USA backs off after Pearl Harbor, what's next for Japan?

Correct me if i'm wrong, but from what i can understand, the Japanese strategy regarding the US was that if they can inflict a crushing and demoralizing defeat upon the US the American civilians would lose the will to continue fighting and quickly sued for peace, like what happened to Russia in 1905.

Obviously, this did not happen, but what if it did? What if the US, after the attack on Pearl Harbour, backs off from Japan's ambition on the Pacific?

One effect i could see is that FDR would quickly get thrown out of the White House if this were to happen, but what about Japan? What would they do now?
 
the only way I can see this possibly happening without the intervention of Alien Space Bats or a very bored member of the Q continuum is if a majority of the public somehow becomes 100% convinced that FDR purposefully let it happen
 
Japan does everything it did in our time but they avoid the Philippines because it isn't necessary.Then they continue to smack their head up against the wall in China.
The question will be weather the Japanese run out of money or manpower first in the Quagmire that is China.
 
USA not seeking revenge? ASB. Sorry a great deal would have to change in order for the USA to not go total war verses the Japanese.
 

DougM

Donor
Your POD would have to be pre WW1 and most likely pre 1900. The US in general and this goes double for that time, views itself (and I don’t want to argue if they are right or not) as a noble people that love peace and only stick there noses in when someone else is in trouble or when attacked/forced to.
No you have the US that simply refused to do business with a country that was committing atrocities in China. So from the point of view of the average American the US was doing NITHING wrong.
Then you have the Japanese (who have a bit of a history of attacking folk) attack the US with a sneak attack. They do it early in the morning (when many are stealing or just getting up) they do it on a Sunday when many in the US view that as a holy day and those that don’t view it that way view it as a day of rest and relaxation. On top of this they do it in earl December about 3 weeks before Christmas a day that almost the entire population views a a holy day/ day of peace/a family day.
About the only way this could have been a worse insult in the minds of the Americans is if the actual attacked on Christmas itself.
I have trouble finding a scenario that would upset Americans MORE. Maybe a Christmas attack on a Major Church killing hundreds of civilians. But short of that Japan managed to hit just about every point they could on the “how to piss of America” check list.
So the Idea that the US was going to roll over and play dead is total ASB.
The only way that war ends is the way it did or with Japan Dictating terms in the White House and to do that they need to have a couple of Japanese soldiers standing on pretty much every corner in the US. And that is ASB as Japan just simply enough does not have a big enough population to to do that. The US had about 131 million people vs Japan having about 73 million. And Japan needs to occupy China Korea and South East Asia before they put a single man in the US.
Frankly the attack on the US just shows that Japan had no knowof the US. They didn’t understand the Size of the country, the size of the population the potential of our industry and they sure as hell had no understanding of the personality of the US. Or they would not have chosen a plan that guaranteed to make the US refuse to surrender.
You want the US to surrentder get the US to declare war on Japan with out any direct action on the part of Japan against the US THEN kick its but for a year or two. Proving that the US is losing.
The Japanese did not do this. They attacked by surprise and even then they only just managed to get in a few good hits. 5 months to the Day of the Attack Japan was in a battle that can be argued went against them. By 6 months the US was coming out on top at Midway. And at that point it was all downhill for Japan. Japan basically was trading territory for time for the rest of the war. And the US was just starting to wake up.
So in order to get the US to give up After Peril Harbor you have to change the US so much it is no longer realy the US or you have to somehow wipe out ALL the US Navy and invade the US at the same time. And that is not happening.
 
What will happen is they will get hold of the Dutch East Indies, Malaysia, etc and use the new found reosurces to fuel their war machine in China. They can hold off the British in Burma and take control of the Indian Ocean. If all of that succeeds I suppose their next target is the USSR. Not Australia, nothing in Australia.
 
Totally ASB that USA would back off after Pearl Harbor. It was such cowardly attack that declaration of war was only option. If FDR somehow decide agree with Japanese he would be immediately impeached and possibility lynched by mob. You should change dramatically FDR and the nation before it would agree after such attack.
 
ASB. If the carriers were in port, if they struck a third wave and trashed oil and other facilities, if things went even better for the Japanese (hard to say how), and the British had not pulled off Dunkirk, and Rommel does better in North Africa so Britain and Germany sign an armistice, and the Congress had not voted the two-ocean navy bill through so the US fleet buildup was minimal, and the draft had not been extended flipping just one vote, then maybe just maybe the USA might have been pushed to an agreement with Japan. Assume the ASBs could be persuaded to work overtime...
 
If that happens for some reason, you can garanteee that FDR would be remembered as some kind of modern Benedict Arnold for surrendering so easily after an attack on an American territory
 

nbcman

Donor
FDR couldn't do it.

After the attack, Congress declared war not FDR per Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution:


FDR's request as part of his Infamy Speech and his subsequent signing of the War Declaration were only symbolic as they are not required per the Constitution.

Even if FDR didn't ask for a war declaration, war was going to be declared unless 50% + 1 of Congresscritters were carrying the idiot ball.

Assuming we don't have a mass idiot ball outbreak to stop the DoW, it isn't in FDR's or any President's sole power to exit a war via peace treaty after a Declaration of War is declared. It is the Senate that has to concur first per Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution (aka the Treaty Clause):

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur...
 
