why was the USA neutral at the beginning of wwII?

Answer 1

Good question.

It boils down to isolationism, for almost 150 years the US could be described as mildly or strongly isolationist and a sense of pacifism (not interfering to any great extent) in the affairs of other nations pervaded US politics before the war extending from the war-weariness from WW I.

The US was also a major trading partner with Germany up until the war so there was considerable commericla pressure internally to disregard any random disturbing reports or refugees out of Germany.

Prior to the discovery and wider knowledge and acceptance of the systematic purge and rather attrocious human rights violations towards "undesirables" from Germany, coupled with increasing fear of German military agressions. A strong argument could have been made that Chancellor Hitler wasn't such a bad guy and perhaps just had eyes for Western Europe, The Chancellor himself played into this viewpoint on numerous occasions.

Before the rise of the NAZI regime of 1930-1940's Germany, there was no strong taboo or stigma attached with strong nationalism, conservatism and militarism which was the hallmark of the German administration of the 1930's. It was even the case that Germany attacked and sank at least two ships of the US Navy (the USS Ruben James and another ship) and still the US did not declare war but waited for the Axis powers to act more definitively against US interests at Pearl Harbor.

However, after the events of "Crystalnacht" and the invasion of Poland it was not really possible delude onself of German intentions and it was a matter of time.

More generally there is a question regarding overall us policy,

A strong argument could be made that while actions by the US were while frequent they were generally not large scale except in certain instances, i.e.; Admiral Perry's "Opening" of Japan. The Spanish-American War, WWI, the annexation of Panama...

More typical were the Battle of Tripoli, the interventions in 1917-1918 Russian campaigns,and after WWII interventions regarding Presidents Alliende of Chile, and Triejos and Noriega of Panama.

Prior to the wide availability of automatic weapons, RPG's and the like coupled with more modular forms and methods of local resistance, the United States had been extremely successful at utilizing military (mostly the Marine Corps and the Navy) to intervene as a rapid reaction force to quell uprisings or safeguard allies or intervene in the affairs of other nations (especially in the Americas) to support US interests, evacuating citizens & deposing inconvenient dictators etc.


After WWII the US helped to develop the UN and other international institutions with the intention of preventing another war on the scale of WWII.

After WWII and especially after Viet Nam, the US shifted to use mostly economic means of inducement and influence to support US interests.

Many have decried the current administration of in fact being similar to Germany, these observations are not without some merit however it is a mistake to suggest that the current administrations foreign policy was grossly different from other US administrations.

From a speculative perspective this observation is more strking when we consider that the two notable exceptions to these largely successful interventions/policies Viet Nam and Iraq would certainly have been more successful had the countries involved been either or preferably both conditions has been true

A. The countries had been more isolated and / or in the Americas.
B. The countries had been less populous than they were / are.

Answer 2

Because it was not advantageous for the USA. The most advantageous time for the USA to take weighty part in the WW2 was when Germany was already exhausted fighting with the USSR. This moment came in 1944 when German casualties in the Eastern front(USSR) was about 3 million people(of 5 million total German military casualties in WW2). Not till 1944 the USA significantly took part in the WW2.
During 1941-43 USA took some part in military actions but it was not significant in comparison to the eastern front.
Nevertheless the USA helped USSR with food, a little with technics and diverted Japan from russia. Probably without this help Russia might have been beaten.

Answer 3

I believe that the answer lies in the fact that we had just
come out the great depression. Which shattered what
economy we had and put in place many class barriers
that in some ways are still in place. I also believe that it
developed in America an already growing isolationism of
sorts. We traded with other countries but we felt content
to live in our ivory tower and not become part of the world.
Many people will argue this with Woodrow Wilson's diplomacy
but I feel that he did what did because he had to, not because he
wanted to.

Another contributing factor also was WWI. Even though
we did not actively participate in this war as much as
other countries we no doubt saw what the war did to
places like France and Germany. Shattering economies and
depleting their most valuable asset their population.

Finally many people in power in America did not see Hitler as a clear threat that he was. Indeed there were some like Joseph Kennedy father of JFK and Charles Lindbergh that embraced him and thought that his brand of fascism was great for Germany and the world.

This is overall general answer but you get the idea.

Answer 4

These young fools (and much of the rest of the world) who think U.S. military might is arrogance are only showing their ignorance of our history. Background:
The U.S. in its inception had a basic distrust of a large standing army inherited from the English, who themselves had had a small army as policy even in their raging colonial days. Conscription in the U.K. began in WW I well after the fighting started. We have a long history of fighting wars with quickly-pieced-together forces that do not fight as well as "regulars" and have much higher casualty rates. And at every opportunity we downsize our military. Some of our current troubles, in fact, can be blamed on the downsizing "peace dividend" after the Cold War's end.
In the mid-1930's, we were fighting our way out of an economic depression. Our armed forces were not quite on a par with Romania and not close to the military might of the major powers.
Few yet had a grasp of how evil Hitler was. German-Americans and Italian-Americans yet saw little in their ancestral lands to be ashamed of. By the end of the decade things were beginning to clarify, but most thought of European and Asian problems as distant and of little relevance to our interests. We began an expansion and upgrading of the military, but it took years to get ready. Our economy was simply not vigorous enough to support the needed military expansion even if the entire country had been politically on board. Look at some of the weapons systems used in WW II: most of the USMC still didn't have the M-1 Garand in late 1942. We fought the whole war with the M-4 tank because we didn't develop a decent engine until 1944.
We simply had neither the political will nor the industrial capability to join in earlier.
We also made the same sort of errors after WW II, by the way, and only after getting hurt in Korea did we discover that we'd become, by default, the imperial power that had to keep the peace, whether we liked it or not.

Answer 5

We weren't neutral. We were suppling arms to England, The Russians, yes I said Russians, and we had the Flying Tigers in China.
True we weren't in the war, but we can hardly be called neutral.

Answer 6

WW2 occurred somewhere outside USA. Why should USA stand on one side of them?
Then,USA wanna be the arm dealer so that USA can sell arms to both sides.
after all,USA had to take action in order to protect US and the rest of world from the invasion by Japan,Germany......

Answer 7

America was just coming out of the depression, and many people did not feel that we should go to war when we were not ready. many of the people felt that they should stay out of the war and let Europe handle it by themselves. FDR needed a reason to go to war because if we get attacked first it would look like we were the victims. that's why we enter the war after japan hit us

Answer 8

Really? I didn't know that.

Probably because they didn't want to get involved with problems "Accross the pond" Plus if they sided with the British who were against the Germans, then they would have the same enemy as the Russians which would have made that something they have in common!

Answer 9

typical arrogance and cowardice