No War in Europe: Does Japan still launch the Pacific Campaign?

Would Imperial Japan find itself at war with the United States without an active war in Europe?


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Lets assume that the European theater of WWII either doesn't happen at all, or is concluded with some peace agreement by the end of 1940 at the latest (if the specific POD matters to the ultimate answer, go with the usual PM Halifax + disaster at Dunkirk cliche scenario). The Second Sino-Japanese War proceeds essentially as OTL up until that point.

Given these parameters, how will Japan proceed in the Pacific? Will Japan find themselves embroiled in a conflict with the Western Allies in the Pacific, or will Japan manage to avoid getting entangled in a larger conflict?

My intuition is that without an oil embargo, Japan would continue fighting a long war of attrition with China, and probably avoids getting into direct conflict with the US and UK.

However, it seems quite possible (likely even) that Japan's continued war in China would prompt the US to issue an oil embargo at some point down the line, even without Japan invading southern Indochina (though this could potentially occur later than OTL). If an embargo were to happen, Japan would find itself trapped in a catch 22. Either they'd have to significantly scale down their war in China, or they will have to go to war to acquire resources.

As we know, IOTL they chose the second course of action, but in a situation where there isn't an active war in Europe, I'm unsure of what decision the Japanese leadership would make in the contingency of an embargo.

Sure, the Japanese leadership would not want to scale down the war in China and often had expectations untethered with reality, but it seems like it would take an extra leap of insanity to think a war with the Western Allies could end in anything but disaster when there isn't an active front in Europe that is diverting at least some of America and Britain's war resources elsewhere (and there's always a risk that a Soviet Union that isn't facing the Nazis can make a move in Manchuria).

Is there a limit to how much of a risk Japan would be willing to take if they were backed into a corner by the oil embargo?
 

trurle

Banned
Lets assume that the European theater of WWII either doesn't happen at all, or is concluded with some peace agreement by the end of 1940 at the latest (if the specific POD matters to the ultimate answer, go with the usual PM Halifax + disaster at Dunkirk cliche scenario). The Second Sino-Japanese War proceeds essentially as OTL up until that point.

Given these parameters, how will Japan proceed in the Pacific? Will Japan find themselves embroiled in a conflict with the Western Allies in the Pacific, or will Japan manage to avoid getting entangled in a larger conflict?
Military defeat of France and later opportunistic grab of French Indochina by Japan in 1940 was directly in the chain of events triggering US oil embargo and then Pacific War; without France been defeated Japanese leaders would never dare to escalate in Southern direction, making OTL embargo and consequent Japanese war with US, Britain and Dutch impossible. War between Japan and Soviet Union is still possible though.
 
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Military defeat of France and later opportunistic grab of French Indochina by Japan in 1940 was directly in the chain of events triggering US oil embargo and then Pacific War; without France been defeated Japanese leaders would never dare to escalate in Southern direction, making OTL embargo and consequent Japanese war with US, Britain and Dutch impossible. War between Japan and Soviet Union is still possible though.

The Japanese army did most of the escalation. If they control the South its entirely possible that they move of their own accord into French Indochina.

However you're completely right that the war in Europe allowed the Japanese government to pressure Britain and France.

Regardless an oil embargo would force Japan to react as everyone knew it would otl, no idea how it would happen without European war though.
 
Japan would do something that clashes with the US - even if it just stays in China.

I suspect that a Japanese conflict with the Dutch over oil would be created (Japanese supported independence for Java?) and the US would be dragged in.
 
No, I don't believe so.

The Pacific Campaign was intende to take advantage of the war in Europe. The heads of the French and Dutch colonial empires had effectively been cut off, leaving their bodies in Indochina and the Dutch East Indies for conquest. If France and the Netherlands are still intact in Europe, then there is a possibility they could defend their territories against Japanese encroachment.

Going to war against the US without a fresh pool of resources was tantamount to suicide.
 
