Japan not join to Axis.

What if Japan ad not allied with Germany and Italy,but had attack United States in Pearl Harbour?
Hitler and Mussolini would declared war to United States?
 
As far as I know Germany declare war on the allies afterward Japan did. In order for Japan not to join the Axis they would probably need to have their resources situation in check to the point of not wanting to go invaded China or the Dutch East Indies. Another possibility would be to try and prevent militarism from taking over the country which would probably require at least as POD in the early 1920's.
 
Have Germany ally with China instead. Then Japan will declare war on Germany. Later on she will attack Pearl Harbor and the United States will fight the Japanese for awhile while giving Lend-Lease supplies to the UK and maybe Russia. If Russia does not get L-L, they will be stuck in Poland, unable to defeat the Germans. Perhaps Poland will get split between the Soviets and Nazis, and then the UK will sign a peace treaty later. Or, knowing Hitler, they will keep fighting until someone kills Hitler and ends the war.
 
The Japanese invasion of Vichy-French Indochina occured on 22-26 September 1940 and the signing of the Tripartite Pact occured the very next day, 27 September 1940. Personally I don't think the timing of these two events is unrelated.

Without the Tripartite Pact being a done deal in September 1940 would the Japanese have threatened to invade and the Vichy French acquiesced to this threat?

Without the occupation of Indochina would the US have started down the embargo road by stopping scrap metal exports to Japan and closing the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping and finally in July 1941 embargoing oil in response to every move Japan made in the Pacific?
 
Have Germany ally with China instead. Then Japan will declare war on Germany. Later on she will attack Pearl Harbor and the United States will fight the Japanese for awhile while giving Lend-Lease supplies to the UK and maybe Russia. If Russia does not get L-L, they will be stuck in Poland, unable to defeat the Germans. Perhaps Poland will get split between the Soviets and Nazis, and then the UK will sign a peace treaty later. Or, knowing Hitler, they will keep fighting until someone kills Hitler and ends the war.

This would be about the worst possible World War 2 scenario, because the United States would be allied with Germany.
 
The Japanese invasion of Vichy-French Indochina occured on 22-26 September 1940 and the signing of the Tripartite Pact occured the very next day, 27 September 1940. Personally I don't think the timing of these two events is unrelated.

Without the Tripartite Pact being a done deal in September 1940 would the Japanese have threatened to invade and the Vichy French acquiesced to this threat?

Well, technically yes they could have, but I see your point. Germanys support was needed for the Japanese occupation, otherwise the French would fight. So formally or informally some sort of understanding must exist between Germany & Japan

Without the occupation of Indochina would the US have started down the embargo road by stopping scrap metal exports to Japan and closing the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping and finally in July 1941 embargoing oil in response to every move Japan made in the Pacific?

The US warhawks will have to wait for other excuses, which may not come soon. If the US stumbles into war with Germany in 1942 & Japan is a bit less aggresive, then I could see the incentive for the US to come to a temporary agreement with Japan, for a few years. that makes things much easier for fighting Germany with no 1942 emergency in the Pacific.
 
With no Pacific war the US can continue with a orderly mobilization, have 2-3 more ground combat corps avaialble to fight Germany, a similar number of airwings, and logistics units. More important is the savings in cargo ships. Not delivering across the vast Pacific distances is a considerable savings in days moving each ton of cargo.

Assuming Hitler throws a fit & declares war against the US in June 1942 then there would be the material and ships available to execute a operation like Torch much sooner rather than later.

With no South & Central Pacific campaigns in 1943 & 44 the US can devote another large armys worth of combat power to the ETO. In terms of airpower it makes a big difference in 1943. In 1944 the B29s would be configured for bombing Germany rather than Japan...
 

Jason222

Banned
Simple not going happen USA the Japanese sell weapons the Russia that fighting Nazi germany. FDR unlikley put foward the oil embargo first place now way Pearl Harbor could happen. If some striagnt reason the Japanese decide to anyway USA try find reason pint Nazi Germany.
 
