An AH scenario, Japanese avoid WWII

No you're right they got their butts kicked. It just wasn't taken as a sign they were keen on invading.

 

Russia was still sore over 1905.

 

You show complete obtuseness to the way, putting forth an argument works. Reminder, you are taking the position that FDR was an authoritarian MFer, or something like that. Just sending me a link about autocrats, in general-- which, from a cursory glance, seemed to be focused on Fascists and Communists, mentioning Hitler and Stalin-- does not support your argument. And your apparent expectation that I am going to pore over any material you link, without so much as an explanation from you, as to what I am looking for, is just absurd. Try quoting your source, and providing the link, only for verification purposes.

 

You mean the guy who accumulated unprecedented amounts of political power to himself then strong-armed, threatened, and cowed the rest of the government to bend to his will? The guy who condemned hundreds of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany to death by denying them entry into the US? The guy who threw over one hundred thousand AMERICANS into concentration camps? The guy who supported one of the most murderous tyrants in history? That guy?

 

= you won't, for obvious reasons

 

Not just the obvious reason, but the one that I stated. I have watched documentaries, treating this subject. I don't need to re- read information, that I already know. As I also stated, there is nothing from that ugly chapter of our history, that I know of, pointing a finger at FDR. That would be the only reason, obviously, for me to read the article. You have not quoted that article, or even made any specific claims about what it contains. The appearance, then, is that it is YOU, who seem to not be willing to read your own links!

 

Watched documentaries? Whoa, professor! LOL!

Did your documentary mention Thomas Parran Jr.?

 

Leaders of Japan planned the conquest of east Asia already in 1938. First target was Dutch Indonesia. Also they were building military industry in occupied China so that USA bombers could not reach it. USA was not against Japanese expansion in China just because of support for this land or Kuomintang or even because just of its trade interests, but also because they knew Japanese will create a military industry there which will be out of reach from USA aviation and would be used for further conquest in east Asia where USA had its bases. That's why the first question in the topic is very strange in fact. This was all connected.

 

Stalin gave them a peace treaty along with an oil supply bribe to free up Soviet troops needed to defend against Germany, and sold the Japanese oil throughout out the war while supposedly pretending to be our ally. While the oil production in its eastern fields wasn't much, it was better than nothing for the Japanese at the time. The treaty freed up over a million troops that were rushed to defend Moscow.

 

ROTFLMAO you're insane.

 

Stalin tricked western allies in many ways. Specially Roosevelt was very opened for his manipulations. Here is one of them concerning far east China and Japan.

Stalin sold to the western allies his intention to go to war with Japan as a favour for them and as an encouragement to open second front in Europe. But in reality he wanted to go to war with Japan because of geopolitical reasons. He was planining to annex Sakhalin and the Kurils to make Soviet borders ''stronger'' and was skeptical that western allies would be ready to give such territory concessions. Also he wanted to have influence in China.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41708322?s ... b_contents

 

It is very questionable whether the US would have left Japan alone if they insisted on invading China. There would probably have at least been sanctions. The war was actually precipitated by the US imposing a blockade preventing oil imports to Japan.

The US did have a history up to that point of not wanting to get too involved in any dispute in Asia, but I think the fact that the Philippines was a US territory at that point would probably have led the US and Japan into inevitable conflict, since the Japanese would have viewed the US base in the region as a threat (for the same reason Japan attacked the base in Hawaii).

The way the Japanese saw things, the US was expanding their "Imperial" or "Colonial" influence in Central and South America at that time and becoming like an Empire, in addition to the fact that the US had taken the Phillipines in Asia as a territory and fought wars to suppress rebellions there. The Japanese had some reason to worry that the US might try to expand their influence into Asia, since they already had the Philippines they could use as a base of operations.

Conflict was almost inevitable due to mutual mistrust.

 

You seem to be ignorant about history. Oil extraction had not been developed in the South China Sea at that point, and the technology to do it was probably out of reach. Japan was getting their oil from Manchuria, the territory in the far north of what is China.

 

It's very possible Japan might have taken complete control of Asia since there was no one there at that time who could have stopped them.
The Russians were very involved (an understatement) in the war with Germany. Perhaps there could have ended up being a Cold War between the Soviet Union and Japanese Empire later, with the Soviets supporting rebellions against the Japanese by local populations who hated the obviously cruel Japanese occupation.
Japan was not a big country and was overstretched trying to control all of Asia.

Imagine something like the Vietnam war, except with Japan fighting on one side, and the Soviet Union fighting on the other.
Similar to WW2 in Europe, the US might have opportunistically tried to sweep in the aftermath to secure gains and prevent the spread of Communism without actually having to fight for it. This could have limited the area of Asia that the Soviets would have been able to convert to Communism.

The Japanese probably would have had 5 to 10 years to cement their control over Asia before the war in Europe was over and the Soviets turned their attention to Asia. So it would have been much more difficult for the Soviets to root the Japanese out.

