The Sun Sets
The Empire of Japan had been a key ally to Germany since before the war - not necessarily because they could provide any clear military support for Germany, but instead because they provided an ample distraction for the world while the Reich reclaimed it's territories. Furthermore, Japan was much like Italy in that it was a former Entente power that felt cheated by their former allies - and a far more capable military power than Italy. Japan equally had the same strategic enemies as Germany; Britain, France, the Soviet Union and even the United States. Japan also like Germany however faced a serious set of challenges to achieve their goals of creating their so called 'co-prosperity sphere'; Japan was a nation with little real resources needed to fight a continued war. That is why for centuries they had been picking away at China, attempting to gain territory to ensure Japanese self-sustainability. To do this military planners in Japan had identified the need to seize Malaya, Indo-China and the Dutch East Indies; all of which being under Dutch, British and French rule. The peace between Germany and the Allied powers therefore significantly complicated matters for Japan who, fighting a major war in China, had barely a year of oil remaining in it's stores and now found itself under a global oil embargo from the UK, USA, France, Netherlands and virtually all major western powers. This too was a problem for Germany - however to Germany's advantage they had found friends in the Atlantic in Venezuela to supply them, along with their effective puppets in Romania and their currently limited production capacities from the USSR. Japan's military Government under Hideki Tojo did have a small stroke of luck when the Soviet Union collapsed under German attacks in 1941 however - with their military effort on the verge of collapse in China the Japanese Army finally had reason to pursue Hokushin-Ron, the Northern Road, and invade the Soviet Union.
On September 12th 1941 therefore the Japanese Emperor therefore officially sanctioned a military mission to invade the rump-USSR, declaring war on the fragmented 'Soviet Government' who had overthrown Stalin only a month before, executing him in a military coup and replacing him with Vyacheslav Molotov to deal with the nightmare scenario as the nation unraveled. The Japanese had fought the Soviets before, and in every occasion had lost. This conflict would prove to be little different. Japan's army poured across the Soviet border in September only to be confronted by surprisingly strong Soviet resistance who held the advantage of having a significant tank force compared to Japan's largely infantry based armed forces. Japan did have the advantage of a significant air force however, which helped Japan's advance to get going rather than being halted barely past the border. The capture of Vladivostok on October 30th would prove an important victory for Japan however by successfully cutting off a key supply port from Soviet forces and removing a hub of resistance to Japanese advances before winter set in. The weather however would soon render the Japanese advance almost entirely pointless by December, faced with mounting casualties, little real access to many formerly Soviet resources and nightmarish conditions on the vital infrastructure needed to transport that Infrastructure the Hokushin-Ron plan effectively failed within months of it beginning - all the while leaving Japan with even less oil to fight a drawn out war in China. Meanwhile the Allies had been allowed to prepare for any Japanese advances on their territories, the United Kingdom had guaranteed the security of the Netherlands following the war in the west from any attacks, German or otherwise, and France had by now begun the process of reconstruction. Britain too was significantly better prepared for any conflict, having mobilized it's armed forces and economy under Attlee's Government and dispatched additional naval forces to the east to combat the threat of aggression from Japan's increasingly bold military offensives. Japan was therefore left with two choices; either accept that it's war in China had been relatively unsuccessful and withdraw to defensible positions and seek a conditional peace with the Chinese Bloc, or use the last of it's oil and resources - that to an extent had been propped up by minor expansion of their resource base with the limited Soviet conquests - to fight a short and targeted war with the west for Malaysian and East Indies resources.
Japanese leadership weighed up their options, but in their mindset they had no reason to question their own ability to defeat the west. They had one of the world's biggest navies, a reasonable amount of fuel to fight a quick and decisive war, an experienced armed forces and they were in their own proximate waters whereas the west was fighting far from home. Furthermore the United States was still only just recovering from their economic crisis and had suffered a change of leadership in the 1940 Presidential election when President Roosevelt - facing no immediate military or economic crisis requiring him to stay on - had bowed out as per tradition and instead allowed his chosen successor Corden Hull to take the mantle of the Democratic Party nomination with Scott Lucas. Facing a charismatic and prepared Republican party however the United States Presidency had been won by businessman and dark horse candidate Wendell Willkie who ran alongside Charles McNary and successfully swept the mood of the nation, defeating Hull in a very close campaign. Willkie's Presidency as it turned out would be dominated not by the social issues he had campaigned on, but instead by the war that would soon come to head half war through his presidency when on February 7th 1942 Japan - after long consideration - launched a massive war effort against the perceived allies against it in the United Kingdom, United States, France and the Netherlands. The attack was brilliantly executed, becoming known as 'the day of infamy' by President Willkie following a massive air based attack on the US Naval base at Pearl Harbour that resulted in the death of over two thousand US Servicemen, the destruction of nearly 200 aircraft and the Sinking of four battleships and numerous other US Naval vessels. Failing to sink any US aircraft carierrs however Japan failed to achieve a vital strategic goal of putting one of the US' most vital Pacific assets out of use after American Military Intelligence cracked Japanese codes allowing them some warning that an attack was going to happen within the time frame of several days - just not telling them where. The attack was followed by attacks across the Asian colonies of the west including Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies landing decisive blows to the allied forces across the region. Not expecting such decisive and violent attacks so early into the conflict the allies reeled over how best to respond to the attacks with only Britain being fully prepared to fight back while countries like the Netherlands and France had little to no means of halting Japanese advances.
