No Bomb

I know this has been done to death. Let's say America uses the Naval blockade Idea on Japan, starving them out until surrender. What happens between the Russians and and the rest of the Allies? Will world war 3 occur, if so when? Discuss
 
USSR probably takes a bigger chunk of Japanese territory. This may have impact on China/Korea/Vietnam conflicts in the future.
Probably more Japanese die than OTL from starvation/disease/etc---really hungry people are great incubators for plagues. Also, there's a greater chance of Japan's germ warfare group doing something really stupid which could result in a horrific retaliation.
 
All right, the very first result is a longer war in the Pacific.

By the Summer of 1945 the Japanese home islands are under seige. The Imperial Japanese Navy had been virtually destroyed. The islands are subject to massive bombing campaigns and many cities are over 90% destroyed. Though there are still large numbers of imperial troops over seas neither they nor any food or supplies can get to the home islands. The Japanese population is slowly starving and the economy is grinding to a halt for lack of raw materials.

Even so Japanese moral has not been broken and at least the military leadership still believes some sort of victory is still possible. Their plan was called Ketsu-go; quite simply their hope was to make an American invasion so costly the US would be brought to the negotiating table. Even with all the bombing Japanese still had over 12,000 planes available by August 1945 and sixty five divisions in Japan itself.

Casualty estimates for Operation Downfall (the invasion of Japan) varied wildly from about 20,000 to up to 250,000. And those were while underestimating the forces the Japanese still had available to them. There was an alternative of simply starving them into submission but this might have taken up to an additional two years.

Regardless of whether the US chooses invasion or interdiction the war is going to take longer than it did in OTL. That gives the Soviets the opportunity to capture not only Manchuria and all of Korea but also the island of Hokkaido and much of the Chinese territoty still controlled by the Kwantung army. As they did in eastern Europe they likely would have taken advantage of the situation to install Mao as an actual puppet. Unlike in OTL he would have been much more beholden to Moscow.

The US is not happy about this but it would be Stalin's price for his assistance against Japan.

In Europe things procede just as they did in OTL with division of Germany and Europe and rapid demobolization by US forces in response to demands from the home populace. Those units not needed for the Pacific are sent home to be disbanded. No more than four or five divisions are kept in the European theater. Despite concerns with the Red Army the US public is adament.

Depending on the situation in Asia I believe by 1946 or 1947 with western Europe still shattered and practically denuded of ground troops and no atomic bomb for a deterrent. Stalin would launch a surprise attack with the goal being conquest all the way to the Pyrennes.

From his point of view this is a unique opportunity that will never come again; Germany, Italy, France, the Balkans, and the Low Countries are too weak to resist him. The UK is much weaker now than in 1939, and while the US is potentially much stronger she is demobilized once war in the Pacific is ended. Stalin is betting he can conquer all of Europe in the six to eight months he is going to have before the US can reassemble a sizebale force. He will also gamble that he can do a better job of holding Europe than the fascists did.
 
Not much would be different from OTL. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria was actually a more important factor in convincing the Japanese to surrender than the atomic bombs were.

The Japanese leadership was crazy, but not completely insane. They would still surrender, by September or October 1945; but not after Olympic.
 
In addition to the options of invading Japan itself, or simply blockading it and trying to starve it into submission, wouldn't the USA (and Commonwealth forces) have the third option of landing in mainland Asia--China, but also invading Indochina, Thailand, etc--and thus engaging the main force of the Japanese army where it was, while being able to count on support from various locals?

This would not forestall the Russians from taking the northern territories listed in other posts, but it would install a countervailing Western force in the south, one that had fought alongside the Chinese and other native Asians against the Japanese and so might be in a stronger position than OTL to build up postwar regimes there that could resist Communist takeover.

Thus even if Stalin does take a big gamble and win in Europe, he would be somewhat worse off OTL in East Asia, even if his forces actually take and hold even more territory than mentioned above.

The Japanese army would be defeated in detail; would not the Emperor take that as grounds enough to finally overrule the militarist cabinet and offer terms of surrender before the Allies finally do get around to invading?

And would Stalin dare launch further invasions in Europe before the question of Japan is settled? After all, assuming no A-bomb is in the works and the Americans know they have only conventional forces to rely upon--until Japan gives up, the American forces in China would be far from demobilized; on the contrary they'd be mustered and building up for the final invasion of the Home Islands. Perhaps it might make sense to seize Europe while the Americans are actually engaged in that bloody invasion, but until then, Stalin actually has a big American force on his eastern flank, and a US government fully mobilized for all-out war. And even if American forces are mostly shifted from Europe to Asia, still there will be at least a skeleton occupation force in Germany; attacking western Germany is the same thing as striking the first blow directly against the United States (and Britain).

But if Stalin waits until either Japan surrenders or the Americans are bogged down there, and then attacks--it will take time for Americans to demobilize, and occupation duties will keep substantial forces tied down overseas anyway, and if it is US/Commonwealth forces alone in Japan, and the Soviets attack Western Europe, the Western Allies have the option of offering a more honorable and profitable end to their war with them if Japan will now aid the Westerners against the Russians. And offering Germans who otherwise might be ostracized or worse under de-Nazification the same sort of deal; the latter would be highly motivated to resist the Soviets in any case.

