In one of my Politcal Science courses, we were discussing WWII when a student pointed out that the US didn't even enter the war and hoped to remain neutral, and was only dragged into it in 1941 after Pearl Harbor.
The professor replied that the idea of US desire to remain neutral is kinda ridiculous. She argued that FDR had been economically and militarily provoking Japan for some time in the hopes of a casus belli. She also said that there's evidence FDR ignoring memos warning of an imminent Japanese attack precisely because that's what he was seeking.
I haven't read much on this, but a quite Google search shows articles/blogs analyzing this hypothesis, while the Wikipedia article on this theory labels it as a conspiracy and a fringe theory.
So how much of this is true? Did FDR provoke Japan into war?
That the US public, govt, and rest of the world, expected the US to enter the war soon by Fall of 1941 isn't really controversial.
US public opinion had become firmly against Nazi Germany and pro-Allies in Europe. And in the Pacific, there were 60 years of geopolitical tension backed by heaps of old fashioned racism in the US-Japan conflict for dominance of the Western Pacific.
Nor was FDR's preference for supporting the Allies against Japan, and more Germany, any sort of secret. The Marines had been sent in to occupy Iceland in 1941, allowing the British garrison there to be redeployed elsewhere. Along with the more well-known Lend-Lease, Cash & Caryy, Destroyers for Bases, etc.
And in the Pacific you had the Pacific Fleet moving full time from California to Pearl Harbor. Crash, though very limited, fortification programs across US held positions like Wake, Guam, and the Philippines.
The US Navy also was expecting the fighting to break out any time now. Accelerated in the summer of 1941 when Japanese forces completed their takeover of French-owned Vietnam, a perfect springboard for invasions of South East Asia, that would likely be impossible for the US not to get dragged into. The Naval leadership had spent 30 years expecting to fight Japan eventually so none of this was unexpected to most, and many were prepared to not wait for a formal outbreak of war. Admiral Halsey in the week before the outbreak of the war took a task force built around the carrier ENTERPRISE to deliver Marine fighters to Wake, and he was very clear that if he encountered any Japanese forces on his trip, he intended to fire on them and ask questions later. There had also been consideration on how the war should start(including the famed Plan DOG Memo), generally involving limiting US vulnerability, while maximizing pressure on Japan beforehand to hopefully avoid war but put the US in a position to carry out established warplans when the time came.
It was the scale and location of Japan's first strike, and that it happened while in the nominal midst of still negotiating with the US that was the shock, not that Japan had elected war in the face of US opposition at all. It simply wasn't considered within the IJN's capabilities to get a major task force off Hawaii in condition to fight and launch such a devastating air attack.
FDR didn't need to have some sort of deep conspiracy. His stance on who he preferred in the war was shared by a majority of the public(though how that should be acted on was the sticking point). And he was commander in chief of a Navy that had spent 2 generations planning and considering Japan as its most likely foe, colored by pervasive racism against the "Yellow Peril". The US and Japan were on a collision course by 1941 through actions entirely out in the open, conflicting geopolitical goals, and making the political choice to wield power is not a conspiracy in this case.
You may be interested in some previous answers Ive given where I get into some of the specifics: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hh25h6/did_roosevelt_already_knew_the_pearl_harbor/