With the Soviets, Communists, rebellions of local populations, and threat from America, it would have been difficult for the Japanese to win the war. If the Japanese began losing, the Americans would have come in with support to prevent the Communists from taking over, which would lead to a quicker end to the war. If the Soviets began losing, America (and Britain) might have opportunistically come in towards the end to try to free areas from Japanese control, maybe leading to only a very small Japanese Empire in Asia.

 

What is bizarre about the attack on Pearl was the Japanese left the fuel storage facilities without a scratch on them, the key reason Pearl was strategically important. They had to be aware of the U.S. industrial capacity and the fact that knocking out a few ships wasn't going to win the war for them.

 

@kazenatsu Phillipines were already on their way to independence before WW2. USA decided already under president Wilson Phillipines should not be a colony as it was under Spain for centuries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tydings–McDuffie_Act

As you can see the transition period was already in place in 1935. USA however hoped it Will keep some naval bases there.

 

Couldn't edit post #65.

https://pearlharbor.org/pearl-harbors-third-strike-what-could-have-been/

They hoped to exploit the Dutch colonies for oil, but the Dutch sabotaged the refineries and wells and a U.S. submarine sank a tanker carrying almost the entire experienced Japanese oil industry technicians, some 800 men out of a thousand or so, en route there. The U.S. knew how many years they could hold out before their oil reserves ran out, about three years worth, via the Standard oil companies who sold it to them and their operations in the China throughout the 1930's and at the time of their attack on Pearl..

Also see Borneo and Tarakan.

http://www.combinedfleet.com/BorneoOil.htm


A few hours after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved a message authorizing Pacific commanders to “Execute Unrestricted Air and Submarine Warfare Against Japan.” On the first day of the war, American submarines based in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and the Philippines took the war to Japan, beginning an anti-shipping campaign. In 1942, submarines inflicted 72 percent of Japan’s shipping losses, but initially the campaign was unfocused, and aimed to maximize tonnage sunk regardless of ship type. This led submarines to sink only 9,000 tons of tankers (1.3 percent of total sinkings) with only slightly better anti-tanker activity through most of 1943. As a result, the Japanese began increasing both their tanker tonnage afloat and their imports of Dutch East Indies oil.



The campaign against Japan’s oil supply was aided by loss of the 14,503 ton Army transport TAIYO MARU (ex-German liner CAP FINISTERRE) to an American submarine. At 1200, 7 May 1942, TAIYO MARU departed Mutsure, Japan for Singapore carrying a large number of oil field technicians to revive the refining facilities at Miri and Balikpapan and other technicians bound for Palembang, Sumatra. She also carried 34 soldiers and 1,010 civilians including military governors, doctors, staff, educators and technicians needed to administer conquered Southeast Asian regions, but at 1945, 8 May, LtCdr William A. Lent’s (USNA ‘25) USS GRENDADIER (SS-210) torpedoed TAIYO MARU 80 nms from Me-Shima Lighthouse. At 2040, TAIYO MARU sank. 656 of 1,044 passengers, four of 53 armed guards/gunners and 156 crew were KIA (total 817). The loss of the oil technichians undoubtedly delayed the Japanese in restoring oil production capacity.

 

https://www.history.navy.mil/about-...ectors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-051/h-051-1.html

April–July 1945: Minesweepers in the Last Amphibious Landings—Tarakan, Brunei, and Balikpapan


At the start of World War II, the very large island of Borneo was divided into smaller British protectorates (Sarawak, Brunei, and Labuan) on the northwest coast and an area, larger than the others, under Dutch colonial control. The Dutch territory included the oil fields at Tarakan and Balikpapan on the east side of the island. (Brunei also had an oil field.) There were some Dutch defensive minefields at Tarakan and Balikpapan, some of which the Japanese found and swept. The Japanese then laid defensive mines of their own. Once Borneo was within range, U.S. aircraft laid offensive minefields. With acoustic and magnetic influence mines, the U.S. minefields were more sophisticated and therefore more dangerous than the Japanese minefields.

On the British side, the Bay of Brunei served as a major Japanese fleet anchorage for much of the war, as the inlet was protected from submarines and initially stood out of range of Allied aircraft. Nearer the end of the war, the Bay of Brunei was further spared from Allied attack because the area was too close to the oilfields.

By the middle of 1944, U.S. submarines had sunk so many Japanese tankers that getting the oil to refineries in Japan became impractical. However, Tarakan crude oil could be burned in ships without being refined, and the Japanese were doing so. But Tarakan crude was also highly volatile and became a major factor in the loss of the carriers Taiho, Shokaku and Hiyo during the battle of the Philippine Sea.

Borneo was in Southwest Pacific Area of Operations, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur’s command. Recapturing Borneo was last on MacArthur’s agenda after operations to recapture most of the islands on the Philippines. The delay in taking Borneo was unfortunate, as about 2,000 Dutch, British, and Australian prisoners of war were starved, executed, or worked to death there in the last months of the war. Only six survived to the end.

...

