win one on most of Scandinavia by retreating from a position of all Scandinavian ports to just Bergen in Norway, which can be geographically reached  without entering the probable war zones in the North and Baltic Seas.   Take an extremely even handed and anti-British position [popular with many groups in the US for varying reasons] of saying that the USN must be involved so that an RN blockade does not wreck US prosperity by destroying our trade with neutrals.

This would need a major political push but in the face of Depression economics has a more than reasonable chance of adoption.  However the public will be wary of trickery.  Here is where the technocratic part comes in.  For the duration of world tension trade to the prospective overseas war zones will require licenses from a new Board of Trade [3 FDR Democrats, 3 Republicans, 1 Southern Democrat as balance].  The Board will see to the financial aspects and thus the appointees will be people from law and finance.

Surprise: the Germans and Italians do not have that many assets.   So while we will get a few hundred million is orders from them the vast bulk of the orders will be from the two Western powers.  The West owned vast investments in the US and Latin America.  They owned vast colonial areas that could be pledged as collateral.  If necessary the Dominion governments in Canada and Australia could pledge crown lands.  All it will take is the sort of creative asset leverage that Wall Street excels at. 

Note that this means that Britain in time of war has only to loan the Irish the collateral to buy goods from the US that the USN will then convoy to Eire.  Dev gets good economy times by charging a fee for his services.  Yes it is a transparent fraud. However the politics of getting 1941 agricultural prices and levels of employment in 1938 would have created an amazing political bandwagon.  The Court packing scheme would fail.  The party purge would not fail as badly as in OTL but would still fail.  However a fair number of centrist and conservative Democrats would find it in their political interest to stay on FDR’s good side so the domestic stalemate does not occur.  War  booms without  actual combat or a draft tend to be popular.  Coming on the heels on the Depression it is a bandwagon many would wish to be on. 

The actual new naval construction increases the size of the US Navy only marginally.  However it would probably allow FDR to do the 2 Ocean Navy bill, the massive increases in defense industrial base, the mobilization of the reserves and Selective Service in 1939 after the war began instead of 10 months later when France fell.  Instead of destroyers for bases, the advance rent on the bases is charged against war orders probably in August of 1939 during the run-up to war.