FDR, Hitler and Risk Management
Posted by Jim Wickenden on Fri, Apr 22, 2011 @ 06:44 PM
FDR wanted to go to war against Nazi Germany way before 1941. Didn’t know that? It’s true. He saw as clearly as Churchill that Hitler had to be stopped and better to do it in Europe than Maine or even Ontario. He also did little to nothing to determine the future of the free world. Don’t believe that either? It’s true too. Much to the chagrin of Cordell Hull, his Secretary of State, the beloved FDR preferred to trust to a roll of the dice to save us all. Brinkmanship? Luck of the Dutch? Karma for contracting polio? Take your pick, but if Japan didn’t have an defensive pact with Germany, if the Luftwaffe had been victorious in the Battle of Britain, if Japan had gotten a fair shake as they saw it, from the Treaty of Versailles, and if Hitler wasn’t as mad as a bag of hammers, then America may never have joined the fray. Now there’s a thought to mull on. Hull was badgering FDR to declare war and go in but try selling that idea to Congress while surrounded by isolationists and with the fighting over 3000 miles away was not the easiest of jobs. Japan was closer and expanding its influence but still thought Hitler the greater threat. So he decided that better part of valor was to do nothing. He trusted to luck and if luck is the right word then his horse came in on December 7th. In a colossal game of risk management he bet that someone would enable him to enter the war. He allowed global and murderous events unfold so that he might have the chance to manage events in the future the way he wanted. How would history look upon America if they declared war on Germany in 1939? How would history view a preemptive bombing raid on Tokyo in 1940? He wasn’t about to go pick up a rifle so he was safe and sound, but he was responsible for millions of people and billions in capital that all of a sudden became highly personal and intimate.
See where I am going with this? Risk managers can manage risk or they can sit back and hope that they dodge it. They can decide to be complicit in how they manage events or they can hope for the best, and get bombed for it. Would the world be a better place if FDR was more proactive? Probably, but how proactive are you willing to be in the hope that it all works out in the end