The Japanese Navy (Yamamoto in particular) was less keen on Japan's alliance with Germany than the Army was. If the Army's involvement in China was even more disastrous than IOTL I can see the Admiralty standing up to the Army over this matter, with Yamamoto becoming Prime Minister and scrapping Japan's involvement in the Tripartite Pact (though the Army would likely have him assassinated).
 

Cook

Banned
The Japanese Navy (Yamamoto in particular) was less keen on Japan's alliance with Germany than the Army was. If the Army's involvement in China was even more disastrous than IOTL I can see the Admiralty standing up to the Army over this matter, with Yamamoto becoming Prime Minister and scrapping Japan's involvement in the Tripartite Pact (though the Army would likely have him assassinated).
Yamamoto is only singled out because he went on to plan the attack on Pearl Harbour, he was by no means alone in the navy in his opinions, nor was he the most senior. Far more important was Admiral Osami Nagano - fleet admiral and chief of the Imperial Japanese Naval General Staff; he was the most senior naval officer at the time of the debates concerning the decision to go to war took place and had a seat in the cabinet. It was his opinion that there was only enough oil to allow operations for one and a half years and he doubted that Japan could win a ‘sweeping victory’ before the shortage of fuel became critical. He advised the Emperor and cabinet to abandon the Tripartite Pact and find an agreement with the Americans. In this he was voted down in cabinet.
 
He also felt Japan could sieze the British and Dutch islands in the Pacific without attacking the United States, and from what I've read, he was probably right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagano_Osami

Admiral Yonai, who also opposed Japan's membership in the tripartite pact, served briefly as prime minister in 1940, but the Army, its clout strengthened by German victories in Europe, forced him to resign.
 
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What if Japan ad not allied with Germany and Italy,but had attack United States in Pearl Harbour?
LeoXiao said:
Have Germany ally with China instead. Then Japan will declare war on Germany. Later on she will attack Pearl Harbor
:confused::confused:

Is there some kind of mania where Americans cannot conceive a TL without Japan attacking Pearl Harbor?:confused::confused:

If Japan doesn't join the Axis, what's to prevent her from cutting a deal with Chiang & the U.S. & avoiding the Pacific War entirely?:confused:
 
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If Japan doesn't join the Axis, what's to prevent her from cutting a deal with Chiang & the U.S. & avoiding the Pacific War entirely?:confused:

Sheer bloody mindedness?

But seriously, the Pacific War was a trainwreck of accidents, coincidences and misperceptions all pointing in one direction. Plus the cruelty of Japanese conquest of China that precluded making any reasonable peace between the two. A textbook of what happens when civilian authorities of a country lose control over their military. Quite aside from the fact that military commanders often found their subordinates operating at several levels above their heads. And no one dared called anyone on it, for the fear of exposing their own weakness. :mad:
 
Shaby said:
Sheer bloody mindedness?
:rolleyes: You may not be so far wrong.:eek: Also depressingly inept U.S., British, & Dutch diplomacy.:rolleyes:
Shaby said:
the Pacific War was a trainwreck of accidents, coincidences and misperceptions all pointing in one direction.
That's a fact.:eek:
Shaby said:
the cruelty of Japanese conquest of China that precluded making any reasonable peace between the two
That, I'm not so sure of. I've seen it claimed (can't recall where offhand) Chiang would have cut a deal, because he considered Mao & the CCP more of a threat than Japan. It's also true, AIUI, the U.S. was willing to grant Japan control of Manchuria if she was willing to give up claims on the rest of China...& Japan was willing.

So, with better diplomacy, the U.S. & Britain get a deal where Japan keeps Manchuria, ends the war in China, & never allies with Germany & Italy, before the oil embargo is placed.

