US has no Pacific holdings by World War 2

Gan

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For whatever reason the United States has no holdings in the Pacific when World War Two breaks out, no Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, or anything.

How does this affect the war, particularly the United States and Japan?

(This is in the wrong section. Can a mod close it?)
 
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For whatever reason the United States has no holdings in the Pacific when World War Two breaks out, no Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, or anything.

How does this affect the war, particularly the United States and Japan?

No Alaska (as its status was the same as Hawaii's pre-WWII)?

Such a USA would be disengaged from the political & military affairs of Far-East Asia nations.
 
leaving aside the US inclinations/desires/practically mandates to have an interest in the pacific......

the US is blocked from gaining pacific islands.

this means:

the US doesn't intervene in China- how does that affect the boxer rebellion?

The US doesn't counter Japanese expansionist tendencies (that's really the question here - does the US say have at it, or no freaking way? so if the US says have at it, what happens?)

easy answer: Japan is now a superpower. No one but the US was going to stop them. take away the japanese incentive for them to attack us and our incentive to attack them, there is no war between the US and Japan.

Harder question: how does that affect the consequential events? we kick Germany's ass. we were drawn into that conflict by Germany's declaration of war on us after we declared war on Japan, but ultimately, anyone who thinks we weren't going to war on Germany, come see me as I have a slightly used bridge to sell you. Things as they were, we're going to war with Japan, too, but we're taking the US pacific interest out of the equation, so the same argument doesn't apply.

Anyhow, we kick ass on Germany. the USSR is a thorn in our side. We don't have Japan to drop a bomb on, so we don't cause the USSR to back down with the nuclear threat. The world now consists of: USSR, the US, and Japan (in total control of the entire pacific). the cold war unfolds much differently, as now there's 3 players in the game instead of 2, and we haven't unleashed nuclear weapons yet. USSR spends more energy on looking at Japan and the entire asian area. China isn't communist, because it was only US taking Japan off their backs which allowed China to go red. Korea is a struggle between USSR and Japan. Vietnam is a Japanese struggle, likely not happening because the USSR doesn't have China (not that they did, but red is red, and in this scenario, there's no red next to Vietnam).

So where does USSR export it's communism? No success in Korea or Vietnam, does Communism get sent to africa or central america?

What happens with the nuclear thing? we dropped the bomb at the absolute best moment (if you have to drop it at all). No one else had the bomb. No one realized the devastation (theorized it, haven't seen it). The reason that the cold war didn't go hot is precisely because of the nuclear bomb. take away this realization and give a little more time for the USSR and Japan to figure out how to make one. More people have it, we haven't seen the devastation yet. recipe for disaster.


I can't answer all that. my brain melts. all I can say is that no US interests in the pacific means no war against Japan, and that leads to a 3 way global power stuggle instead of the OTL 2 way struggle. unrealistic to say no US interest in the pacific, but that was the scenario.
 
leaving aside the US inclinations/desires/practically mandates to have an interest in the pacific......

the US is blocked from gaining pacific islands.

this means:

the US doesn't intervene in China- how does that affect the boxer rebellion?

The US doesn't counter Japanese expansionist tendencies (that's really the question here - does the US say have at it, or no freaking way? so if the US says have at it, what happens?)

easy answer: Japan is now a superpower. No one but the US was going to stop them. take away the japanese incentive for them to attack us and our incentive to attack them, there is no war between the US and Japan.

Harder question: how does that affect the consequential events? we kick Germany's ass. we were drawn into that conflict by Germany's declaration of war on us after we declared war on Japan, but ultimately, anyone who thinks we weren't going to war on Germany, come see me as I have a slightly used bridge to sell you. Things as they were, we're going to war with Japan, too, but we're taking the US pacific interest out of the equation, so the same argument doesn't apply.

Anyhow, we kick ass on Germany. the USSR is a thorn in our side. We don't have Japan to drop a bomb on, so we don't cause the USSR to back down with the nuclear threat. The world now consists of: USSR, the US, and Japan (in total control of the entire pacific). the cold war unfolds much differently, as now there's 3 players in the game instead of 2, and we haven't unleashed nuclear weapons yet. USSR spends more energy on looking at Japan and the entire asian area. China isn't communist, because it was only US taking Japan off their backs which allowed China to go red. Korea is a struggle between USSR and Japan. Vietnam is a Japanese struggle, likely not happening because the USSR doesn't have China (not that they did, but red is red, and in this scenario, there's no red next to Vietnam).

So where does USSR export it's communism? No success in Korea or Vietnam, does Communism get sent to africa or central america?

What happens with the nuclear thing? we dropped the bomb at the absolute best moment (if you have to drop it at all). No one else had the bomb. No one realized the devastation (theorized it, haven't seen it). The reason that the cold war didn't go hot is precisely because of the nuclear bomb. take away this realization and give a little more time for the USSR and Japan to figure out how to make one. More people have it, we haven't seen the devastation yet. recipe for disaster.


I can't answer all that. my brain melts. all I can say is that no US interests in the pacific means no war against Japan, and that leads to a 3 way global power stuggle instead of the OTL 2 way struggle. unrealistic to say no US interest in the pacific, but that was the scenario.
Could the US ally against the Japanese as a way of trying to contain the Soviets?
 
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