what happens if United States stays completely out of WW2? Does that mean that the Nazis are guaranteed to win? If they still lose, does that mean more Soviet influence in Western Europe? Also,what would be the outcome of the Pacific theatre of WW2 without US involvement? To completely butterfly away US involvement, does the United States have to abandon the Phillipines at an earlier date than OTL?
No US involvement in WW2
- Thread starter joeyanonymous
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I think the Soviets win it but, if the Japanese fight the Soviets as well, it’s a Pyrrhic victory for them and, to a lesser extent, the British. The British give up most, not all, of their colonies out of necessity, exert a lot of influence over Europe, and the USSR teeters on the brink of collapse postwar. Europe is very slow to rebuild unless the US decides to go forward with something like the Marshall Plan, and I’m not sure why they would unless it’s an opportunity for American businesses to get a major foothold in Europe and become dominant.
Too many unrelated butterflies are needed. Japan does not attack Pearl Harbor and Hitler does not declare war on the U.S. Americans will need to help Britain without entering the full scale war. Yes, the Russians could defeat the Third Reich without the rest of the allies, but they would also have control of western Europe (France, Germany, low countries).
Garrison
Donor
Sorry but no, there is no way the US is just going to get out of the way and let Japan take complete control of South-East Asia and the Philippines. Also the US simply letting the Germans establish hegemony in Western Europe is extremely unlikely. To have the US do both would require PODs on such a scale that you can't just skip over them and assume everything else proceeds as OTL.
The US was bound to intervene in Europe in some point, and it was definitely bound to go to war with Japan. Besides, the whole point of Hitler's aggression was to make Germany a continental hegemon in order to compete with the US in the long run (source: The Wages of Destruction). So in one sense, WW2 was about the United States all along.
I don’t see any reason why a particularly isolationist president can’t keep America out. If a president elected in 1940 genuinely wants to keep America out I doubt congress will impeach him to force a war.
Isolationism doesn't mean unilateral disarmament or writing other nations a ticket to do whatever they desire. It just means no interventions in areas where there is no US interest whatsoever.
Once Germany completely overwhelms France, the Lowlands, the Nordics, etc, they have shown themselves a credible threat to the American SoI. They can make all the protestations that they want about having no interests overseas, but the US was willing to take decisive action very early on to prevent even the possibility of German encroachment (see the American plans to take over the Azores and other potential strategic locations after the Fall of France.
Japan has already started angering the US for years before the fact. The Americans detest the Japanese regardless of any isolation, they see the Japanese as infringing on China unlawfully (and committing atrocities in the process) and rampaging across Southeast Asia, taking European colonies to fuel their own industrialization, and there's only one target that the Japanese would be pointing their industrial base at, as there is only one target that can contain Japan once Britain is distracted by war.
The election is taking place after the fall of France, after the passing of the Two-Ocean Navy Act, the Neutrality patrols initiation, the Japanese Invasion of Indochina, etc. There has been tons of provocation, and while the US is neutral, they most certainly lean towards the British in this regard.
That does nothing to remove the US's interest in an East Asia that is open to trade as possible. Japan annexing or trying to usurp the Philippines would be taken about as well as Germany doing the same to Cuba in this timeframe; absent nuclear deterrence, there's no reason the US wouldn't step in and forcibly correct the situation.
That's ignoring the fact that even absent US control there would still be American Armed Forces in the Philippines. And note that it was the actions that Japan took in China and later Indochina that drove the US to embargoing Japan, which forced Japan to either desist or try to take out the US fleet at Pearl.
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The best way for the US to never be involved is for no threat to appear to the US - Germany never succeeds in conquering France, the British are freer to keep forces in the East, and the Japanese remain bogged down in China and their economy overheats and crashes and burns eventually.
RightHoJeeves
Banned
Public opinion is against sending an army across the Atlantic to help the British, it is not against defending American interests from fascist aggression. Inevitably Nazi Germany and Japan are going to do something to piss the US off and bring it into the war on the side of the British because the Japanese cannot permit the US to maintain a presence in the Philippines and the Nazis cannot starve Britain into submission via U-boat warfare without sinking American ships.
thorr97
Banned
I think a lot would depend on where you set your PODs.
How about having the militarists in Japan lose power in the 1930s? Say some particularly nasty series of assassinations within Japan itself causes enough of a backlash to discredit enough of the militarist faction and that causes them to lose their hold over Japan's politics - and in particular its expansionism into Manchukuo and China. Or perhaps the battles of Khalkhyn Gol go even worse for the IJA and that is enough to break their grip on Japanese foreign policy such that the US and UK are no longer compelled to enact those economic sanctions on Japan.
No such strangling sanctions would mean no such motivation for war against the US and UK. No Pacific War and the Reich can't hope the US is thereby distracted from focusing on Europe and Germany. No such distraction and Germany has to be more circumspect in dealing with the US and its inherent support of England.
