Japan without Nazi Germany

One of the reasons that Japan believed it could win WWII was that it counted on Germany to tie down enough American and Allied countries' resources and manpower. So, if Germany wasn't taken over by the Nazis (let's say that the Communists took over for this scenario), would Japan still be confident enough to take on the Allies, assuming that the second Sino-Japan war goes as per OTL?

Also, if the USSR declared war on the Allies in the same scenario for whatever the reason, would Japan be willing to make an alliance with them?
 
Japan was seeking to establish for themselves a pan-Asian empire, and the US would likely institute the same oil embargo that led to Pearl Harbor, giving necessary provocation. But would the Japanese go after the US without an Axis alliance? Perhaps. The war with the United States was pretty ballsy on the part of Japan even in the OTL and was seen as a bad decision in retrospect even shortly after by many Japanese military commanders.
 
I doubt Japan would start a war with several major Western powers if there wasn't a threat similar in scale to Nazi Germany distracting them. The balance of forces was too much in the Allies' favor for Japan to go it alone.
 
I don't think the Japanese would be very successful, and would be pushed back to Japan sooner. However, that would mean invading Japan, and that would be a mess. And a good idea for a thread.
 
Japan would maintain their alliance with Britain more, and it's possible a bizarre chain of events will result with the US at war with Japan and England. There were war plans drawn up to prepare for that possibility.
 

Typo

Banned
The breaking of the Anglo-Japanese alliance was a British rather than Japanese decision, and occurred before Nazi Germany.
 
Top