Even without a European war, the British and French navies will still have to retain most of their modern ships to counter the potential threat from the Italian and German new construction programmes.

It's conceivable that Japan might look at the naval balance of power, think it's now or never and attempt to PH Singapore, then switch to the old plan of attriting the USN in its imaginary charge to relieve the PI.

It probably won't work - British and French ground forces and land-based air will be stronger and much more easily reinforced, while geography makes a surprise attack on Singapore very challenging, but it's conceivable that Japan just screams and leaps, trusting that the threat of Germany, taking advantage of European weakness, would limit the reinforcements sent to a manageable level.
 
Japan would do something that clashes with the US - even if it just stays in China.

I suspect that a Japanese conflict with the Dutch over oil would be created (Japanese supported independence for Java?) and the US would be dragged in.

Any sense of how quickly the US would initiate an embargo relating to Japanese conduct in China? Invading South Indochina was a clear red line because it correctly indicated Japan was about to attack British and Dutch possessions. It seems less clear what action Japan would take in China would represent an escalation from what they had already been doing. That doesn't rule out an embargo, but I imagine advocates of an embargo would have less to work with compared to OTL, at least at first.
 
I think it would just be delayed. Japan was growing rapidly and needed fuel. If there is an embargo on them, then they will react with war.
 
The Japanese are in a tough spot, since they've built up a first-class navy and to not use it would be kind of a waste. However, the Army and Navy were constantly at odds, with the Army determined to carry out its Northern Strike into Siberia. So given the opportunity, the Army could one-up the Navy and pour Japan's limited resources into an engagement with the Soviets.

That opportunity would come when Germany attacks the USSR (if no war in Europe at all, it's possible Japan will never go to war with any Western countries), as Tokyo could arrange to open a second front to take the Far East and relieve some pressure on the German offensive. This is a pretty stupid idea given that all useful parts of Siberia are either undeveloped at this point or out of reach, but it's no more hairbrained than the idea to attack the USA was.
 
No, I don't believe so.

The Pacific Campaign was intende to take advantage of the war in Europe. The heads of the French and Dutch colonial empires had effectively been cut off, leaving their bodies in Indochina and the Dutch East Indies for conquest. If France and the Netherlands are still intact in Europe, then there is a possibility they could defend their territories against Japanese encroachment.

Going to war against the US without a fresh pool of resources was tantamount to suicide.

Going to war against the US with a fresh pool of resources was tantamount to suicide. It takes time to process those resources. In 1942 attacking the US period was suicidal for Japan no matter what they did.
 
Going to war against the US with a fresh pool of resources was tantamount to suicide. It takes time to process those resources. In 1942 attacking the US period was suicidal for Japan no matter what they did.

Unfortunately that logic assumes the people running the Japanese Government by that point are well... logical. A logical person wouldn't have let junior officers dictate your foreign politics. A logical person wouldn't start a fight with someone that far ahead of you in industrial potential.
 
Unfortunately that logic assumes the people running the Japanese Government by that point are well... logical. A logical person wouldn't have let junior officers dictate your foreign politics. A logical person wouldn't start a fight with someone that far ahead of you in industrial potential.

Which was my point. Forget natural resources they won't matter if Japan fights the US. Japan will be defeated long before they can be put into use.
 
Unfortunately that logic assumes the people running the Japanese Government by that point are well... logical. A logical person wouldn't have let junior officers dictate your foreign politics. A logical person wouldn't start a fight with someone that far ahead of you in industrial potential.

The people running the Japanese government were absolutely logical in their decision-making, as disastrous and destructive as it ended up being. By 1939, Japan was in a truly disastrous geopolitical position.

