What does a realistic Imperial Japanese victory actually look like?

I ask this because there seems to be a widely-accepted consensus on this site about what a realistic Nazi Germany scenario looks like: with a POD in 1940 or 1941, the United Kingdom is forced out of the war, the United States never enters it, and the Wehrmacht steamrolls through the USSR. German dominance is achieved from the Atlantic to the Urals, and some sort of Cold War likely starts between Berlin and Washington. Sure, some of the details are still up for debate (How much does Italy expand its empire in the Mediterranean and Africa? Does Germany reestablish any overseas colonial presence itself?), but the scenario I just described seems to be what most people have in mind whenever this topic is brought up.

That said, inasmuch as the topic is discussed, there does not seem to be anything close to a consensus on the implications of a Japanese victory in the Pacific War. Part of this seems to stem from a belief that any sort Japanese victory was just much less likely than even a German victory - that even if America stays out the European conflict, the Pacific War will still likely break out and run in parallel.

So, imagine a scenario, with a point of divergence in the late 1930s or early 1940s, where Japan and the United States never directly come to blows. Realistically, what is the best case scenario for Tokyo in terms of the amount of territory they can annex or bring into their sphere of influence, then hold for any amount of time? Geopolitically, what would be the implications for Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, and the entire world? How does history unfold up to 2019? Assume, for the sake of discussion, that this is also a generic Axis victory scenario in Europe in the manner described above, simply because it means that Japan would not be totally diplomatically isolated.

And for a topic that is even less commonly discussed, what implications would such a scenario have for Japanese society?
 
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Deleted member 1487

I guess somehow get Japan to cut a deal with the Chinese, which leaves them in control over the coast at some point before the US starts the major sanctions in July 1940. If not that a 'lesser' victory could potentially be had had the Japanese realized the US wasn't going to war over the DEI and they limited their attacks to areas the US wasn't going to care enough about to declare war. That would mean risking leaving the Philippines alone to really be sure that the US wouldn't enter the war, but arguably even invading the Philippines wouldn't have brought the US into WW2 if the below quotes from FDR are to be believed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Background_to_conflict
On October 8, 1940, Admiral James O. Richardson, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, provoked a confrontation with Roosevelt by repeating his earlier arguments to Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold R. Stark and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox that Pearl Harbor was the wrong place for his ships. Roosevelt believed relocating the fleet to Hawaii would exert a "restraining influence" on Japan.

Richardson asked the President if the United States was going to war. Roosevelt's view was:

At least as early as October 8, 1940, ...affairs had reached such a state that the United States would become involved in a war with Japan. ... 'that if the Japanese attacked Thailand, or the Kra Peninsula, or the Dutch East Indies we would not enter the war, that if they even attacked the Philippines he doubted whether we would enter the war, but that they (the Japanese) could not always avoid making mistakes and that as the war continued and that area of operations expanded sooner or later they would make a mistake and we would enter the war.' ... .[6][7]
  1. Joint Congressional Hearings on the Pearl Harbor Attack, Part 40, ^p.506, "Conclusions Restated With Supporting Evidence".
  2. ^ Richardson, "On the Treadmill", pp.425 and 434; Baker, "Human Smoke", p.239, ISBN 1-4165-6784-4
...........

Japanese war planners had long looked south, especially to Brunei for oil and Malaya for rubber and tin. In the autumn of 1940, Japan requested 3.15 million barrels of oil from the Dutch East Indies, but received a counteroffer of only 1.35 million.[16] The Navy was (mistakenly) certain any attempt to seize this region would bring the U.S. into the war,[17]

Peattie, Mark R. & Evans, David C. Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997).

The implication for Japanese society is that they'd be locked into the militarist government and would expect to be involved in a long term struggle to control their new empire, while the US became increasingly hostile.
 
You'd likely see a Japan that has learned to temper its appetite. Manchuria and the coast of China for sure, but no conquests beyond Indonesia, for the resources. A relatively compact empire means that Japan could focus on dialing up the "Asia for the Asiatics" propaganda to the max while funding nationalist movements.

It would take a more diplomatic and less chauvinistic Japan, but having the militarists believe they can exert control better through soft power while also not antagonizing Europe and the US seems feasible.
 
I guess somehow get Japan to cut a deal with the Chinese, which leaves them in control over the coast at some point before the US starts the major sanctions in July 1940. If not that a 'lesser' victory could potentially be had had the Japanese realized the US wasn't going to war over the DEI and they limited their attacks to areas the US wasn't going to care enough about to declare war. That would mean risking leaving the Philippines alone to really be sure that the US wouldn't enter the war, but arguably even invading the Philippines wouldn't have brought the US into WW2 if the below quotes from FDR are to be believed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Background_to_conflict

Interesting that the Philippines are mentioned. Assuming that Tokyo leaves those islands alone, the fact that Japanese would have conquered much of the rest of Southeast Asia and the South China Sea (often in an incredibly brutal fashion) might make many Filipinos anxious that the could be the next target. Indeed, I have seen it suggested that in such a scenario, the Philippines might spend years putting off formal independence from the United States.

