The Currents of War: A New History of American-Japanese Relations, 1899–1941 examines America’s defense of the Open Door policy and containment of Japanese continental expansion from 1899 to 1941. This study argues that the remarkably successful American containment strategy largely begun during the Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson administrations limited Japanese expansion from 1905 until 1931. During the 1930s, however, Japan repeatedly challenged American containment, and the policy underwent significant changes as the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration abandoned diplomatic engagemen ... More

The Currents of War: A New History of American-Japanese Relations, 1899–1941 examines America’s defense of the Open Door policy and containment of Japanese continental expansion from 1899 to 1941. This study argues that the remarkably successful American containment strategy largely begun during the Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson administrations limited Japanese expansion from 1905 until 1931. During the 1930s, however, Japan repeatedly challenged American containment, and the policy underwent significant changes as the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration abandoned diplomatic engagement, which until 1930 had been a cornerstone of containment, and instead sought to limit Japanese expansion by sustaining Chinese resistance and weakening the Japanese economy. Despite this significant departure from preceding administrations, containment was a patient, cautious, and largely successful American program that changed radically only after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Convinced that Tokyo would not strike Western targets prior to a Soviet collapse and certain that England was safe from invasion until the summer of 1942, the Roosevelt administration abandoned containment and embraced rollback, a policy that sought to drive Japan from China and break the Axis Alliance. This fundamental shift in American objectives led directly to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and brought on the war that neither Tokyo nor Washington sought.