I’m not suspending judgement. My judgement is that leadership in the US, Japan and Germany all intended to be at war with each other for a long time before they made it come about.
leadership in the US, Japan and Germany all intended to be at war with each other
You should unpack this. Surely it was always conditional. Had all nations disbanded their armies and surrendered to Germany, you think they would have declared war on the United States, their tributary?
Once we’ve established that each was willing to go to war contingent on the actions of other nations—exactly like every nation I can think of in the history of humanity—we can compare the conditions each had. I agree that categorizing those three nations together is connotatively wrong because all nations belong in the group you describe, membership in it signifies nothing. This is the fallacy of gray.
I’m not suspending judgement. My judgement is that leadership in the US, Japan and Germany all intended to be at war with each other for a long time before they made it come about.
You should unpack this. Surely it was always conditional. Had all nations disbanded their armies and surrendered to Germany, you think they would have declared war on the United States, their tributary?
Once we’ve established that each was willing to go to war contingent on the actions of other nations—exactly like every nation I can think of in the history of humanity—we can compare the conditions each had. I agree that categorizing those three nations together is connotatively wrong because all nations belong in the group you describe, membership in it signifies nothing. This is the fallacy of gray.