Did Roosevelt shut off oil supplies to the Japanese in order to provoke them into attacking Pearl Harbor?

Sgatland is right in everyhing he says; but though an attack was expected no-one really seriously thought that it would be at Pearl. If it had been elsewhere - say simultaneous landings on the Philippines, Wake and Midway, then the scope of the war would very possibly have been redically different. US plans existed, in the event of a Japanese attack, to lauch a massive counter-blow, seeking a battleship-led encounter in mid-Pacific.

Had these eight battleships then been jumped by six carrier-loads of planes and been permanently sunk five miles deep (of the eight battleships damaged at Peal, three were back on active service within six weeks, and a further thee within eighteen months). By no means would that have won the Japanese the war, but it might've taken longer for US industrial might to save the day. The main rumour about Pearl was that the two carriers attached to the Pacific fleet (the Japanese had six fleet carriers, the US had two - plus one undergoing sea trials and one ... more.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.