That could then mean no sufficiently aggressive U-boat war against American shipping coming into England and thus less opportunity for FDR to have his undeclared war going on in the Atlantic against Germany. Without that happening it'd be a lot more difficult to steer public opinion toward supporting getting involved, again, in yet another bloody European mess those bloody Europeans got themselves into. Again.
In such a scenario Americans could look out at the world and see how placid the Pacific and Asia was and see all the only conflicts in the world happening among the same crowd of suspects from the last go 'round. There'd be plenty of motivation to "stay out of it this time!" That, and use all those wonderful war material orders coming from Europe to keep pulling America's economy out of the Depression.
So long as the Germans didn't do anything truly stupid, like they did the last go 'round, it'd be mightily difficult for FDR to engineering getting the US involved.
How about having the militarists in Japan lose power in the 1930s? Say some particularly nasty series of assassinations within Japan itself causes enough of a backlash to discredit enough of the militarist faction and that causes them to lose their hold over Japan's politics - and in particular its expansionism into Manchukuo and China. Or perhaps the battles of Khalkhyn Gol go even worse for the IJA and that is enough to break their grip on Japanese foreign policy such that the US and UK are no longer compelled to enact those economic sanctions on Japan.
No such strangling sanctions would mean no such motivation for war against the US and UK. No Pacific War and the Reich can't hope the US is thereby distracted from focusing on Europe and Germany. No such distraction and Germany has to be more circumspect in dealing with the US and its inherent support of England.
That could then mean no sufficiently aggressive U-boat war against American shipping coming into England and thus less opportunity for FDR to have his undeclared war going on in the Atlantic against Germany. Without that happening it'd be a lot more difficult to steer public opinion toward supporting getting involved, again, in yet another bloody European mess those bloody Europeans got themselves into. Again.
In such a scenario Americans could look out at the world and see how placid the Pacific and Asia was and see all the only conflicts in the world happening among the same crowd of suspects from the last go 'round. There'd be plenty of motivation to "stay out of it this time!" That, and use all those wonderful war material orders coming from Europe to keep pulling America's economy out of the Depression.
So long as the Germans didn't do anything truly stupid, like they did the last go 'round, it'd be mightily difficult for FDR to engineering getting the US involved.
1) If FDR had declined to run again at the 1940 convention, Sen. Burton Wheeler of Montana was prepared to seek the nomination. He already had a campaign committee ready to go. Wheeler was a fanatic isolationist, opposed to any US involvement in overseas wars. Wheeler could defeat Republican nominee Wendell Willkie. Wheeler would not have the third-term issue, and Willkie was a novice candidate who in some observers' opinion effectively self-destructed. If Wheeler becomes President, the US will not fight in Europe or the Far East, nor will it provide aid to the Allies. (Wheeler vehemently denounced Lend-Lease, asserting that "it would plow under every fourth American boy", i.e. entangle the US in a war they would be killed in.)
2) The outcome of the war without the US is far from certain. It would be extremely difficult for Germany to defeat the USSR. OTOH, it was extremely difficult for the USSR to defeat Germany, even with literal boatloads of Lend-Lease, and while Germany was being hammered by Allied bombing, blockaded from importing anything from outside Europe, and forced to divert large armies to other theaters.
2) The outcome of the war without the US is far from certain. It would be extremely difficult for Germany to defeat the USSR. OTOH, it was extremely difficult for the USSR to defeat Germany, even with literal boatloads of Lend-Lease, and while Germany was being hammered by Allied bombing, blockaded from importing anything from outside Europe, and forced to divert large armies to other theaters.
Wheeler does not have the sole vote here. his presidency disconnects the war hawks from the executive branch, but not Congress, where they had been growing in strength. Beyond that the core problem Wheeler would not be able to dodge is economic. Even at the depths of the depression the US was heavily dependent of exports and imports. The bulk of this overseas trade was with Europe & oriented towards relatively open markets. nazi policy ran directly contrary to this. A European peace means the nazis continue with their ideas for making Germany the economic center of Europe. That means nothing from the US that cant be made in Germany or the greater Reichs economic zone. I don't think I need to describe the blatantly obvious effects of this on the global or US economy through the 1940s 50s and on through the 20th Century.
US participation in WWII and international engagement afterwards was the quick solution to the nazi or facist economic problem. nazi corruption & inefficiency would be a handicap on the other side of the Atlantic, but still there would be a mega change in the global economy, and a long running trade war through much of the second had or the 20th Century. Wheeler would not have to deal with the long term. He might serve two terms, or maybe one. Its his successors that will be searching for solutions in a US that has a declining or stagnate export market, declining overseas banking activity, a industrial base that in 1939 had been operating at only 70-75% capacity. The opening chapters of Kleins 'Freedoms Forge' describe how participation in WWII revived US industry and drew a critical portion of the worlds capitol into the control of US banks. A isolationist policy that leave the nazis in power & at peace with Britain leaves this economic revival beyond reach.
Right, but if there is no embargo against Japan and no Undeclared War, the American Congress can not force a declaration of war. Japan buys all the oil they can from the Dutch West Indies, there is no high profile German submarine attack against US flagged ships (let's assume the UK doesn't capture an intact German magnetic mine and Germany is having a lot more success in mining British ports so they can be more cautious in the Atlantic so they don't piss off the USA). How is the USA entering the war?
