Unintended consequences. So, given that any Naval base will attack an unidentified intrusion…Who started it? I suggest we contemplate Japan moving
from the side of the angels in WW1 into the dark side in 1931, invading China. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/summary.cfm?q=905

Unconvertible currency (so said Western Finance); can’t buy food for its folk. What do you expect? Paddy fields were invaded. League of Nations toothless; US bombast, but no action. Japan gets away with it. So, does it again, “by invitation”, in Vichy Cochin China, of no relevance other than onway to ripe-for-plucking, no credible Power (defeated) Netherlands East Indies, and its oil. Abhorrence of vacuum.

(You could present Germany’s territorial expansion, 1935-38 very similarly, plus the issue of pre-empting the foul baboonery of Bolshevism).

So: did we that professed negotiation cause WW2 by appearing not to care to expend the bones of grenadiers on far-off countries of which we knew little? Did we surprise Germany and Japan by rousing ourselves? So, did we fail in communication?

The generation of leader/politicos that has seen us through 1945-about now thought just that, so invented UN/NATO/EU, encouraged town-twinning, exchange of accredited Attaches (=spies: the Russian Federation has a Liaison Office at SHAPE), Open Skies. All to reduce the chances of stumbling, unintended into WW3. Oh, and we spent to create what we hoped would, this time, be a credible Deterrent.

So, the received wisdom is that we stumbled into these Wars. Because that is boring, pranksters would have it that Stalin’s man Roosevelt propelled US into concocting causes to attack the Powers threatening to encircle USSR (and/or: armaments as welfare for capitalism).

Boring is much more likely.