Quick questions for a thread about alt end of WWII in pacific

How much territory could the USA annex/colonize from Japan post ground invasion?


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I just have some questions about the expected casualties for the USA/Allies in a ground invasion of the Japanese home isles, and the expected reduction of the Japanese population in such an event.

Then I have some questions about what amount of territory could the USA annex as compensation for Japans war debt, and with a look at the reduced population levels in Japan post invasion.

Finally, I have some questions regarding what effect the presence of a large 'colony' of the USA would have if established on one of the former Japanese home islands, on events that took place from 1945-1955 (China going communist, and the Korean war) in OTL and beyond.

Where should I look for these types of things, and what works would be a "must read" for this kind of thread?

So for the poll,

IF ground invasion, AND 1 million plus USA/Allied casualties, and Japanese population reduced massively in the course of the above, THEN could the USA annex the Kyushu island of Japan, and relocate any surviving Japanese poplation to the other islands?

And what about all the little islands leading to the south west?
 
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The U.S. Isn't gonna annex any land from Japan's home islands. Now depending on how depopulated Japan gets you might get them under permanent occupation.
 
because they can't justify it.
Why would they need to 'justify it'? And better still, to whom?
Just thinking about PH, and then the 1 million dead or wounded, it would be hard not to justify taking part of the Japanese homeland in reparations. And if the ground invasion did indeed impact the whole of the japanese nation on a scale even remotly like that of Okinowa, then such a move wouldn't even be forcing the remaining population into being as crowded after the war as they were before the war.
 
You'd probably also see the Soviets get Hokkaido. I can't say how many Japanese would die, but I'm guessing that even our post-Pearl rage would turn to horror and disgust. Not at first, but then after we're bogged down in a quagmire. It would have been a lot worse than those village massacres in Vietnam. In the long run, I suspect what's left of Japan would go communist.
 

CalBear

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Could or would?

Huge difference.

The U.S. could have annexed All of Japan, Formosa, and South Korea. They had all the guns and freshly demonstrated willingness to use them.

Would the U.S. take any of it? The answer clearly is no. The U.S. IOTL even gave back Iwo Jima and Okinawa (from a purely military perspective those were both errors, although sensible geo-politically).
 
Why would they need to 'justify it'? And better still, to whom?
Just thinking about PH, and then the 1 million dead or wounded, it would be hard not to justify taking part of the Japanese homeland in reparations. And if the ground invasion did indeed impact the whole of the japanese nation on a scale even remotly like that of Okinowa, then such a move wouldn't even be forcing the remaining population into being as crowded after the war as they were before the war.

you don't annex a nation "in reparations". If you want them to pay reparatons you give them back their country eventually and rebuild their economy so they can actually do that. Annexing it is just imperialism, colonization. Try explaining that to the Chinese, the Russians and the British. What kind of message would that send? What kind of path would the US go when they start annexing nations?

They fought against Japanese imperialism, can't continue to be the beacon of democracy and justice after annexing parts of Japan without looking like a hypocrit. Occupation of Japan(which was bad enough) and intervention in Korea was already at the border of that. They would be no better than the USSR. Imagine the US being compared to the USSR like that.
 
They fought against Japanese imperialism, can't continue to be the beacon of democracy and justice after annexing parts of Japan without looking like a hypocrit. Occupation of Japan(which was bad enough) and intervention in Korea was already at the border of that. They would be no better than the USSR. Imagine the US being compared to the USSR like that.

Yes - the US was pushing for Europe (including Britain) to decolonise. That's going to be far less effective if they were engaging in imperialism themselves.

Cheers,
Nigel.
 

jahenders

Banned
Perhaps, but after a long, bitter, bloody war, it'd be easy to say that we need to control portions of Japan to prevent the demon from arising again.

What we might do (depending on timing) is annex a few areas that would be seized by the Russians anyway (South Sakhalin and the Kuriles).

Additionally, we could annex Okinawa as a territory. We paid a high price in blood for it and it isn't as organically 'part' of Japan as the other islands.

you don't annex a nation "in reparations". If you want them to pay reparatons you give them back their country eventually and rebuild their economy so they can actually do that. Annexing it is just imperialism, colonization. Try explaining that to the Chinese, the Russians and the British. What kind of message would that send? What kind of path would the US go when they start annexing nations?

They fought against Japanese imperialism, can't continue to be the beacon of democracy and justice after annexing parts of Japan without looking like a hypocrit. Occupation of Japan(which was bad enough) and intervention in Korea was already at the border of that. They would be no better than the USSR. Imagine the US being compared to the USSR like that.
 
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