I don't think Stalin was so fanatically committed to world conquest, to simply grabbing everything he could the moment the opportunity seemed to present itself, that he'd run these risks. If the Western Allies were strongly engaged on the Asian mainland, the Soviet forces would have to be committed there as well to claim their share of loot from Japan.

To be sure, in this scenario conflict between WAllies and Soviets might break out on Chinese soil, since the Chinese Communists (and other Communist International movements, like the Viet Minh) were relatively stronger there than in Europe, and the enthusiasm of such leaders as Mao or Ho Chi Minh might create situations where Stalin must choose between war with his capitalist erstwhile allies or openly betraying the revolutionary ambitions of movements he at least nominally heads. If that happens, I guess he might figure himself as well hung for a sheep as a lamb and go for the biggest wins he can get, on both fronts--probably scanting the Eastern one as much as he can get away with to concentrate on more valuable gains in the west.
 
In addition to the options of invading Japan itself, or simply blockading it and trying to starve it into submission, wouldn't the USA (and Commonwealth forces) have the third option of landing in mainland Asia--China, but also invading Indochina, Thailand, etc--and thus engaging the main force of the Japanese army where it was, while being able to count on support from various locals?

This would not forestall the Russians from taking the northern territories listed in other posts, but it would install a countervailing Western force in the south, one that had fought alongside the Chinese and other native Asians against the Japanese and so might be in a stronger position than OTL to build up postwar regimes there that could resist Communist takeover.

Thus even if Stalin does take a big gamble and win in Europe, he would be somewhat worse off OTL in East Asia, even if his forces actually take and hold even more territory than mentioned above.

The Japanese army would be defeated in detail; would not the Emperor take that as grounds enough to finally overrule the militarist cabinet and offer terms of surrender before the Allies finally do get around to invading?

And would Stalin dare launch further invasions in Europe before the question of Japan is settled? After all, assuming no A-bomb is in the works and the Americans know they have only conventional forces to rely upon--until Japan gives up, the American forces in China would be far from demobilized; on the contrary they'd be mustered and building up for the final invasion of the Home Islands. Perhaps it might make sense to seize Europe while the Americans are actually engaged in that bloody invasion, but until then, Stalin actually has a big American force on his eastern flank, and a US government fully mobilized for all-out war. And even if American forces are mostly shifted from Europe to Asia, still there will be at least a skeleton occupation force in Germany; attacking western Germany is the same thing as striking the first blow directly against the United States (and Britain).

But if Stalin waits until either Japan surrenders or the Americans are bogged down there, and then attacks--it will take time for Americans to demobilize, and occupation duties will keep substantial forces tied down overseas anyway, and if it is US/Commonwealth forces alone in Japan, and the Soviets attack Western Europe, the Western Allies have the option of offering a more honorable and profitable end to their war with them if Japan will now aid the Westerners against the Russians. And offering Germans who otherwise might be ostracized or worse under de-Nazification the same sort of deal; the latter would be highly motivated to resist the Soviets in any case.

I don't think Stalin was so fanatically committed to world conquest, to simply grabbing everything he could the moment the opportunity seemed to present itself, that he'd run these risks. If the Western Allies were strongly engaged on the Asian mainland, the Soviet forces would have to be committed there as well to claim their share of loot from Japan.

To be sure, in this scenario conflict between WAllies and Soviets might break out on Chinese soil, since the Chinese Communists (and other Communist International movements, like the Viet Minh) were relatively stronger there than in Europe, and the enthusiasm of such leaders as Mao or Ho Chi Minh might create situations where Stalin must choose between war with his capitalist erstwhile allies or openly betraying the revolutionary ambitions of movements he at least nominally heads. If that happens, I guess he might figure himself as well hung for a sheep as a lamb and go for the biggest wins he can get, on both fronts--probably scanting the Eastern one as much as he can get away with to concentrate on more valuable gains in the west.

If Stalin decided to back his fellow "communists" in Asia, would the Allies let that go in order for him to continue the war against Japan, and if they didn't would it end up being like another Korea war, where the Allies and the Soviets bolster the Nationalist and Communist forces respectively with more troops and supplies, or does an all out war break out. Or if Stalin does take the "Big Gamble" do the Allies allow former Nazi's, obviously not the big name ones but Nazi generals and other officials, retain partial control over Germany to fight the Soviets. Does patton remain Military Commander of West Germany? What happens?
 
If Stalin decided to back his fellow "communists" in Asia, would the Allies let that go in order for him to continue the war against Japan, and if they didn't would it end up being like another Korea war, where the Allies and the Soviets bolster the Nationalist and Communist forces respectively with more troops and supplies, or does an all out war break out. Or if Stalin does take the "Big Gamble" do the Allies allow former Nazi's, obviously not the big name ones but Nazi generals and other officials, retain partial control over Germany to fight the Soviets. Does patton remain Military Commander of West Germany? What happens?

