My father, a Navy veteran of Veracruz and WW-I, was called back to active duty in the US Navy in April 1941. Our nation was most definitely preparing for war eight months before Pearl Harbor.
Maybe we *were* preparing for war with Japan, but how do you separate normal preparation and escalation between increasingly hostile countries with deliberate provocation?
By this logic, we are preparing for war with China now. Within our government I am pretty sure Obama and the democrats do not want war with China. If there is anyone deep inside the Pentagon that wants war, it’s because we want to fight them now before we get relatively weaker, but it is probably not a significant number.
This whole argument does not recognize the axiom “if you want peace, prepare for war”.
One thinks that they could have done a better job. I wonder what the “Cheney is Evil Agent of Halliburton” crowd thinks about this question. After all, “truth is the first casualty in war”, you know.
We were preparing since the fall of France in June, 1940. The Two-Ocean Navy Act, giving the Navy a blank check, was passed right after that.