I think the USSR would end up defeating Germany, simply because they have more teenagers to send to their deaths than Germany, but it will be a peace of exhaustion. They will occupy all of Germany out of revenge and prevent a rerun, but I don't think they'd be able to hold France or Italy by force - they'd be running out of teenagers at that point.
Actually the Constitution gives Congress the power to 'declare war'. Its legislation like any other bill. The president has the veto option, if the vote is below the threshold.
Japan can try to purchase oil from the DEI, but traditionally most of that was contracted elsewhere. The bulk of Japans oil was exported from the US.
By late 1940 Coastal Command had made the Home Waters too dangerous for routine submarine patrols. Thats why the sub interdiction operations were moved to the mid Atlantic in the winter of 1940-41. Placing the mines required the subs navigate where most vulnerable in narrow shallow waters. It would require major German AF participation to get a effective mining campaign going.
I'm thinking the most likely peace is with the Germans settling on a eastern boundary further west of their original objective. Maybe the Germans do capture Moscow & Leningrad regions, but at a cost that leaves them unable to attack further. Thus there is a intact but weak Communist state and army extending east to the Pacific. I'm unconvinced the USSR alone can completely defeat the nazi regime. Even with British help it looks like a tough proposition to do more than retake portions of European USSR.
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thorr97
Banned
In an other alt hist forum one guy came up with a truly devious and entirely possible scenario for Germany to strangle the UK via the use of mines. It had those mines be acoustically triggered. That is, they were deployed by sub or aircraft but immediately sank to the ocean's floor where they were dropped. It took the noise generated by the passage of a ship above them to cause the mines to activate and rise to their preset depth. Throw in a timer to delay on that acoustic activator and you'd get a mine which was exceedingly difficult to sweep against and one which would prove devastating to cargo ships in Britain's home waters. Yes, the RN and RAF would being going after the subs and planes deploying those mines but the payoff for the Germans would've been huge - there'd be no U-boats sinking American ships out in the open ocean. The only sinkings would be by mines and in British waters - which were an internationally proclaimed war zone.
Combine that with a propaganda campaign by Germany in which they'd "allow through" only the ships carrying "humanitarian aid" to the British people and it'd be mighty tough for FDR to get the US riled up about Germany's tactics and it'd be strangling the UK's ability to do anything much more than hunker down on their little island kingdom.
Combine that with a propaganda campaign by Germany in which they'd "allow through" only the ships carrying "humanitarian aid" to the British people and it'd be mighty tough for FDR to get the US riled up about Germany's tactics and it'd be strangling the UK's ability to do anything much more than hunker down on their little island kingdom.
If the U.S. stays out of the war completely, Eastern European and North African fronts stagnate, although further east at first in some areas, because of no lend-lease. Soviets might achieve some sort of pushback but ultimately run out of machinery and manpower to feed the grinder at a required pace. Hard to see them overcome the Axis if they accrue losses at IOTL rate, without lend-lease machinery, materials and food plus facing more German troops in the front. They weren’t very good tactically because of the doctrinal emphasis in fast paced operations to break the enemy formation which demanded mechanistic simplicity at tactical level, but in turn lead to inflexibility and higher losses. Couple this with no shipped in goods, foods and munitions as well as weapons, and you get more people working in the fields and factories, which means they are not available for breakthrough reserve at the front. The ones that are, will have to move slower than IOTL and the commanders will need to be more mindful of not to overstretch.
More people might die in combat and due to starvation than OTL, not to mention probably even more extensive holocaust. When the war gets cold, hopefully both Hitler and Stalin are seen as failures by the Germans and the Soviets respectively, and get ousted before 1950. I can’t see the nazi party surviving for long past Hitler (too fractured at the top), but the state will probably stay totalitarian and collapse at some point. The British sit on the edge of the continent, unable and unwilling to do much, except strangle trade. The Soviet state might collapse or turn it’s focus on internal matters/stability and start gathering strenght for a revanche. Europe is a wreck economically, with about 5 democratic countries and a bunch of totalitarian ones. Bad times for most people.
More people might die in combat and due to starvation than OTL, not to mention probably even more extensive holocaust. When the war gets cold, hopefully both Hitler and Stalin are seen as failures by the Germans and the Soviets respectively, and get ousted before 1950. I can’t see the nazi party surviving for long past Hitler (too fractured at the top), but the state will probably stay totalitarian and collapse at some point. The British sit on the edge of the continent, unable and unwilling to do much, except strangle trade. The Soviet state might collapse or turn it’s focus on internal matters/stability and start gathering strenght for a revanche. Europe is a wreck economically, with about 5 democratic countries and a bunch of totalitarian ones. Bad times for most people.
I read a similar thread where a naval ordnance worker argued the problem of differentiating between a nearby ship and other noise was beyond the 1940s capability. Did the author of the thread you referred to describe who the trigger could trigger for one sound wave and not another?