Zeld2.0

Heh good one

The correct timeline is December 7, 1941 - Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and declares war on the U.S.

December 8, 1941 - U.S. declares war on Japan in a near unanimous vote (only one dissenting vote - in fact, the first female in the House and the only one to vote against both WW1 and WW2 - a pacifist)

December 11, 1941 - Hitler honors the treaty that formed the Axis (tri-partite IIRC) in that he will declare war on the enemy of his ally - the U.S. in return declares war

The time in between these two was a period of debate over what to do with Germany - after all, though there were U-Boat incidents earlier, no other hostilities have engaged and after all, only Japan attacked - when Hitler declared war, he spared Congress the task of debate and they proceeded to declare war to kick his ass.

And at the time, the V2 wasn't exactly known in the U.S. - in fact, it wasn't even used and was still being developed at that time.

The bigger concern, though known only by a few select people (the President in specific, a few major high ranking generals, and top scientists) at the time was the threat of a possible German atom bomb. It was all theoretical at the time of course, but by the time war had been declared, FDR had already allowed for money to go into what would be the Manhattan Project.

That was a far bigger concern - Hitler wouldn't have to invade the UK or the US if he had one of those babies.

And if you want to know a cool fact, before WW2 began, the U.S. had already drafted a war plan called RAINBOW.

In it, there was a theoretical attack on the U.S. in one of its territories - namely the Philippines or Hawaii - by Japan. With the possible aggression in both Europe and Asia, Germany was the enemy in Europe.

The plan called for Germany first, then Japan.

So actually, much of why we went to war, had already long been planned out - it was just a big shock to actually even have the war in the first place.