One thing we have to remember is that actually Stalin didn't always control the various Communists. He did when they were under the wing of the Red Army, as in Eastern Europe (except Yugoslavia, which had largely been liberated by Tito's partisans with remarkably little Russian help, and was in a position to insist that the Red Army simply transit Yugoslavia without lingering there). Presumably the liberation of China from the north, under the tank treads of the Soviets, would be followed by the imposition of Soviet-approved rule there--that might or might not call itself Communist.

In the scenario I suggest, where before attempting to invade Japan the Western Allies land in south China first (I presume they'd go there because it is a bit easier to get to from established Allied bases in the Pacific and it was I believe more hotly contested by local Chinese than the northern coast nearer Japan), I believe the orders from Moscow for Communist partisans there would be to cooperate with the Allies at least until all Japanese forces on the mainland are eliminated or subdued. (Withdrawal to Japan would be no option to them, or tantamount to suicide, as the USN controlled all the waters around Japan and early Western conquests on the coasts would provide nearby airbases making the isolation of Japan all the tighter.) In general, Stalin spent more time ordering enthusiastic local Communist partisans to stand down and give no pretext of a quarrel to the bourgeois powers than he did ordering them to defy them.

I think Mao and other such independent Chinese Communists, and Ho Chi Minh in Indochina, would find such orders prudent while Japanese forces remained to be defeated. Some, such as Ho, might even seek direct relations with the westerners, if doing so would advance their goals--Ho for instance would mainly want to guarantee Vietnam's (and Laos and Cambodia's, if only to secure Vietnam) independence after the war.

What happens next depends in large part on what the western powers do next. If Americans are fighting side by side with the Viet Minh for instance and it seems obvious to a lot of the US hierarchy that such battles were what won the war against Japan, perhaps the President won't agree to hand Indochina back to the postwar French government and, depending on how far the Viet Minh go in their Communist agenda and how tolerant of this US domestic politics is, perhaps Indochina remains a US ally. Similarly many Americans might see no problem in Maoist demands to at least share power with the KMT post-war. The real struggle in China then might be three-way, between the KMT seeking to suppress all Communists at the first chance, versus both Soviet-controlled Chinese Communists in the north and loose-cannon Maoist Communists in the south; which if either would seek to conciliate Chiang Kai-Shek is kind of up in the air again. Historically Stalin had ordered Chinese Communists to ally with Chiang and Chiang turned on them and killed them, on the other hand this time around Mao might conceivably see American alliance as useful and, protected from Chiang's murderous tendencies by this connection, be the one to denounce Soviet extremism and call for a coalition. Anything like that would be unstable of course; I'd expect though that something that looks stable enough to allow Americans to pull out and go to occupy Japan (assuming they do surrender before an invasion) would get cobbled together by all parties.

As I said, if Stalin does attack Western Allies, east or west, it's a whole different deal. I do think then that Mao would turn on the Americans, unless there had been an open and irreconcilable breach with Stalin already by then, and maybe even then--Mao at least was determined that Communism should advance in China and he could only play the Americans so far. I am not sure which side Ho would wind up on if the Americans had hitherto been dealing fairly with him; securing independence was the first priority for him and if he was getting that from the Americans he might well back them, since after the French and Japanese the Chinese were his next big worry.

So if Stalin goes for it, any Americans still in China would be in big trouble; the KMT would be weak and hardly anything the Americans could back. They might hold on as OTL in Taiwan and surely any Chinese Communist or Soviet presence in Japan itself would be driven out.

As I said before, I think if Stalin did something that wild, the Americans could and would rearm their recent Axis enemies, taking as much care as they could to forestall a simple return to the old regime of course, but yes they'd use Germans and Japanese against the Russians and they'd probably cooperate pretty well, as they'd be defending themselves and their homelands.

But since he'd be facing that, with the entire US wartime economy backing them up, I don't think Stalin would take this gamble. He'd know it would make a difference to his own Red Army and to the peoples they might occupy, who started this particular round of war. He'd know the Americans would be unlikely to trust him if he called for a truce, and that it would be hard to persuade Americans by even the cleverest propaganda that he was any different than Hitler and so they'd keep fighting.

It's possible even Mao would desert him at this point, if the Americans were tolerant enough of the prospect of a Maoist China.

So I think Stalin would stand pat, wait for quieter methods to edge his agenda forward while taking advantage of opportunities--up to but not including the risk of open war,

I do not believe he avoided that OTL merely because of the Bomb. There was little to fear from American A-bombs just after the war, and not that much to fear even as late as 1949 when he had his own. It was the overall power of the USA he worried about, and even after the standing armies were largely demobilized, the Naval projects put on hold, the air forces scrapped and downsized, he still had that to worry about.

If in an A-bomb free world he would attack eventually (and I am not at all sure he would ever) it wouldn't be right away. Something like the Korean War might be the right time--recall though that's half a decade later.
 
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