The Japanese fully expected the US to declare war but thought it would be a limited war and that after a while the US would sue for a negotiated peace in order to avoid a two-front war and be able to concentrate on fighting Hitler in Europe. The notion that the US would sue for peace on December 8 is not only impossible but was understood to be such by the Japanese.
 

cpip

Gone Fishin'
Assuming we don't have a mass idiot ball outbreak to stop the DoW, it isn't in FDR's or any President's sole power to exit a war via peace treaty after a Declaration of War is declared. It is the Senate that has to concur first per Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution (aka the Treaty Clause):

However, theoretically he could, as Commander in Chief, order the military to disengage or only fight defensively, or something like. It'd probably lead to impeachment and some serious crisis, but at present we've never had the President refuse to fight a war that Congress insisted on declaring.
 
Maybe you could achieve the same situation by dealing a far, far more devastating blow to the US fleet in the Pacific. Turn it around so that you get the 1/100 simulation where every possible thing goes wrong at Pearl Harbor, so it takes significantly longer for the US to do much in the Pacific. In the meantime, they focus on Europe, while Japan faces few issues in the Pacific for a while.

One thing that would probably change is Australia. IOTL there was real concern that the Japanese could try to land at Darwin. While this would still be of questionable strategic value, and way more of a risk than it's worth, if the US is sitting out of the Pacific theater for a while, this fear would be greatly heightened.
 

nbcman

Donor
However, theoretically he could, as Commander in Chief, order the military to disengage or only fight defensively, or something like. It'd probably lead to impeachment and some serious crisis, but at present we've never had the President refuse to fight a war that Congress insisted on declaring.
Possibly FDR could attempt it but he would impeached so fast that his order wouldn't last long. I think that impeachment is guaranteed after the Congressional DOW vote against Japan of 470 - 1.
 
Yeah, there’s a better chance of the US signing its sovereignty back over to the Queen than there was of not fighting back after Pearl Harbor. In addition to the points everyone already made, it’s often overlooked that the US had spent the better part of the interwar period prepping for a war with Japan. As isolationist as much of America was at the time, the Department of War still dipped its hands in the international community and knew what to expect.

So war preparations + deadliest attack in American history + sneak attack (which wasn’t intended to be a sneak attack; the Japanese tried to radio America beforehand to let them know but it didn’t get through) + timing of the attack + tensions with US cutting off Japan’s supplies + everyone’s really pissed off = America’s going to war. It doesn’t add up any other way.
 
Don't forget that the US has been planning for war against Japan ever since it entered East Asia in general, and certainly after 1905.

I’m aware of War Plan Orange and the post-WWI planning, but wasn’t Japan a nominal member of the Allies during the first war, before they brought in the bugfuck crazy Black Dragon regime? Doesn’t mean there weren’t rumblings among US war brass that indicated, “hey, we might have to go to war with these guys if they pose a threat in the Pacific, and they’re pretty hardcore - did you see what they did to Russia?” but a lot of that had to kind of ebb and flow before the interwar period and Japan deciding to take matters into their own hands and strike first.
 
I’m aware of War Plan Orange and the post-WWI planning, but wasn’t Japan a nominal member of the Allies during the first war, before they brought in the bugfuck crazy Black Dragon regime? Doesn’t mean there weren’t rumblings among US war brass that indicated, “hey, we might have to go to war with these guys if they pose a threat in the Pacific, and they’re pretty hardcore - did you see what they did to Russia?” but a lot of that had to kind of ebb and flow before the interwar period and Japan deciding to take matters into their own hands and strike first.

I don't have my sources on me right now, but I'd just figure I'd list it for what I remember.

While Japan was much a part of the Entente, it didn't actually contribute much to the warfare (no soldiers on the Western Front for sure), and it was of the opinion of the brass that the only nation that could threaten the US majorly was a nval opponent. Chiefly Britain, although that did warm as years go by. Germany is an understated one, given their desires for parity with the British. But the Japanese, with their obvious dissatisfaction with the outcome of the Russo-Japanese War and how they laid the blame on the American's feet, were quite aggressive and were quickly expanding their own Navy to establish dominance in the region. Add to that continued Japanese interest in dominating China, and they were, very early on, becoming interested in consolidating their position in Korea and projecting power into Manchuria and other neighboring regions.

Japan was the rising power in the East, and the only Great Power that actually was located on the Pacific (the other being the US) as the British Empire's most important priority was Europe.

It's why the Anglo-Japanese Alliance's end was one of the conditions of the Washington Naval Treaty, as American Naval planning treated them as one and the same, with Japanese fleets being essentially British auxiliaries, hence military construction would be necessary to combat both Japan and Britain at once.

So, while the US weren't as directly worried about a Japanese threat to the US possessions, it was always something they prepared for. War Plan Red-Orange is the child of war plans and contingencies that had been ongoing for decades by that point, merely codified.

I'm probably off on some exact points, but that's the general understanding. The US-Japanese antagonism didn't erupt over a decade or two. It's a process that, I feel, is the result of two younger powers reaching out, with their regions of interest overlapping and clashing, which slowly grew worse and worse over time.
 
Top