Japan's campaign was effective at the beginning, launching sea based invasions across the coast of French Indo-China, Naval invasions of the Dutch East Indies - successfully capturing significant amounts of vital resources including Oil - both of which fell within a month of the conflict, along with a significant attack on the Philippines which themselves fell in their entirity to Japanese occupation in July of 1942. The campaign in fact went so successfully that by July 1942 Singapore had even fallen to Japanese occupation after a bloody battle between British forces in the area and the Japanese, the British however successfully evacuating the city's garrison due to an increased Royal Navy presence in the area which ow re-based to India. Britain however, no longer distracted by Germany who had decided to decisively rule themselves out of any involvement in the conflict between Britain and Japan, quickly responded to the Military campaign leading to a decisive victory over the Japanese at the battle of Java Sea on April 27th 1942 when the Royal Navy, in conjunction with the Dutch and elements of the French and Australian fleets, successfully defeated the Japanese through greater combined firepower leading to the death of Japanese Admiral Takeo Takagi. The defeat was crushing for Japanese forces who until now had successfully defeated the allies in every battle and skirmish they had fought causing them somewhat of a dip in morale, but furthermore it was a disaster for the Japanese Government who were hoping to sue for a conditional peace with the Allies much like Germany had after they had dug into the vital positions in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies so as to be in the best possible position to call for a ceasefire. The defeat however encouraged instead a spirit of optimism in the UK and United States who despite the loss of Singapore and much of South East Asia now felt optimistic they would be capable of recapturing the territory.
The conflict entered it's second stage now as the United States mobilized it's economy, meanwhile Japan found itself in control of a vast area of the Pacific with little real resources to defend or maintain it. Japanese Naval planners found themselves incapable of even following their own strategic goals through the 'barrier defence' they hoped to use to achieve eventual peace as their naval doctrine meant their forces operated in large task forces as opposed to smaller groupings capable of fighting over a wide area - essentially they had created a plan but had no idea how to actually execute it when it mattered. This was only more evident when the tide turned against them at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the subsequent Battle of Midway during July and August of 1942, both of which resulting in decisive American victories in the United States' first major involvement in the lasting global conflicts - and inflicting damage on the Japanese fleet from which they could not recover. This then began the fight back by the United States and United Kingdom as the two enemies turned allies in the face of a mutual foe in the east began to slowly dismantle Japan's sprawling and poorly equipped empire.
Faced with a Japanese advance into Burma after the fall of the Kingdom of Thailand, Britain's focus throughout the eastern conflict was defending India and attempting to push back the Japanese from the Dutch East Indies and Malaya. This would be a challenging task as it forced Attlee's Government to divert a significant number of divisions and resources towards the east despite the possible threat of German aggression, however with Barbarossa having ended and reports of constant German military struggles in the east of their new sprawling empire Attlee felt confident that he could gamble by sending forces to combat Japan. Hitler's Government by contrast did have designs on attacking France for a second time, however with the alignment of the United States into the sphere of the Allies German military command encouraged the Fuhrer to focus instead on the development of the German sphere of influence in Europe and expanding German influence in Scandinavia as well as the middle east where Germany had been relentlessly pursuing better relations with the Turks in exchange for territorial concession from formerly Turkic parts of the USSR. Britain therefore was in a strong position in the east to launch bold military operations, launching an invasion of Sumatra following the Battle of Midway in January of 1943, landing south of Palembang and fighting an aggressive campaign to capture the vital oil city with little supply other than that shipped into minor southern ports on Sumatra and what could be air-dropped into the Island. The United States by contrast unlike Britain had only just awoken it's military industry and as such spent much of 1943 doing little in terms of aggressive actions otheer than to occasionally challenge Japanese advances and invade islands that the Japanese were suggested to be using for aggressive purposes. This included launching their own marine landings on Guadalcanal to halt the construction of Japanese air assets on the island as the first of many 'island hopping' operations throughout 1942 to 1944.
