Ep 36: Charlie Laderman on Hitler’s Decision to Declare War on America

School of War

Charlie Laderman, lecturer at King’s College London and co-author of Hitler's American Gamble, joins the show to talk about his latest book, which covers the crucial days between the attack Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s perplexing declaration of war on the United States.

Charlie Laderman, lecturer at King’s College London and co-author of Hitler's American Gamble, joins the show to talk about his latest book, which covers the crucial days between the attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s perplexing declaration of war on the United States. ▪️Times  •	01:52 Introduction•	02:50 Wasn’t War Inevitable?•	07:12 Japan And Germany - Strange Bedfellows•	11:10 Hitler’s Blurred Vision•	14:45 Japan - Will They, Won’t They Attack •	15:51 Churchill’s Outlook•	22:58 Anti-Interventionist Sentiment•	26:57 Anti-Semitism•	31:18 Roosevelt Sees Things Clearly•	35:21 A War With Germany, Not Japan    •	38:40 Catastrophic German Strategic Errors•	43:23 Hitler’s American Gamble •	49:15 Pearl Harbor Condemned The European Jews•	53:54 Alarmingly Relevant Parallels

Learn what war teaches

This podcast seeks to learn what war teaches. There has been a steady decline in the study of military history and its associated theoretical discipline, strategy.This podcast seeks to fill that gap through in-depth interviews on military and diplomatic history.&nbsp; Our guests have included former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis, and China Select Committee chairman Mike Gallagher. We discuss the battlefield commanders, diplomats, strategists, policymakers, and statesmen who have had to make wartime decisions in the ancient and modern eras.The subject of an episode may be an historical battle, campaign, or conflict; the conduct of policy in the course of a major international incident; the work of a famous strategist; the nature of a famous weapon; or the legacy of an important military commander or political leader.&nbsp;&nbsp; Aaron MacLean is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He has worked as a foreign policy advisor and legislative director to Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and spent seven years in the U.S. Marine Corps. <a href="https://schoolofwar.substack.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Visit our Substack for episode transcripts</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/school.of.war/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Follow along on Instagram</a>