AHC: Make Japan win the Pacific War.

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The Soviets and Americans start shooting at each other as soon as they meet up. The US proceeds to shrug and put all of its strength into fighting off the red hordes.
 
They did win. The cost was truly horrific but they started a war with the United States, they got their butts beat bad, the US came in and rebuilt the nation with a new government, new constitution, security guarantees, and a modern economy that resulted in Japan becomig a world leader in technology and commerce and despite being a small resource poor island nation they still had the world's second largest economy as late as 10 years ago.
 
How 'bout this: The IJN somehow finds out the US carriers are near Wake so it sends its subs and carrier task force there and sinks all three at the same time as PH in the OTL. The US battle fleet then steams out of PH and is sunk by subs and carrier planes. All ships and crews sunk are lost irretrievably.
Soon afterwards the IJN sends a few long range subs near the Panama canal, where they ambush and sink US reinforcements for the Pacific including a carrier. So the Japanese have relatively little trouble with the US in '42. They then send the bulk of their navy and army westward to overwhelm India late in '42 and go on to take the Persian gulf.
Or, the IJN mostly stays in the Pacific where in 1942-44 it tries to lure into battle and destroy piecemeal new US forces before they can accumulate into an invincible force. With luck, Japan may induce the US to negotiate an end to the war on favorable terms hence wins--in the sense originally planned.
Can you explain where Washington managed to misplace the brains of every semi compitent or even self-preserving naval officer and became a metaphorical teen horror movie cast? Because even your lizard brain would tell you that if something is hyper threatening and surprised you then thing to do is stay together and minimize risk, not run out into the open one at a time.
 
The US built 24 Essex class carriers and scrapped several more being built. 19,000 B-24, 12,000 each F6F, 12,000 F4U and around 9,000 B-29s. 2,700 Liberty ships, around 60,000 Sherman’s, etc. The Japanese lost the second the first bomb dropped on Pearl. All that remained was figuring out how long their defeat would take. The US as a population hated and despised the Japanese after Pearl. Just look at the Halsey quote “Before we're through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell.” If they had used any type of biological agent, the response would not have been pretty. Look at OTL. According to this list the US firebombed 67 cities and nuked 2. http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html

What if the Japanese had used biological weapons?

From RSR “Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics.”
 
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An early POD where Japan, knowing a war with the U.S. may come at some point, invests resources into intelligence and subversion operations within the United States and Philippines. Links with more extreme members of certain ethnic minorities are established, and chiefly- the Japanese community in America is to a degree included in the war plans. Thus, when the time for conflict comes, Japan has a strong fifth column in America proper, and a friendly resistance movement in the Philippines ready to strike. American industrial potential cannot fully materialize, as strikes, sabotages and revolts corrode the country from within.
 
Than you need a U.S. with a fundamentally different attitude towards the conflict. The numbers on every material aspect is so lopsided as to make it so the US will get an advantageous peace, at minimum, if they try. One can't cut down a tree with a herring
You should talk to Comrade stalin.. But I agree :)
 
They did win. The cost was truly horrific but they started a war with the United States, they got their butts beat bad, the US came in and rebuilt the nation with a new government, new constitution, security guarantees, and a modern economy that resulted in Japan becomig a world leader in technology and commerce and despite being a small resource poor island nation they still had the world's second largest economy as late as 10 years ago.

That's winning the Peace, not winning the War. The US also won that peace, since they got a strong bulwark of Capitalism in East Asia, decades of cheap hardware, a more stable and extensive Breton Woods international trade system, ect. I'll readily agree though: losing the war allowed Japan to far better adapt to the kind of international climate that emerged in the wake of American acendency and the Atomic age (IE: safe access to international resources, vastly reduced chance of conventional warfare, ect.) than the ideas of the pre-war Empire would have produced. One could argue that this woulden't be the case in a less stable and open international order though.

An early POD where Japan, knowing a war with the U.S. may come at some point, invests resources into intelligence and subversion operations within the United States and Philippines. Links with more extreme members of certain ethnic minorities are established, and chiefly- the Japanese community in America is to a degree included in the war plans. Thus, when the time for conflict comes, Japan has a strong fifth column in America proper, and a friendly resistance movement in the Philippines ready to strike. American industrial potential cannot fully materialize, as strikes, sabotages and revolts corrode the country from within.

And the US is just blissfully unaware of all this? Any realistic scenario has to assume America is at least semi-compitent and intelligent, and a mass Japanese infiltration of such a broad segment of society would be obvious (in its existance if not in the exact details) to any counter-intelligence efforts, which in the wake of social unrest and the threat of international communism would undoubtably exist...

You should talk to Comrade stalin.. But I agree :)

Could you elaborate? I'm not sure what you means. Are you talking about Operation Barbarossa?
 