The United States' first major aggressive actions began in mid 1944 with the battle of Saipan which would be invaded following the battle of the Philippine Sea in June of 1944. The American victory in such a vital battle was the beginning of the end for Japan's hopes of a conditional victory in Asia allowing the US to recapture Guam and Tinian, instead meaning that their operations in China such as Ichi-Go yielding success merely meant wasting resources needed to oppose the Americans where the war would be won or lost; at sea. The Combination of the now sizable US Naval apparatus which had been bolstered in the Pacific by the Atlantic fleet due to a lack of combatants in the Atlantic, along with the expansion of US military capacity over 1943, with the fleet of the United Kingdom which had now almost solely focused on the destruction of Japanese forces in the east had proven too much. Britain alone had begun a process of "elimination and extraction" as they began an aggressive campaign using Indian and British forces to push Japanese forces from India, all the while learning from the Invasion of Sumatra in 1943 to launch further naval based invasions of Borneo, Java and Malaya throughout 1943 and 1944. Each invasion proving more and more successful as time progressed and the Royal Marines became more experienced in their new found role in the east - while cutting Japan off from vital resources it needed to maintain a combat ready fleet. The Japanese Government, fearing defeat even by mid 1943, reached out to the German Government to attempt to open a second front against the allies to distract Britain and the US from the Pacific Theater, but to the dismay of the Japanese Hitler refused - focusing instead on the fact that Germany had succeeded in it's goals and now intended to dig into and secure their new lands, while also secretly being aware that Germany;s ability to fight in France may by 1944 be limited due to ongoing conflict in Russia and occupied European territories that the Wehrmacht had to devote significant resources to maintain control over.
The end for the Empire of the Rising Sun seemed near for many observing nations, the US Government after a string of victories now prepared for the eventual invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, while Nazi Germany actively sought to disassociate themselves with the Honorary Aryans in the Pacific and the United Kingdom began to work out what it wanted for it's ever increasing role in the eastern conflict. Even in China things began to look bleak with the Japanese unable to advance and their Southern front beginning to collapse following the British invasion of Kuala Lumpur - cutting off Singapore and the Japanese forces in Malaya and soon after threatening to open Indo-China up to British naval invasion following the liberation of Singapore in July of 1944. The battle of Leyte Gulf would be the final killing blow for Japan's imperial empire in South East Asia; with the largest naval battle in history resulting in an American victory that opened up the Philippines to invasion by the United States in October of 1944. The capture of Iwo Jima in February and Okinawa in June 1945 marked the final isolation of Japanese forces on their home islands too, launching desperate Kamikaze attacks against American and British forces in a bid to dissuade American forces from landing on the Japanese home islands instead in a bid for peace.
The United States President Thomas Dewey was however determined that peace would be nothing but unconditional, Dewey having been elected to the position to succeed sitting President Allen Dulles who himself had 'inherited' the position after the death of President Willkie in April of 1944 from a heart attack - the Vice President Charles McNary having also died several months before Willkie due to a brain tumour and never been replaced putting Secretary of State Dulles next in the line of succession. Dewey, who had defeated Richard Russell Jnr - the moderate progressive Democrat from Georgia, had run on a campaign of bringing Japan to Democracy, establishing the US as a major player in global geopolitics out of isolation and winning the war whatever the cost. He was in luck therefore when the Manhattan project was completed on July 16th 1945, creating a method to defeat the Japanese that did not require landing on the home islands. Dewey immediately authorized the use of the weapon, with the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima following a month later on August 6th and 9th respectively after the Japanese Government refused to unconditionally surrender to the Allies. It was at this point that the sun officially set and Japan after a thousand years of development and expansion from a nation of fragmented warlords to a global superpower in the east officially gave in, surrendering to the United States and United Kingdom and submitting themselves to joint occupation by the two nations. The UK having contributed a vast amount to the war effort in Asia, including the bulk of the Royal Navy and several successful invasions of Japanese held territories, would become the administrator of Shikoku and Kyushu while the United States would administer the larger island of Honshu and Hokkaido.
The surrender of Japan to the Allies would mark the effective end of the period of separate conflicts that would come to be identified as the Second world war. While many of the conflicts failed to overlap, the sheer proximity and ferocity of the conflict involved justified the identification of the war and would be how the war was referred to by all western powers excluding the German Reich who would denote their own wars as the "Great War of Unification". The United States and United Kingdom would emerge from the conflict as two of the world's most powerful nations, the UK having barely been touched by the damage caused by either conflict with Germany or Japan and having used the threat of war to revitalize their economy and Military. The United States having established themselves as a dominant world power - overtaking even the United Kingdom - and building a vast economy of scale that even industrialized Germany could not compete against. It was now down to the Western Allies who now labelled themselves as the "United Nations", who only a few years before had nearly come to war, to define the fate of Japan, Asia and to an extent the geopolitical nature of the world for the rest of the 20th Century...