Patrick Clark
Patrick Clark asked Jerry Jay Carroll:

I'll bite, Jerry. Best theory I have read, other than everyone was asleep at the wheel, was that FDR and the joint chiefs did believe the Japanese would attack in response to the sanctions, but they thought they would strike south at the oil and rubber rich British, French, and Dutch colonies.

Jerry Jay Carroll I put my answer on my Goodreads blog because they limit you here to 20k characters, which is not long enough even to clear the throat on a subject like this.

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