The implication for Japanese society is that they'd be locked into the militarist government and would expect to be involved in a long term struggle to control their new empire, while the US became increasingly hostile.

I will be honest: one of the reasons I included that question is because today, Japan is something of a cultural superpower, but the Japanese media that folks in the West tend to consume (including, it must be said, folks who frequent sites such as this) includes a lot of anime, manga, video games, and giant monster movies. This, in turn, informs the public perception of Japan in the United States and elsewhere.

In a scenario where Imperial Japan survives, the cultural output of the country will be radically different - different in ways that would be hard to predict. How does Japanese cinema evolve? What becomes of Akira Kurosawa? So many questions present themselves.

Compare this to the United States, where many important features of 20th century pop culture - many of the works of Hemingway, Faulkner, and Steinbeck, important entries in the Golden Age of Hollywood such as Gone with the Wind, Looney Tunes and Disney’s early animated canon, comic books and popular superheroes such as Superman and Batman, and even the pulp fiction of guys like Howard and Lovecraft - would still exist in a world where America does not enter World War II. It is sort of weird to think about.
 
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Probably the expansion of the Japanese sphere of influence over the Pacific, ending at Australia and India. The restoration of the Last Emperor of the Qing as a puppet government over China or the creation of several client states under notable collaborators with the Treaty Ports being under direct Japanese rule. Indochina united under Siam? Direct rule of Singapore and a native-based goverment in Indonesia. The US would probably be left alone, aside from the annexation of the Pacific islands, including Hawaii.
 

DougM

Donor
Define Japanese victory. If you mean Japan not losing to the US that means Japanese victory consists of not fighting the US.
The Wargames scenario.The only winning move is not to play the game.

If you want a way for Japan to Win vs the US then the only way I can think of that could have happened is something along the lines of the the Super Volcano in Yellowstone erupting sometime in 42-44. But even 44 may be to late for a Japanese victory. By that point I think they can at best get an easier piece. But even this is at best going to get Japan the negotiated price with the US. It will not result in the UzS surrender.
 
Probably the expansion of the Japanese sphere of influence over the Pacific, ending at Australia and India. The restoration of the Last Emperor of the Qing as a puppet government over China or the creation of several client states under notable collaborators with the Treaty Ports being under direct Japanese rule. Indochina united under Siam? Direct rule of Singapore and a native-based goverment in Indonesia. The US would probably be left alone, aside from the annexation of the Pacific islands, including Hawaii.

How much of China could Japan plausibly consolidate under a puppet regime? Would a significant portion of the country remain in KMT and/or CCP hands?

Speaking of communism, the fate of the USSR is an open question. It is commonly assumed that the Soviets would have been able to establish a diminished but viable rump regime behind the Urals in the event of a German victory. But how does a powerful Empire of Japan factor into all of this? Once the Soviet Union’s fate becomes painfully clear, would they not move to seize places like the northern part of Sakhalin, Kamchatka, and Vladivostok? How much of the Russian Far East could they plausibly conquer, especially considering everything else they would be juggling? And what would this mean for an already beleaguered Soviet Union?
 
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This is very difficult to say, as Japanese victory probably requires a much different Japanese government, and exactly how it is different will dramatically affect what sort of possible outcomes are on the table. Probably IJA needs to be less powerful and/or more sane (or, really, probably both). Assimilationist policies were actually working out more or less decently in Taiwan; if the less powerful and less horrible IJA means Japan deals with Korea and Manchuria with a lighter and more skillful touch, and doesn't try to take any more of China (which they really don't want; Manchuria has most of what they really want), they may be able to make themselves allies of the Nationalists (the Germans could help negotiate this). Japan could still seize Indochina when France falls. As others noted, Germany needs to win as well; if Japan and Nationalist China support the Germans in their attack on the Soviet Union, that could be part of making the Soviets decide to surrender rather than fighting on after the disasters of Barbarossa. Japan can probably take a lot of other colonial possessions of the Allies in the Pacific before whatever peace ends this war. It is not clear how long they would keep any of the southern bits before local independence movements got to be too much of a problem, but I expect they could keep Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria for as long as their government remained reasonably stable. How long that would be would again depend on exactly how you changed it to get a government not inclined toward a suicidal collision course with the U.S. And the long term effects on Japanese culture and society would also be heavily influenced by exactly how you changed the Japanese government in this scenario, but they would probably at least become less of an economic and cultural powerhouse in the late 20th century without the drastic reforms that being defeated forced on them.
 
That said, inasmuch as the topic is discussed, there does not seem to be anything close to a consensus on the implications of a Japanese victory in the Pacific War. Part of this seems to stem from a belief that any sort Japanese victory was just much less likely than even a German victory - that even if America stays out the European conflict, the Pacific War will still likely break out and run in parallel.

Well, not just "much less likely." Try: "Almost absurdly impossible."

At least, unless you pick a point of departure that goes back a good long ways - and it would have to be a big point of departure, too. as in, "The United States disintegrates into civil war in 1933." That sort of thing.

And that's also been the consistent sense of almost everyone posting here every time the question of a Japanese victory (or hell, even a stalemate) in WW2 comes up.