Her
That's winning the Peace, not winning the War. The US also won that peace, since they got a strong bulwark of Capitalism in East Asia, decades of cheap hardware, a more stable and extensive Breton Woods international trade system, ect. I'll readily agree though: losing the war allowed Japan to far better adapt to the kind of international climate that emerged in the wake of American acendency and the Atomic age (IE: safe access to international resources, vastly reduced chance of conventional warfare, ect.) than the ideas of the pre-war Empire would have produced. One could argue that this woulden't be the case in a less stable and open international order though.



And the US is just blissfully unaware of all this? Any realistic scenario has to assume America is at least semi-compitent and intelligent, and a mass Japanese infiltration of such a broad segment of society would be obvious (in its existance if not in the exact details) to any counter-intelligence efforts, which in the wake of social unrest and the threat of international communism would undoubtably exist...



Could you elaborate? I'm not sure what you means. Are you talking about Operation Barbarossa?
Herring joke . But I guess you could use barbarosa on that analogy
 

Geon

Donor
Well, how about this: POD is Hitler’s assassination in early ‘45. War in Europe ends soon after in German surrender. Three months later, in April or May, Stalin attacks the Japanese as he had promised. But soon after there is a falling out among the Allies, as the Red Army pushes far beyond what was agreed to with the West. This eventually escalates into Operation Unthinkable during the summer. As Japan is also fighting the Russians now, the Americans make a strategic calculation that burying the hatchet with the Japanese is preferable to having the Red Army conquer all of Europe. Japan gets to keep everything north of Singapore and the Philippines as well as what it takes from the Russians, plus pays significant reparations for Malay, Indochina and the cost of the war effort once the Soviets are defeated.

This scenario actually makes the most sense. For this to happen Churchill has to stay in power, something happens that Eisenhower is incapacitated and Patton becomes SHAEF. Roosevelt dies sometime in December. Churchill and Patton push the idea of "Unthinkable" to Truman. The Soviets now have a two front war to deal with.

For its cooperation Japan may be allowed to keep "some" of its acquisitions. The Philippines has to be given back to the U.S. and the Filipinos, likewise Wake and Guam likewise. As for the rest... Well, let me pose this question, would the U.S. if it had an option prop up the colonial powers of the U.K. and France if it had say an agreement with Japan that some of these colonial possessions would be liberated and allowed to go their own way later?

For the record-I have doubts this scenario would work given the utter anger that the U.S. felt toward Japan at this time. But this is the most likely scenario for a Pacific victory short of ASB that I have yet seen.
 
There is the scenario in "Careful what you wish for" where the Japanese attack the Phillipines instead of Pearl Harbour and lure the US fleet into a decisive engagement in the Luzon Strait. The Americans are defeated and lose many battleships in deep water, while the US public loses enthusiasm with a war fought over a colony rather than American soil itself. Peace is made in early 1942 as Japan gets the Phillipines and American oil supplies. That's pretty much the only way they can get victory in my opinion.

How about go one step further? Japan avoids any US territory entirely - no Pearl, no Philippines, no American-held Pacific islands. They go after Malaya/Singapore/DEI for the oil/rubber/tin like OTL, but avoid pissing off the US. Does Roosevelt get a DoW without a Japanese attack on American territory?
 

Geon

Donor
How about go one step further? Japan avoids any US territory entirely - no Pearl, no Philippines, no American-held Pacific islands. They go after Malaya/Singapore/DEI for the oil/rubber/tin like OTL, but avoid pissing off the US. Does Roosevelt get a DoW without a Japanese attack on American territory?
That's the $64,000 question Curtain Jerker. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor because they feared the U.S. would not have remained neutral if they moved south. Would the U.S. have remained neutral if a major source of the resources you mentioned was cut off? Not to mention would they remain neutral if this resource center was cut off from the UK and Free France. I suspect even the America First crowd would be getting uneasy at this point with Japan taking such an aggressive stance.
 

SsgtC

Banned
How about go one step further? Japan avoids any US territory entirely - no Pearl, no Philippines, no American-held Pacific islands. They go after Malaya/Singapore/DEI for the oil/rubber/tin like OTL, but avoid pissing off the US. Does Roosevelt get a DoW without a Japanese attack on American territory?
Not immediately. But eventually, some hot head is going to attack either US warships, planes or territory. This will be triggered, probably, by the USN broadcasting the location of every Japanese ship and plane they see, in the clear, to everyone that can hear. And probably "inspecting" the cargo of every Japanese merchant ship they see that comes within 500 miles of the Philippines. Looking for contraband. Like oil, rubber and metals which were embargoed.
 
