At the time, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had, in
his own mind, abandoned isolationism, but knew it would not be politically possible for
us to enter the war. Events in the war itself forced his hand and led us to back away
from isolationist policy and to more directly aid the British and other
allies.
Cash and Carry served a dual purpose for us: we
could offer military aid to Britain to fight Nazi Germany for us, while at the same time
providing the key industrial jobs that would help us claw our way out of the Great
Depression. We could honestly claim the arms trade was just business, and that we
weren't biased towards any one side or the other, even if that wasn't really true. This
was pretty shrewd on FDRs part, although it was short lived. The British quickly ran
out of cash, and German U-Boat attacks led to a shortage of both cargo and escort ships
as well. Soon we would have to choose how interested we were in seeing the allies
survive.
Lend-Lease was a much bigger gamble on our part,
as we manufactured the war material and more or less gave it to Britain and later the
Soviet Union, on their promise to pay us back, which they never did. Then we escorted
some of the convoys with American warships, a few of which were later sunk, drawing us
closer to conflict with Germany and prompting Hitler to declare war on us after the
attack on Pearl Harbor gave him the opening. Lend-Lease was a very necessary policy,
but involved us much more directly in the war, and eventually was one of the factors
leading us to war against Germany.
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