The Worst WWII Alternate History Cliche

People do not put in as much effort into researching Japan as the other Axis members, and as such they write the same OTL insanity without understanding how Japan arrived at that point.

This is what I've been trying to say all along.

See, that's the type of double standard that brought up this discussion. With the Nazis we usually don't go "oh, but they committed war crimes, that doesn't excuse what they did," but rather "they had this kind of Weltanschauung due to this particular history and belief, so that was their logic." Why must the war crime issue always come up when discussing how people are utterly ignorant of why Japan went the path they did and just jump to "anarchic illogical loonies"?

That is where I wondered if racism of some kind, even if it's subtle plays a role.

Since Mao Zedong enacted changes that caused the death of at least 25 million people but probably much more, it's pretty fair to call him reckless.

My example with the Sino-Soviet Split is more that in what passes for the historiography of the split you have 3 viewpoints. It started from ideology, is started from a competition to be number one in the second world, or it was a clash of personality. The problem is if we take that historiography at face value there's an underlying set of assumptions that look to portray Mao as irrational, devious, and perhaps above all the main instigator of the split for not being acceptive of the changes from Khruschev to Stalin. It can allow for Mao to be painted as some kind of power hungry pseudo-Stalinist lunatic, who seems a step or two away from the Yellow Peril as well.

In relation to Imperial Japan, it's along similar lines. Pearl Harbour is portrayed as a devious sneak attack, but more importantly as a borderline insane gamble of a smaller nation versus a larger one. When in fact was more a part of a calculated strategy to buy time, your mileage might vary on how good of an idea it was. Pearl Habor was plan B when negotiations for lifting the Oil Embargo fell flat. There a book called Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War by Akira Iriye that talked about how the Japanese thought going into deciding to attack Pearl Harbor or not.

The truly abusive parts of the Holodomor, say? Yes, we would make that characterization, a point you've been persistently ignoring.
No @Obergruppenführer Smith is not ignoring the characterization of the Japanese as "insane" but arguing against it. Unless you're saying that because the Japanese did evil things it automatically makes their actions irrational. There's a big between defending against portrayal of Imperial Japan as willing to attack anyone and anything.

I'm sorry, but you'll have to explain this to me: how does invading a country 30 times your size with an 8-1 population advantage makes Japan sane. It how declaring war on a country with 20 times your industrial output and 3 times your population is a smart move.

It's simple, your either misread or don't know Japan's intentions. Pearl Habour was done to buy time, to allow the Japanese to seize the Dutch East Indies for their resources use those to continue the fight in China, win in China, and hold on to their gains and from there try and gain a peace settlement. Invading the U.S, hell attacking the U.S was never a long term goal of Japan until the Oil Embargo made it the only option that seemed available.
 
No @Obergruppenführer Smith is not ignoring the characterization of the Japanese as "insane" but arguing against it. Unless you're saying that because the Japanese did evil things it automatically makes their actions irrational. There's a big between defending against portrayal of Imperial Japan as willing to attack anyone and anything.

I'm saying that they're not the only society that we'd characterize as insane, and that's especially true of the Nazis, who are the main point of comparison here. Both they and the Japanese did things that were both evil and irrational, the two not being the same thing but perfectly capable of intersecting. I feel like I was clear enough in what I was saying, so perhaps you weren't reading carefully.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Uhhhhh, Japan and the US were both planning for war with each other since the 20s. No, Japan never intended to invade the US. And I'm very well aware of Japan's motivation for PH. Anyway it's spun, it was a monumentally insane gamble. And a massive misreading of American attitudes. And if anyone actually thinks Japan has a prayer of winning in China, they would have to be as crazy as the IJA.

hell attacking the U.S was never a long term goal of Japan until the Oil Embargo made it the only option that seemed available.
 
I'm sorry, but you'll have to explain this to me: how does invading a country 30 times your size with an 8-1 population advantage makes Japan sane.

Sane as UK controlling South Asia. Sure, there is the issue of Japan having come late to the game and the nature of imperialism changing (as CalBear has rightfully pointed out), but invading a backward, fractured society in itself isn't that bad an idea when your lifeline on the continent is threatened. The problem was that Japan itself didn't have the necessary productivity to carry out an invasion and actually realize its goals, even if it needed to pursue such actions in the first place.


It how declaring war on a country with 20 times your industrial output and 3 times your population is a smart move.

By the time of the embargo, Japan could not function in any capacity without invading Southeast Asia, and Japan could not go after Southeast Asia without passing by the Philippines. Now in hindsight we know that it is probable the US would not left things alone if Japan went solely after the British and Dutch colonies, but no one could leave things to chance. Thus, the idea of knocking out USN in Pearl Harbor and occupying the Philippines made military sense.

Of course, one can make the case that Japan should have left Indochina alone to perhaps prevent the embargo, but that's a whole different can or worms.


PS: The US didn't even have twice the population of Japan proper in 1940. It was 132,164,569 versus 73,114,308. The Japanese Empire itself was 103,727,610, excluding occupied China. That was how utterly behind Japan was in productivity, and a significant part of this goes back to the Great War.



