AHC: Earliest possible war between the USA and Japan

[sirjackalot]

With a 1900 POD, whens the earliest Japan and USA could have gone to war over a non-ASB scenario?

 

[Monk78]

Maybe during the conquest of the Marianas islands

 

[GuildedAgeNostalgia]

Japan loses the Russo-Japanese War and become firmly in the Central Powers camp for WW1.

 

[sirjackalot]

Japan loses the Russo-Japanese War and become firmly in the Central Powers camp for WW1.

Wouldn't they grow closer with the UK if they lost the RJW?

 

[GuildedAgeNostalgia]

Wouldn't they grow closer with the UK if they lost the RJW?

I don't think they could get any closer to Great Britain than otl. The only other country in the early 1900s that would be as anti-Russia as Japan would be Germany, Austria, and the Ottomans.

Germany having a fleet in the Pacific around this time also helps as well.

 

[cloistered scholar]

The USS Panay incident, 1937.

 

[Citycat]

Although the US was wary and suspicious of Japan since the 1900s, it's hard to see a war between the two powers until the 1930s. The complications of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the improvement in UK-US relations would have made the prospect of war unattractive to both parties.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

AFAIK there were a few Japanese groups that were smuggling weapons to Filipino rebels in the 00's. Having one of those ships crews be caught in the act by the wrong US unit and end up gruesomely dead might be enough to do it, if you have the wrong reactions from people higher up in the chain of command, the media and the public at large.

The AJA is a complication, but that only applies if more than two powers are involved against Japan or the UK, the UK will sit out a purely US-Japan spat, if however the US gets involved during the RJW, that brings in the UK

 

[Major Major]

If the Communists got too unruly, there was always 1931 . . .

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Before 1900: the Japanese open up Commodore Perry, with a katana.