"Postwar" Japan In A "Europe Only" WWII

[Kevin C. Smith]

Looking for some speculations here. If the US policy moves from a "Germany First" prosecution of the war into a "Germany Only" one, what might the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" develop into? Since we need a POD, let me throw out the following scenario:

• Pearl Harbor (they sink our fleet) and Midway (we sink theirs) happen as OTL. The US feels that any immediate threat to US territory/forces is marginalized and focuses all available forces into Europe.
• Prewar US planning assumes we lose the Philippines (for those that wish, we can lose MacArthur, too, when it happens) so the thinking is that we will get that back after we have dealt with Germany.
  
• With the US/Japan situation in strategic stalemate (both sides on the defensive), the European theater plays out in roughly the original way, though perhaps an accelerated timeline. (This will affect the territorial and political gains of the USSR and the deployment of the atomic bomb.)
  
• With Germany done, the US looks at having to start a whole new war from scratch in 1945 (possibly 1944) and decides, "All we lost was the Philippines and they were going to be independent by 1945, anyway. We aren't interested in American boys dying to recover French and British colonies, we could care less what happens to Russia out there and China is just some vast sinkhole. Anyone that wants to take the trouble out there, go to it. We've got postwar Europe to worry about."
  

During the war, without US interference, can Japan exploit the CPS to maintain their military in Asia and their economy at home? Will the British & French try to recover their losses without US troops, bases, supplies and help? How big a threat will this be to Japan? Can the CPS survive in a postwar world? Would the US see the Japanese Empire as a Pacific buffer against Soviet expansion/influence? Would there be normalized trade?

Do you see a tri-polar postwar world? A Japan CPS as a US client against the USSR? Or the other way around? Will Japan be at peace with the US but at war with the European imperial powers? Would those powers act separately or in concert? A continued hot war, a second cold war or an armistice while still technically at war? Or does the whole CPS implode on its own?

 

[teg]

There is no way the United States is going to leave Japan alone after Pearl Harbour, probably long before then. You could have a greater focus on Germany but sooner or later, the Americans are going to hack their way across the Pacific and reduce Japan to rubble. Simple as that.

teg

 

[Legend-in-Exile]

There is no way the United States is going to leave Japan alone after Pearl Harbour, probably long before then. You could have a greater focus on Germany but sooner or later, the Americans are going to hack their way across the Pacific and reduce Japan to rubble. Simple as that.

teg

Yeah, I can't see America doing what op suggests. Public opinion would force out any administration stupid enough to try this, and war would be resumed.

Attacking pearl harbor is a point of no return.

 

[Machiavelli Jr]

Yeah, I can't see America doing what op suggests. Public opinion would force out any administration stupid enough to try this, and war would be resumed.

Attacking pearl harbor is a point of no return.

Also, what are the British doing? There's an active front in Burma/Assam, and I can't see the British accepting the loss of Singapore once Germany's gone. Nor is India going to sit there - they'll want to kick the Japanese out just so they can declare independence without having a war to fight straight off the bat.

 

[jsb]

More to the point what will the USN do ?

The Bof Atlantic will be won very fast with RN+ USN and ASW isn't cool anyway so you leave the USN basically accepting 2nd place as a transport service to the Army as they win WW2 .....

So the USN will be humiliated at pearl and may as well accept becoming a subordinate part of the ARMY/DOD by 45......

JSB

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

US not in the Pacific War means no Pearl Harbor. It almost certainly means no Japanese invasion of the DEI and Malaya (as that would have brought the US in eventually). That means that Japan can't be bogged down in China (which is why they needed that oil). Which means that the 'policy by junior officer assassination' in the '30s has to have been avoided.

 

[gladiator8085]

Pearl Harbor (they sink our fleet) and Midway (we sink theirs) happen as OTL. The US feels that any immediate threat to US territory/forces is marginalized and focuses all available forces into Europe.

This is almost what happened after PH.

Attacking pearl harbor is a point of no return.

Considering American sentiment after PH and after word got out about the Bataan Death March the Japanese got off rather easy.

 

[Peter Parker]

The majoirty of the American Population wanted to kill the ENTIRE Japanese race. Every single man,woman, and child.

In fact, most Americans thought we should focus on Japan first. We did a Germany first policy because at the time both the British and Russians were close to falling to the Germans, or so it seemed.

 

[Princip]

if a Vichy style dutch gov was formed after the Germans take the Netherlands they might allow the Japanese access to Dutch East Indies oil Perhaps even agree to occupation of DEI by Japanese Forces Like the French did with Vietnam. if this happened the Japanese had no need to attack Pearl Harbor or the British Asian Colonies. and they could carry on in China as they pleased. this would be an interesting TL

 

[Daniwani]

The majoirty of the American Population wanted to kill the ENTIRE Japanese race. Every single man,woman, and child.

Nah, I really don't think so to be honest.

 

[Hapsburg]

Nah, I really don't think so to be honest.

As unpleasant as it may be to recognise, the US really weren't any better than the Germans or the Soviets or the Japanese. Nationalism made us all into monsters.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

The majoirty of the American Population wanted to kill the ENTIRE Japanese race. Every single man,woman, and child.

Nah, I really don't think so to be honest.

As unpleasant as it may be to recognise, the US really weren't any better than the Germans or the Soviets or the Japanese. Nationalism made us all into monsters.

Americans attitude towards the Japanese was certainly racist and bloodthirsty. But I wouldn't call it genocidal. This is a important distinction...

 

[Rex]

Americans attitude towards the Japanese was certainly racist and bloodthirsty. But I wouldn't call it genocidal. This is a important distinction...

If I remember correctly, I think the number is that only 13% of Americans wanted to exterminate the Japanese.

 

[Apollo 20]

As unpleasant as it may be to recognise, the US really weren't any better than the Germans or the Soviets or the Japanese. Nationalism made us all into monsters.

The US was on a par with Germany? Really? I don't seem to remember a US equivalent to the Vernichtungslager or Einsatzgruppen.

The US interned the Japanese and certain German-American citizens and the internment of the Japanese was not a high point in US history or the legacy of FDR. They did not, however, exterminate them. German POWs held in the US were repatriated after the war. Most German POWs held by the Soviets never got home. While I will acknowledge that there were American atrocities during the war, they were distinctly less frequent and most certainly were not official policy, with the exception of some of the firebombing raids that could arguably called atrocities.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

If I remember correctly, I think the number is that only 13% of Americans wanted to exterminate the Japanese.

Someone went and did a poll for that?

 

[wildviper121]

Someone went and did a poll for that?

Looking through Gallup polls to find something like that as I write this.

Found this:
All of these statements were quite in keeping with popular sentiment. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, Japanese were excluded from various labor unions. Between December 8, and March 31, anti-Japanese rage resulted in 36 cases of vigilantism, including seven murders. And a March 1942 national public opinion poll showed 93 percent in favor of evacuating alien Japanese. While 59 percent wanted to evacuate U.S. citizens of Japanese origin, only 25 percent disapproved.

From here: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v02/v02p-45_Weber.html

Found it.
http://books.google.com/books?id=Yn...lives"&sig=ACfU3U1deHRH2SdMicPGsaSiSw6HUBVkPw

From http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Japanese_sentiment_in_the_United_States
reference thingy ten (the book) and eleven (glitchy link to somewhere or another)
But yup, it's true.

Found some text that has some more data:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.23...&uid=83&uid=63&uid=3739256&sid=21105147672113

Noteworthily 33% wanted to divide up Japan and 8% wanted to "reeducate" the Japanese