Tarakan: Operation Oboe 1, April–May 1945

By the time the Japanese captured Tarakan on 11 January 1942, the Dutch had already engaged in a widespread sabotage effort against the oil production infrastructure. In retaliation, the Japanese executed between 80 and 100 Dutch and European civilians, which, however, left the Japanese without the key expertise necessary to get the fields operational again. They subsequently embarked about 1,000 petroleum engineers, technicians, scientists, and industrial experts on the Taiyo Maru to help in the Dutch East Indies oilfields, but the ship was torpedoed and sunk by the U.S. submarine Grenadier (SS-210) on 8 May 1942, and over 800 passengers drowned, a huge blow to Japan’s plan to fully exploit their newly conquered territories.

 

Another good source of info for alternate history is ....

Edward S. Miller's BANKRUPTING THE ENEMY THE U.S. FINANCIAL SIEGE OF JAPAN BEFORE PEARL HARBOR (2007). Miller was also the author of WAR PLAN ORANGE

.... and .....

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/magic/

FOREWORD

The Department of Defense is releasing for public use and research this multi-volume study giving the "MAGIC" or communications intelligence background of the 1941 Pearl Harbor disaster. In its review of classified records pursuant to E. O. 11652, the Department of Defense decided that it was in the public interest to declassify the intelligence which the U.S. obtained from the communications of its World War II enemies. This study contains a major part of the communications intelligence which the U.S. derived from intercepted Japanese communications during 1941.

The documentation presented here is both voluminous and significant. The large volume of intelligence concerning Japanese secret plans, policies, and activities which U.S. cryptologic specialists produced will augment the information already available on Pearl Harbor from Congressional and other public hearings. Of particular importance in this study is the correlation of the intelligence with the discussions of Secretary of State Hull and Japanese Ambassador Nomura in the critical months before Pearl Harbor. Scholars no doubt will find new challenges in this voluminous intelligence information as they examine not only the decisions made by the U.S. but also the intelligence which influenced and occasionally prompted those decisions.

End quote.

The Pearl Harbor History Associates are happy to be able to bring this work to the Internet after decades of being hidden in the stacks or costing $100+ for each volume on the used market. We hope this will be useful in the study of the events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the study of events leading to wars whenever they occur. Our greatest wish is that by learning more about how wars start we can learn more about how to prevent them, and some day will come the time when we will "study war no more."

And an index.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/magic/vol-index.html

 

Well Goebbles wrote in his diary in early 1942 that he is very much hurt because white race is losing in Asia, but blamed the corrupted influence of Jews for this tragedy as he explained.

 

Japan had not really fully industrialized yet, although it had been rapidly industrializing and was the most industrialized country in Asia. This was evident in not keeping up with the latest technological advancements, and many tasks that has long been industrialized in other countries were still being done by hand in Japan.
Probably this was because Japan lacked industrial capacity, the industrialization was recent (copied rather than naturally developed), and the cost of labor was low in Japan (high population relative to what industrialization existed).

Japan would, after the war, soon catch up with Germany in technological and industrial level.
You are right that the Japanese have, since even before WW1, always wanted to emulate the Germans, seeing them as the major country in Europe to try to copy.

If Germany had been the size of the US (maintaining the same per capita GDP and technology) Germany would have easily won the war.

 

Before WWII the Japanese estimate of the USA's industrial capacity placed them at about 17 in the world's nations. This is a startling figure to me but I have been reliably informed it was believed to be so by the Japanese and other nations though I can't find any citation on it. Underestimating the USA was a big factor in WWII if this is in fact the actual case.

 

The US rapidly industrialized and mobilized for the war. The US had a lot of what you would call untapped potential. The figures were probably true but underestimated the ability of the country's manufacturing base to very quickly expand. Henry Ford's production line concept was one notable factor in this. (A concept that American companies brought over to Germany just before the war)

The Japanese still knew they would be unlikely to win in a one-to-one all out war with the US but didn't expect the US to have the resolve to get as involved as they did. Asia was far away from the US at that time. Japan believed the war from the US would only be a small one. There are many reasons for this. The US focus was on the war in Europe, and maintaining their sphere of influence in Central and South America. The US had limited industrial capacity. A large segment of the US population was reluctant to engage in any big war. And Japan was a buffer against Communist expansion. Surely, Japan reasoned, the US would not want the Communists to expand. (They miscalculated because Truman had some secret Communist sympathy, and Roosevelt was a Left-leaning progressive as well)

 

I've heard that but I've never been able to really credit that the Japanese would think we would just walk away from something like 3000 dead without demanding a really terrible price

And please don't bring up Afghanistan. The Taliban maintained that al-Qaeda was not under their direct control and said they were going to hand Osama over to us but only balked at doing so before THEY had tried him. Pearl Harbor was done by the Japanese Armed Forces with the full knowledge and approval of the Japanese Imperial Government

 

The US did walk away from Vietnam, even though most agree the US could have won if they had the resolve. It was the same thing in North Korea, the US could have defeated their forces but it would have been a huge price.
Then look at how the US under Obama abandoned Northern Iraq when it fell into chaos and was being taken over by extremely radical terrorist groups.