DBWIAHC: Keep Japan in Japan

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is stop Japan from taking the empire it has in the Pacific today. Earliest POD allowed is after Meiji's death.

Is a Japanese Empire inevitable?
 
Actually I think it's kind of a miracle that it was created in the first place. If you look at the industrial capacity of the nations competing over the pacific during the mid 1900's the USA would be the clear winner. But somehow lightning struck in the same place about 47 times and Japan came out the victor. I wish the history books weren't so clogged with propaganda so I could know exactly how that happened.
 
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is stop Japan from taking the empire it has in the Pacific today. Earliest POD allowed is after Meiji's death.

Is a Japanese Empire inevitable?

Stop them from taking it or stop them from keeping it? The former is next to impossible, but the latter is doable. The Japanese are obviously going to expand to fill the perceived power vacuum in the Western Pacific and there's really nobody with the power projection ability to stop them initially. Now if there were another power there, then maybe those islands could be taken back later, as the Japanese Empire was rather unstable in the 1940s and 1950s. Maybe if the US is not distracted by internal infighting? Or perhaps the British if they weren't distracted by the Second World War. Once you have one of those powers taking an active role in that area of the world, then they could take advantage of the chaos during the 40s and 50s to dismantle the Japanese Empire.
 
I wish the history books weren't so clogged with propaganda so I could know exactly how that happened.

Reported for insane conspiracy theories. Seriously, you must be an American or something to believe that. You probably doubt the Emperor's divinity, too, nutcase.

OOC: Not really, obviously.
 
Simple get the philopines out of Japans hands, have some country thats capable of defending them be in charge. Those islands are the lynchpin of the empire get rid of them and the whole thing tumbles. Another way have america and Japan go to war during the second world war. We came very close to war over several incidents before the cold war with the soviets pushed us to make nice with each other.
 
Another way have america and Japan go to war during the second world war. We came very close to war over several incidents before the cold war with the soviets pushed us to make nice with each other.

So, you'd need a non-isolationist administration in the White House during World War II. Of course, I'm not sure how that can happen unless you get rid of the Great Depression.

It would be interesting though... perhaps this could lead to the U.S. actually becoming the Super Power opposite U.S.S.R. instead of Japan. Could you imagine OTL U.S. cultural influence (and with much less Japanese influence for that matter) combined with military dominance as well?
 
Japan's Empire might easily have been destroyed in the 1931-1960 period by any of America, the USSR, the British Empire or Chinese Nationalism. They were simply lucky that none of these forces seriously opposed them. Chinese Nationalism was perhaps the most obvious danger and might have drawn in any of the other powers. However, after Chiang Kai-shek was killed in a bungled kidnap attempt in 1936, his KMT splintered into the endless Chinese civil wars of the next thirty years. Similarly, the USSR and the British Empire fought a very long and indecisive war against Germany and Italy. By the end of that war, all the European Powers were utterly exhausted. In theory the USA might have supported some Chinese faction or given more support to the British against Germany, leading to a rather different result. Some people have argued that President Roosevelt might have done this if his administration had not been paralysed over 1939-40 by the Republican backed impeachment over the Supreme Court Packing issue, which precluded either any Republican support or effectively his re-election in 1940.
Naturally, after 1960 the combination of the Japanese Empire's economic growth averaging over 5% per year since 1931 and the development of Atomic weapons made an attack on the Empire unlikely.
 
May I post again to illustrate more ways by which Japan's Empire might have been destroyed. For example, if Britain and France had emerged triumphant from their 1939-40 clash with Germany, they might have intervened in Asia to stop Japan's advance south. As it was France's defeat and the subsequent Anglo-French clashes, allowed Japan to establish bases in Indochina, New Caledonia and the Netherlands East Indies. Had the Halifax government trusted America, Britain might have risked war rather than accept Japanese bases controlling the natural resources necessary for Japan's economic development. However, that advance did create huge tensions between America and Japan as mentioned in an earlier insightful post
.... Another way have america and Japan go to war during the second world war. We came very close to war over several incidents.....
The odd thing was that such tensions and the now forgotten US – Japanese naval race actual saved Japan from the danger of becoming embroiled in Germany's war with the USSR. The Imperial Navy continually demanded and received such a huge fraction of the Empire's steel production that the Army never had enough tanks and artillery to contemplate war with the Soviets. The Yamato class battleships and the Taiho class carriers like their more numerous American contemporaries the Iowa and Essex classes never saw action. However, they played their part in preventing either nation from joining the European war.

Finally, may I mention another possible way for the Empire to have fallen. Had Halifax's Government not decided to continue the war with Germany in 1940, Germany might have defeated the USSR in 1941-2 which would have brought Germany a long way towards Vladivostok. We now know of Hitler's plans for World conquest from his so called “Second Book”. Surely Germany would have demanded at least the return of the Netherlands East Indies and its former Pacific territories and how could Japan have resisted? Again Japan's luck ensured that the European War would continue until Hitler's assassination allowed a peace of mutual exhaustion.
 
Finally, may I mention another possible way for the Empire to have fallen. Had Halifax's Government not decided to continue the war with Germany in 1940, Germany might have defeated the USSR in 1941-2 which would have brought Germany a long way towards Vladivostok. We now know of Hitler's plans for World conquest from his so called “Second Book”. Surely Germany would have demanded at least the return of the Netherlands East Indies and its former Pacific territories and how could Japan have resisted? Again Japan's luck ensured that the European War would continue until Hitler's assassination allowed a peace of mutual exhaustion.

First, I don't think Germany could have defeated the USSR, Britain or no. For a while, after the Fall of France, the Western Front was seen as a side show. I heard that somewhere around 75% of all German military resources went into the USSR, and they still got smacked.

Even if they do conquer the USSR, I don't seem them going all the way across Siberia. That was insane even for Hitler, and pointless, since it was a barren tundra. So as far as them threatening Japan, it's out of the question, and no way would Japan even consider giving in to them. Plus, any attempt of the Germans to gain power in the Pacific would be met with the mighty IJN.


May I post again to illustrate more ways by which Japan's Empire might have been destroyed. For example, if Britain and France had emerged triumphant from their 1939-40 clash with Germany, they might have intervened in Asia to stop Japan's advance south.

Disagree. The IJN was already stronger than the RN by this point, and there's no need to even mention the French Navy. Japan could have beaten Britain and France in the Pacific. The might of Europe had already been slipping after WWI, and that decline wouldn't stop even if they defeated Germany quicker.
 
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