1. They more or less had no more path to victory in China as the war had ground to a stalemate, and Anglo-American aid to China was only increasing, constantly closing the power gap between the Chinese Army and the IJA. The war became a gruesome quagmire after the easy gains (the North China plains) were occupied.
2. They more or less had no path to a negotiated settlement because the IJA had pillaged across China so gruesomely and Chinese nationalism correspondingly inflamed to such degrees, there had developed a unanimous consensus in the KMT against a negotiated settlement with Japan that would leave the Japanese occupation of Manchuria intact. This position was generally upheld by the rest of the world, which viewed Manchukuo as an illegal Japanese occupation.
3. They more or less had no way to evacuate Manchuria because a hypothetically sensible Japanese politician who even briefly considered abandoning the Manchukuo project would have probably been immediately assassinated. Japanese society had more or less entered a total war mindset around Manchuria (and preserving the Japanese puppet regime there). Pretty much all of Japanese civil society, across political lines, had rallied behind the Manchuria Project - this was famously described in Louise Young's book about Japanese imperialism.

In response to all of these - Imperial Japan took a third option to try to get out of his endless, inescapable quagmire by attacking the Western nations, hoping that inflicting a dramatic blow to the West would chase them out of Asia and thus stop them from supporting the Chinese. It obviously failed horribly, but there was a rationale behind it.

IMO, there are a lot less "what-ifs" about Imperial Japan after 1931 than say, Nazi Germany. There was no Japanese Hitler, one person who wielded tremendous control over Japanese society. Many of the worst atrocities and wars of aggression of Japanese imperialism were very much an output of Japan's social structures and political culture.

The American notion that Tojo was a one-man dictator like Hitler is deeply ahistorical and postwar, this impression was actually itself promoted by Tojo himself, who basically willingly became the "fall guy" for the rest of the Japanese political class/system.

There's a divide in Holocaust studies between people who think the Holocaust was more based around the unusually psychotic desires of Hitler and his closest supporters (intentionalism), and others who think it was an output of the Nazi state/system of government (functionalism). It was probably a mix of both, so people tend not to take extreme positions on either. But when we talk about wars of Japanese aggression and stuff like the Rape of Nanking, they probably fall pretty hard on the "functionalist" side of explaining these things, because Japan didn't have a Hitler.
 
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The people running the Japanese government were absolutely logical in their decision-making, as disastrous and destructive as it ended up being. By 1939, Japan was in a truly disastrous geopolitical position.
...
But when we talk about wars of Japanese aggression and stuff like the Rape of Nanking, they probably fall pretty hard on the "functionalist" side of explaining these things, because Japan didn't have a Hitler.

Honestly, if the Japanese wanted to keep Manchuria without the need for scoring a total victory or getting a negotiated settlement with the KMT, they probably could have gradually reduced the scope of their operations in China and let the KMT fight it out with the emerging CCP over the next few years. Of course, this would not solve the long-term problem of a unified China bent on liberating their Northeast, but it would give the Japanese some breathing room and another decade or so to wait for other opportunities to come along, rather than going all out in a doomed all-of-nation Banzai charge.

Japan didn't have a Hitler, but it did have a culture of face-saving groupthink which made it possible for loosely organized and often illegal militarist groups to keep upping the ante in a way that forced the entire country to go along with the zeitgeist they created. That atmosphere meant that notions like retreat or diplomatic nuance were politically incorrect: once you were in Manchuria, you were there for good, once you were in China, you could not leave. The only time I can think of where the Japanese backed down was when they got trounced at Nomonhan, but IMO that was probably only tolerated because a) the IJA hadn't seen any local success yet and therefore had no new territory in need of holding and and b) many of the war planners wanted to go with the nanshinron anyway.
 
Without a major war in Europe there is no way the Japanese are going to start a Pacific War. Even if the US institutes an oil embargo they will still be able to get oil from the DEI. Without the fall of France in 1940 they will not occupy Indochina. Just what my signature line says
 
Probably. The militarists from the mid 30s to 1945 were largely run under the "promote the most psychopathic guy possible" principle, so if Japanese political history 1933-37 goes like OTL a war is likely.
 

