Arthur Herman is an American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar.

The US strategic position in the Pacific is starting to look a lot like it did 70 years ago — on the eve of Pearl Harbor.

Back in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt was determined to make an aggressive Asian rival behave — imperial Japan. But he was doing so after a catastrophic reduction in US military strength and readiness.

That rundown began right after World War I. Then as now, the American public was tired of wars and complicated commitments in faraway places, and the military became a prime object of a cost-conscious Congress...