More like any society with more than ten minutes' worth of history has its insane moments. Actions are insane, not societies, although some societies might commit more insane acts in a given period than others. And going straight from "Everybody but me calls Imperial Japan the only insane society in history!" to "Everyone in history can be called insane by your definition!" isn't a good look for you.
I'm saying that they're not the only society that we'd characterize as insane, and that's especially true of the Nazis, who are the main point of comparison here. Both they and the Japanese did things that were both evil and irrational, the two not being the same thing but perfectly capable of intersecting. I feel like I was clear enough in what I was saying, so perhaps you weren't reading carefully.

My point is that just because things are "irrational" in a vacuum, it does not mean that such actions are "irrational" or "insane" when there are specific contexts and logic for action. You are clear in what you are saying, but I completely disagree with the standard you use for irrationality and insanity.
 
My point is that just because things are "irrational" in a vacuum, it does not mean that such actions are "irrational" or "insane" when there are specific contexts and logic for action. You are clear in what you are saying, but I completely disagree with the standard you use for irrationality and insanity.

But that standard means that nothing is irrational, since the rationale for even the most inexplicable things must simply be too well-hidden. Just because something can be understood doesn't make it sane, it just means we know where exactly they went wrong in their thinking.
 
But that standard means that nothing is irrational, since the rationale for even the most inexplicable things must simply be too well-hidden. Just because something can be understood doesn't make it sane, it just means we know where exactly they went wrong in their thinking.
Perhaps my position might be a bit extreme, but if it helps with understanding how things came about, I would say it is better than not understanding and just concluding something is irrational/insane.

And that brings us back to the whole start of this particular discussion: many people aren't trying to understand why Japan behaved how it did before jumping to conclusions. It's similar to all the Notzi AH where people show a lack of understanding why the Nazis were Nazis.
 
Perhaps my position might be a bit extreme, but if it helps with understanding how things came about, I would say it is better than not understanding and just concluding something is irrational/insane.

And that brings us back to the whole start of this particular discussion: many people aren't trying to understand why Japan behaved how it did before jumping to conclusions.

To be blunt, if that was actually the attitude advanced, then you'd have gotten a lot more stonewalling than you did, and certainly not the exchange between Cpip and Calbear on the government's representation of Army officials.

Which brings me back to my opening argument: that whatever the realities were of Imperial Japan, you're still off base in how uncharitable you've been towards the people debating the issue, and especially how they perceive Imperial Japan relative to how they perceive Nazi Germany.
 
A few clichés that bother me in regards to WWII:

Nazis can't "reform" nor "moderate" after WWII and will collapse in the short run-I understand that the Nazi regime is a entirely different beast of sorts (and an ugly one at that) but one must understand that in order to live up to "lasting a thousand years", they need to ensure that they can economically last more than a few decades. Though unfortunately it would involve the price of Slavic civilization in general and anyone who knows of the horrid Generalplan Ost like myself would know how...well horrific that would be.

The whole affair in Asia before and during WWII must always go as OTL's no matter what-granted Imperial Japan can't truly defeat the US both materially and economically but the least it could do is create more damage or somehow get the US to agree to a conditional surrender; though that would require no Pearl Harbor scenario as we know it. Better yet, don't get the US involved in Asia at all, but that would require no Roosevelt at the least.
 
A few clichés that bother me in regards to WWII:

Nazis can't "reform" nor "moderate" after WWII and will collapse in the short run-I understand that the Nazi regime is an entirely different beast of sorts (and an ugly one at that) but one must understand that in order to live up to "lasting a thousand years", they need to ensure that they can economically last more than a few decades. Though unfortunately it would involve the price of Slavic civilization in general and anyone who knows of the horrid Generalplan Ost like myself would know how...well horrific that would be.

The whole affair in Asia before and during WWII must always go as OTL's no matter what-granted Imperial Japan can't truly defeat the US both materially and economically but the least it could do is create more damage or somehow get the US to agree to a conditional surrender; though that would require no Pearl Harbor scenario as we know it. Better yet, don't get the US involved in Asia at all, but that would require no Roosevelt at the least.

Ah, Sweet Baby Jesus. One requires the Nazi's to go win, which might as well be impossible. Two is basically the same, there is an argument from Akira Iriye that if Japan's embassy staff had stayed to leave a clearer message, it's possible the attack wouldn't have been a complete surprise. The U.S not getting involved in Asia requires Japan to be able to win the Second Sino-Japanese War, which saw them invade occupy Indochina to cut nationalist supplies and at one point getting the Burma road closed. We just had several pages of arguments this topic in one form or another.
 
...invading a backward, fractured society in itself isn't that bad an idea when your lifeline on the continent is threatened.

So when the Japanese junior officers staged the completely fake Mukden "incident", that was because the Chinese had embargoed vitally important exports to Japan, say foodstuffs? Were Japanese civilians starving in the streets, back in the home islands, because of this?
 
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