The United States could've stood up and defending China 10 years before the outbreak in Europe. We eventually recruited and had the "Flying Tigers" that was all American pilots fighting just for China. They did not disband until after Pearl Harbor. WE also had a historical obligation to defend the United Kingdom and France. America was building arms and selling them by the hundreds of millions of dollars (A LOT back then), to The U.K.. We were the "Arsenal for Democracy" long long before we entered the war. . . If we have joined Europe in 1939, and given it our all, we may have stopped much of the conflict. I think the contrary. Roosevelt waited because the country did not want in a war, and we were terribly unprepared to go in 1938-39. In 1940 the United States instituted the first ever peacetime draft, why? To start filling the ranks before we were totally caught off guard. Roosevelt also build hydroelectric dams all over the nation, not only to put people to work, but to provide the power needed in the West (Grand Coulee, Bonneville, Hoover Dams) so aluminum and steel production could go full force. No dams, no Boeing or Kaiser shipyards. No planes or boats, no winning the war that was coming. . . He strategized well, and we won because of the industrial might and the heart of the best fighting man in the world, the American Soldier.