No Washington Naval Treaty

I realise this has been covered before, but I specifically want to look at the effects on Japan. If there is no Washington Treaty, Britain and Japan remain allied, and the naval building race continues.

How does this effect the political and military development of Japan? Do we see the same development of militarism and authoritarianism as we did in OTL? What role do Japan and the US play in WW2, if the alliance system remains the same?
 

MrP

Banned
Japan's 8-8 building plan (8 battleships, 8 battlecruisers) was financially beyond her reach at the time. If she tries it, she'll run out of money. If the Great Kanto Earthquake happens around OTL in the early twenties, then she's already down a couple of hulls - too badly damaged to complete, I mean. IIRC, the Amagi was supposed to be built as a carrier, but as a result of the earthquake, the Akagi was completed instead, for instance.

EDIT: In fairness, Amagi, Akagi, Atago and Takao might all have finished building before the earthquake.

EDIT 2: I was wrong. Kaga was substituted for Amagi! Oh, these capital ships were cancelled as a result of Washington (Source: Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1869-1945):

4 fast editions of the Tosa-class: Kii (No.9), Owari (No.10), No.11 and No.12. 10 * 16”/45, 29.75 kts, Displacement: 48,500 F, 42,600 N, 41,400 S. Owari to be laid down in ’22 for completion in ’25. Kii to follow in ’23.

4 fast battleships, No.13-16 (names never assigned), 8 * 18”/45, 30 kts, Displacement: 47,500 N. Keel-laying planned for 22-3 and completion for ’27.
 
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CalBear

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I realise this has been covered before, but I specifically want to look at the effects on Japan. If there is no Washington Treaty, Britain and Japan remain allied, and the naval building race continues.

How does this effect the political and military development of Japan? Do we see the same development of militarism and authoritarianism as we did in OTL? What role do Japan and the US play in WW2, if the alliance system remains the same?

It is far from certain that Japan and the UK would have remained allied. It was going to very quickly become clear that the UK could be friendly with the U.S. or with Japan but not both. Japan & the U.S. had figured out that they were on a collision course (just Guam & Saipan made problems also inevitible). With WW I still fresh, who would the UK rather have on its side? Japan & the UK also had conflicting interests in China.

Japan would have lost the naval race, badly (for that matter, so would the UK; BB's cost money & the UK was damned short of it post War). Japan was hugely helped by the Washington/London treaties since they restrained the U.S. from using the much greater production capacity available in U.S. yards (the U.S. was also actually following Treaty limitations on ship designs).
 
Since, as stated previously, Japan almost certainly lacked the economic means to complete the 8-8 plan, one might imagine an attempt to do could have led to an economic crisis, popular unrest, and some sort of revolution, either a peaceful coup or a full-blown popular uprising. Japanese governments of the early 1920's were far less dictatorial than later and the incipient anti-western militarism might have been nipped in the bud. I hadn't really thought of this (because it's much more fun to imagine the naval arms race leading to a massive Pacific war) but perhaps no Washington Treaty might actually have preserved the peace in the pacific and kept Japan in alliance with Britain and at least not openly hostile with the USA.

And yes, you can't forget the earthquake.
 
I think its highly unlikely that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance would have been renewed. There are several good reasons given up above. The Royal Navy was starting to worry about the Japanese as being their next likely rivals and they began not sharing data about aircraft carrier design with them.

I'm in half a mind to also consider that the US Navy program wouldn't have gotten any where. The Japanese certainly can't afford theirs and they would have had to halt construction at some point. The French and Italians are probably the two that could have carried on a naval arms race in the early 1920s. It has been demonstrated that the British could financially afford the construction of at least the G3 battlecruisers, tho they couldn't quite political afford to do so domestically. I'm also of the mindset that the WNT did influence the Great Depression to a degree with the termination of government contracts.
 
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