Does Japan end up at war with the SU in Siberia in '41?:eek:
Shaby said:
A textbook of what happens when civilian authorities of a country lose control over their military. Quite aside from the fact that military commanders often found their subordinates operating at several levels above their heads. And no one dared called anyone on it, for the fear of exposing their own weakness.
True, to a point. Thing is, Bix makes a case (& I think he's right) Hirohito wanted it this way: he believed Japan could get away with it. If he didn't want it, it would seem he could've put a stop to it pretty easily--& didn't.:rolleyes:
Carl Schwamberger said:
More important is the savings in cargo ships. Not delivering across the vast Pacific distances is a considerable savings in days moving each ton of cargo.
Those savings are pretty huge.:eek: Not only the distances, either: the amount of time they spent swinging at anchor waiting to unload, or be loaded for transshipment.:eek: There was an awful lot of waste.
Carl Schwamberger said:
Assuming Hitler throws a fit & declares war against the US in June 1942
While I can believe he'd do it:rolleyes: (him not doing it is the ASB thing:p), I'm less sure about the timing. It looks a bit convenient. Not outrageous, but I'd want to see the conditions leading up to it, first.
Carl Schwamberger said:
there would be the material and ships available to execute a operation like Torch much sooner rather than later.
Not just Torch: Neptune. (Or Avalanche, first, if Winston still gets his way; with more shipping, & so a faster build-up in Britain, maybe he doesn't...:cool:)

It also means Neptune & Anvil go off simultaneously,:cool: since there are more LCs available.
Carl Schwamberger said:
With no South & Central Pacific campaigns in 1943 & 44 the US can devote another large armys worth of combat power to the ETO. In terms of airpower it makes a big difference in 1943. In 1944 the B29s would be configured for bombing Germany rather than Japan...
Also means more CVs in the Atlantic & lower losses to U-boats. And more friendly submarines in the Atlantic, Med, & Indian Oceans. (Which also means more chance of blue-on-blue accidents.:eek: Seawolf was bad enough...:eek:)

All things considered, I'd bet the war is over before the B-29 reaches squadron service. Also before the Bomb is ready.

If that's true, do we get nuclear war in the '50s?:eek::eek: Since Stalin isn't convinced the West would actually use it on civilians?
 
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:confused::confused:

Is there some kind of mania where Americans cannot conceive a TL without Japan attacking Pearl Harbor?:confused::confused:

If Japan doesn't join the Axis, what's to prevent her from cutting a deal with Chiang & the U.S. & avoiding the Pacific War entirely?:confused:

1937, the second invasion of China by Japan, was the last straw. It showed Chiang that the Japanese (more explicitly, the IJA) could not be trusted. That meant that Japan was stuck to fight that war. As time went on Chiang would only get stronger (due to foreign help and local reorganization) but the IJA would only bleed. Japan's military was also running out of resources to fight the war. But to keep its control over the control, it could not back out. The only way would be to take the Dutch East Indies, but the Americans were in the way. It was just like Russia had been in the way of Japan's gaining control over Korea, which caused the war of 1904.

If you want to avoid Pearl Harbor, you have to avoid total war with China. To avoid total war with China you have to have a PoD of before 1934 or so. Not being allied with Germany will not impact Japan's plans as late as 1940.
 
Even then Chiang's generals had to kidnap him to force him to agree to an alliance, and the CCP wasn't much better. For practical purposes there was a 3-way conflict in China.

In order for Japan to leave the Axis, the Navy would have to hold the cards in Japanese politics. To this end, the Army would have to suffer some crushing defeats in China while the Navy would have to score some impressive victories at sea. The former could be achieved if the conflict with the Soviets continued without an armistice after Khalkin Gol, or if an attack on Siberia at the same time as the Germans launched Barbarossa backfired, or both. The Soviets would have to withdraw from Manchuria when Barbarossa was launched, but by that time they could have given Mao's forces enough weapons to take control of Manchuria.

For the latter development, the IJN could attack the Royal Navy in 1940 to gain control of the Dutch East Indies without attacking the U.S. They could also score some victories over their Soviet counterparts at the same time the Army was being decimated.
 
Have a POD in the late 1920s with the KMT not being able to really unify China and keep them in serious warlord phase. Let Japan play them off one another and set up Manchuria as a puppet state. Then let Tokyo trade weapons and technology among the Chinese states in exchange for resources at discount rates, perhaps even swooping into Guangxi or a few minor areas when possible. Then slowly move into the heart of the country, perhaps starting with the Communists and slowly taking on bigger groups. Avoid a Rape of Nanking scenario at all costs.
 
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