Not immediately. But eventually, some hot head is going to attack either US warships, planes or territory. This will be triggered, probably, by the USN broadcasting the location of every Japanese ship and plane they see, in the clear, to everyone that can hear. And probably "inspecting" the cargo of every Japanese merchant ship they see that comes within 500 miles of the Philippines. Looking for contraband. Like oil, rubber and metals which were embargoed.

All that makes sense, but on the flip side if you don't get a Pearl you don't get the American urge to obliterate Japan completely, so theoretically Japan can maybe get out of WWII with a somewhat conditional peace and keep some of its gains. All this is batshit crazy and incredibly implausible, of course, but the premise itself is batshit crazy so (Insert Shrug Emoji Here).
 
Without nuclear weapons and with the US engaged in the war just like it did (at least in the beginning). You can do whatever you want with Hitler and the European Allies, including Soviets.

Given the premise you've offered, the majority here is right: This is literally impossible to manage without divine intervention, or Alien Space Bats. Really, really angry Space Bats.

In terms of resources, there is no plausible magic technology the Japanese could develop or improve, nor any basic technology the U.S. could somehow screw up, that would change the outcome, because the disparity in resources is simply too massive.

In terms of willpower - well, you just blew up the American fleet in a surprise attack. American willpower was already at crawl-over-broken-glass levels even before word about the Bataan Death March got out.

Even an Operation Unthinkable in mid-1945 does not help you. For one thing, the Soviets are still poised to overrun all Japanese territory on the Asian mainland north of the Yangtze, and the Kwangtung Army will be nothing more than a valiant speedbump. That will still happen no matter what. So there goes most of what little Empire Japan still has.

And Japan at this point is of no real advantage to America. It is basically a starving, broken, burnt out nation of 70 millions with no navy or force projection to speak of. America might call off the invasion for the time being, but it can maintain a bomb-and-blockade presence to contain it with only a fraction of its military power.

If this forum has been a lesson at all, it has helped to show that, with Pearl Harbor as your starting point, Japan with all the best ideas and luck in the world (and it got an awful lot of great luck through spring 1942) can only affect the war's outcome at the margins - stretch out its defeat some months, perhaps. This is a project on par with the Unmentionable Sea Mammal.
 
All that makes sense, but on the flip side if you don't get a Pearl you don't get the American urge to obliterate Japan completely, so theoretically Japan can maybe get out of WWII with a somewhat conditional peace and keep some of its gains. All this is batshit crazy and incredibly implausible, of course, but the premise itself is batshit crazy so (Insert Shrug Emoji Here).

The OP didn't start from there, but what you say is not entirely irrational....

...but Calbear is on to something in arguing that the age of limited great power wars (a la Queen Anne's War, or even the Russo-Japanese War) - certainly great powers so utterly opposed ideologically - was pretty much gone by the 1940's, slain in the mud of the Somme and Passchendaele.
 

Geon

Donor
All that makes sense, but on the flip side if you don't get a Pearl you don't get the American urge to obliterate Japan completely, so theoretically Japan can maybe get out of WWII with a somewhat conditional peace and keep some of its gains. All this is batshit crazy and incredibly implausible, of course, but the premise itself is batshit crazy so (Insert Shrug Emoji Here).

It's not as crazy as you make it sound Curtain Jerker. FDR's health was in serious decline by 1944. You can see it in many of the photos of him at that time. An earlier death for FDR was not out of the question. Patton was very outspoken about his distrust of the Soviet Union. So he would have an even better sounding board if he became Supreme Allied Commander. It wouldn't even take Eisenhower's death to do this. If Operation Overlord had failed to achieve a landing in June, 1944 it is likely. Truman was to quote another alternate historian I am fond of (Scott Palter) - a pugnacious US nationalist, not a Wilsonian fool like FDR. The idea of "finishing the job" and making the world safe from both fascism and communism might just appeal to him. Finally, there were many in the Japanese cabinet who were looking for an "honorable" way to end the war with the U.S. by now. The writing was clearly on the wall, but they were consistently blocked by the militarists in the government.

I can't help but think that the militarists might be willing to consider the offer especially since it would give them the opportunity to take territory from their long-time enemy to the north - specifically Vladivostok.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Patton was very outspoken about his distrust of the Soviet Union. So he would have an even better sounding board if he became Supreme Allied Commander. It wouldn't even take Eisenhower's death to do this. If Operation Overlord had failed to achieve a landing in June, 1944 it is likely.
Actually, no, it's not. No one in their right mind was ever going to make either Patton or Montgomery SACEUR. They were excellent in their jobs, but had close to zero interpersonal or political skills. The job is probably going to Jacob Devers, George Marshall, Harold Alexander or Alan Brooke.
 
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