McPherson

Banned
Lets assume that the European theater of WWII either doesn't happen at all, or is concluded with some peace agreement by the end of 1940 at the latest (if the specific POD matters to the ultimate answer, go with the usual PM Halifax + disaster at Dunkirk cliche scenario). The Second Sino-Japanese War proceeds essentially as OTL up until that point.

Given these parameters, how will Japan proceed in the Pacific? Will Japan find themselves embroiled in a conflict with the Western Allies in the Pacific, or will Japan manage to avoid getting entangled in a larger conflict?

My intuition is that without an oil embargo, Japan would continue fighting a long war of attrition with China, and probably avoids getting into direct conflict with the US and UK.

However, it seems quite possible (likely even) that Japan's continued war in China would prompt the US to issue an oil embargo at some point down the line, even without Japan invading southern Indochina (though this could potentially occur later than OTL). If an embargo were to happen, Japan would find itself trapped in a catch 22. Either they'd have to significantly scale down their war in China, or they will have to go to war to acquire resources.

As we know, IOTL they chose the second course of action, but in a situation where there isn't an active war in Europe, I'm unsure of what decision the Japanese leadership would make in the contingency of an embargo.

Sure, the Japanese leadership would not want to scale down the war in China and often had expectations untethered with reality, but it seems like it would take an extra leap of insanity to think a war with the Western Allies could end in anything but disaster when there isn't an active front in Europe that is diverting at least some of America and Britain's war resources elsewhere (and there's always a risk that a Soviet Union that isn't facing the Nazis can make a move in Manchuria).

Is there a limit to how much of a risk Japan would be willing to take if they were backed into a corner by the oil embargo?

By March 1940, the IJN was in a state of mind I characterize as dissociated from reality. War with US? NLT March 1942. They have to fight by then or their fleet runs out of oil and their planes are grounded. The embargo probably happens as RTL. US State Department of the era was "less than competent" and chock filled with fantasists as crazy as those in Tokyo's government. (Refer to Breckenridge Long as an example for what I mean.)."
 
War in China continues to be a stalemate but I think the longer the war goes, the Chinese Communists will become the main opposition to Japan in China rather than the KMT. The KMT because of their own incompetence and corruption will gradually lose support among the Chinese public. The Soviets already control Mongolia and Xinjiang and I think they will gradually step up their support of the Chinese Communists over the KMT. Stalin might want to keep the United Front going to keep Mao under control but it's unlikely to succeed if Chiang continues to rule the KMT.
 
War in China continues to be a stalemate but I think the longer the war goes, the Chinese Communists will become the main opposition to Japan in China rather than the KMT. The KMT because of their own incompetence and corruption will gradually lose support among the Chinese public. The Soviets already control Mongolia and Xinjiang and I think they will gradually step up their support of the Chinese Communists over the KMT. Stalin might want to keep the United Front going to keep Mao under control but it's unlikely to succeed if Chiang continues to rule the KMT.

How critical would something analogous to Operation Ichi-Go be with regard to weakening the KMT such that the Communists supplant them (my cursory reading of the subject could be incorrect but I've been led to believe that campaign really weakened the KMT vis-a-vis the Communists). I assume the Japanese would almost certainly be able to launch a version of Ichi-Go if there is no oil embargo or they seize the DEI, but if they fail to secure oil supplies after an embargo is levied, I wonder how the possible lack of Ichi-Go could impact the inter-Chinese balance of power.
 
War in China continues to be a stalemate but I think the longer the war goes, the Chinese Communists will become the main opposition to Japan in China rather than the KMT. The KMT because of their own incompetence and corruption will gradually lose support among the Chinese public. The Soviets already control Mongolia and Xinjiang and I think they will gradually step up their support of the Chinese Communists over the KMT. Stalin might want to keep the United Front going to keep Mao under control but it's unlikely to succeed if Chiang continues to rule the KMT.

Because Mao was the very model of competence and integrity.XD
 
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