Idea: Russia and America never join WWII

An idea I had for an Alternate History. It's a typical Axis victory at WWII, though they don't manage to pull off conquering the world.


Hitler decides to put off conquering Russia until he's finished conquering western Europe. Japan's leaders decide to follow similar reasoning, and don't attack Pearl Harbor. Nazi Germany conquers western Europe, while Japan conquers most of Asia.


Eventually, the atomic bomb is developed by three superpowers (Germany, Russia, and America), leading to a three-way cold war instead of a two-way one.


How plausible does this sound?
 

Ryan

Donor
How plausible does this sound?

not very. the US will almost certainly enter the war eventually (can't allow japan owning SE Asia and the Germans are already killing Americans in the Atlantic.

and as far as nukes go, Britain would get the bomb long before the Nazi's do, meaning they can destroy German cities at will until it collapses/surrenders.
 
Technically, Russia (did you mean the USSR?) not joining means that it does not stab Poland in the back. The blitzkrieg was running out of steam a bit by that point, and the deteriorating weather and poor infrastructure in eastern Poland were not going to help Germany either. So Germany might be looking at an extra month or even more of fighting before Poland is subdued.

1. How do the additional German losses in the prolonged campaign and occupation of a much larger area affect the battle of France?
2. With Poland still in the fight and not obviously doomed by the Soviet attack, might France actually make an offensive on the western front in 1939 after all?
 
There are three problems with Hitler deciding not the invade the Soviet Union:

1. Ideology. A linchpin of Hitler's ideology was a hatred of "Jewish-Bolshevism" and a desire for Lebensraum. In Hitler's mind every day the Soviet Union existed was another day that the German people were denied their destiny.

2. Resources. The Soviet Union provided Germany with massive amounts of war materials like food, oil, and rubber. Germany needed this to fight. Now imagine Iran could break the US war machine by refusing to provide them aid. That was basically Hitler's nightmare. In addition the trade imbalance was becoming quite bad and Germany was having trouble paying for all these materials.

3. Germany thought they were ready. The Red Army was in terrible shape in 1941 and Hitler predicted "one kick and the whole rotten structure will collapse." Furthermore Hitler knew that the Red Army would be in a better position in 1942 because of their rearmament program.

As for Japan not attacking the US there are two problems:

1. Resources. After Japan took French Indochina the US embargoed them, cutting 93% of Japan's oil supplies off. By their estimate Japan had a year to a year and a half's worth of oil. They needed to invade the Dutch East Indies to get all the oil there.

2. Strategy. Once Japan decided to take the DEI and colonial Asia they also had to take US possessions. The Philippines were right in the way of their supply lines and thus provided the Americans an easy way to choke the invasion.
 

Deleted member 1487

There is an ASB thread about this posted earlier today; that's about what it would take to make it happen.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
An idea I had for an Alternate History. It's a typical Axis victory at WWII, though they don't manage to pull off conquering the world.


Hitler decides to put off conquering Russia until he's finished conquering western Europe. Japan's leaders decide to follow similar reasoning, and don't attack Pearl Harbor. Nazi Germany conquers western Europe, while Japan conquers most of Asia.


Eventually, the atomic bomb is developed by three superpowers (Germany, Russia, and America), leading to a three-way cold war instead of a two-way one.


How plausible does this sound?

Zero probability without numerous other POD.

The UK was never going to fall to the Reich. Flat not going to happen. Even at its most effective the U-boat campaign wasn't sufficiently successful to win, unless the U.S. not only stay out of the war, but goes to strict neutrality, something that would require a whole host of butterflies, starting with no FDR after 1936 and expanding out from there. Even the Isolationists had no desire to share the Atlantic with the Reich. This being the case, the Reich will eventually accidentally do something so foolish (like sink an American battleship, which damn near happened) that the U.S. will react.

Hitler's one chance was to play a REALLY long game, five years at least, maybe longer, until the British electorate has had it and brings in a different PM. Of course, by then the Soviets are fully modernized, they have completed the defensive fortification across Poland, and they simply crush the Reich like a bug.

In the Pacific it is, if anything, even worse for the Japanese. They were done for the minute they entered French Indochina and the U.S. pulled the trigger on sanctions. The civilian leadership had no choice but to annex the region since the Army AND Navy both wanted it to happen and either could bring down the government at will (not to mention the unfortunate habit of company and field grade officers sort of murdering politicians that didn't follow the script). The Japanese also believed (erroneously as it turned out) that French Indochina could provide food exports that would reduce the reliance on the U.S. (and to a lesser extent the UK and USSR) for imports. Japan, unlike the UK, could not even come close to feeding itself, and it was doing its damnedest to piss off every grocer on Earth. Once the sanctions hit, especially on POL, Japan is on the clock. They have under one year fuel reserve for the IJA and less than two years for the IJN. They either get oil in a year (June 1942) to 18 months at the outside (assuming the Navy is forced somehow to hand over part of its reserves to the Army) or they are back to horses and oxen. No more industrial base at all. To alter this you need a POD going back into the 1890s, at the latest, maybe the 1870s.

You also need to overcome the reality that the U.S. and Japan rather hate each other, and have since modern Japan was established. The fault is more on the U.S. than the Japanese, but the fact remained that the two countries were at odds almost constantly and that their individual national security requirements overlapped to a degree that there was no way to deconflict them.

Take away everything else, all the issues involving China and the French colonial Empire, WW II, all of it, doesn't matter. Sooner or later the U.S. and Imperial Japan were going to have it out. That only changes if the "Empire" disappears or there is a Yellowstone eruption.
 
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