So, imagine a scenario, with a point of divergence in the late 1930s or early 1940s, where Japan and the United States never directly come to blow. Realistically, what is the best case scenario for Tokyo in terms of the amount of territory they can annex or bring into their sphere of influence, then hold for any amount of time?

I think the U.S. and Britain had made it plain that Japan had already moved beyond the red line of what they could accept in terms of Japanese expansion.

I think that if Japan stays out of French Indochina, they can avoid at least the killer embargoes of late 1940 and 1941, and therefore also likely avoid a war with Britain and America, too. Perhaps after Nazi Germany is destroyed the Anglo-Americans might feel they have the the opportunity to step up pressure over the war in China, but...that's harder to read.
 
Richardson asked the President if the United States was going to war. Roosevelt's view was:
At least as early as October 8, 1940, ...affairs had reached such a state that the United States would become involved in a war with Japan. ... 'that if the Japanese attacked Thailand, or the Kra Peninsula, or the Dutch East Indies we would not enter the war, that if they even attacked the Philippines he doubted whether we would enter the war, but that they (the Japanese) could not always avoid making mistakes and that as the war continued and that area of operations expanded sooner or later they would make a mistake and we would enter the war.' ... .[6][7]

Honestly, I have to think Roosevelt was blowing smoke at Richardson (if what he reports is truly accurate), or simply not thinking things through. A Japanese attack on the Philippines would be attacking a major U.S. possession, garrisoned by tens of thousands of American military personnel. There's no way such an attack could avoid killing or capturing many of them. And that would guarantee an American declaration of war.

The question of a Japanese move strictly into the DEI is a more interesting one, because it would be considerably difficult for Roosevelt to sell a war to Congress over the integrity of some European colony. Japan might be able to pull that one off. But once Germany is dealt with, and the U.S. naval build up is complete, Japan's position is going to be strategically untenable: massively outgunned, and with major American and British bases in Malaya, Borneo and the Philippines perfectly positioned to cut off all Japanese LOC's with the East Indies.

But honestly, even a limited move like that . . . requires the Japanese leadership to be a very different leadership than they were. It's not far removed from the kind of question you see around here now and then asking "Could Hitler have done better if he weren't genocidal megalomaniac?" Well, sure, but then he wouldn't be Hitler, would he?
 
If there's a Moscow Tokyo pact dividing China ala the molotov ribbentrop pact then Japan can be in a stronger position.

If they don't join the axis they can ally with the Soviets who don't care what they do in South East Asia and could come to an agreement on China.

They already made some attempts at carving the world up so just have them stick. With Soviets and Japanese allied the USA has a harder time going to war since it'll mean war with the USSR.

Assume it's a defensive alliance and Japan only wants to take colonies to liberate Asia for Asians or whatever propaganda but no attacking USA. Once they have dei they can turn back to eating China

Also the oil embargo was an administrative accident directly against orders of the president so having that not happen is easy

Edit : also anyone who talks about Japanese leadership being idiotic or crazy knows nothing about the situation. The crazy people were the army officers, generally not high command. The Japanese had a choice between abandoning China, dying from sanctions or trying to fight.

The first one would result in army coup, second no one would choose, so they only had the third choice. If anyone here was in japan's position post1937 they would make the same strategic decisions.

The only mistake Japanese high command made was believing the USA would defend dei and that they would peace out if they got hit hard
 
@Athelstane, how much does it change your calculations if a strident isolationist such as Taft is elected in 1940?

1. Well, let me say - as a Taft fan - that I bristle at the characterization of "strident isolationist." I think that's overstating who Robert Taft really was, even before WW2. Even in his speech opposing Lend-Lease, he averred a willingness to have a "policy which will avoid the risk of war but aid England so far as is consistent with peace" - and even suggested offering Britain loans to purchase equipment!

Staunch non-interventionist, sure. Slow to fully appreciate the danger that Nazi Germany posed (in which he was, of course, far from alone), certainly. But isolationism is something beyond that.

(I think we also have to recognize the tradeoffs you get with Taft's non-interventionism: On the one hand, you do get the opposition to Lend-Lease and the establishment of NATO. On the other hand, you won't be seeing any gunboat diplomacy in Latin America or gonzo CIA coups in Guatemala and Iran, either.)

2. The other thing is, it's important to understand just how much of his foreign policy stances in the 1930's and 40's were shaped by a ferocious mistrust of both Roosevelt and Truman as president and even simply as men. If you make Taft president, that's no longer a factor. Now he is the guy in charge. That won't make him a fire-breathing warhawk by any means, but it probably would have created a little more flexibilty and openness toward a firmer policy against Axis powers (especially once he was getting the daily intelligence briefings).

In any event, Taft's non-interventionism vanished in a puff of smoke once the news broke about Pearl Harbor. If Taft is president in 1941 and Pearl Harbor is attacked, I can't see him losing any time asking Congress for a declaration of war.

3. All that said, it could be worth asking if and when Taft would undertake the asset siezures and oil embargo that FDR authorized in July of 1941, since after all that was the final straw that decided the Japanese on going to war. Judging by his public remarks at the time, I do think that Taft would have tried harder to negotiate with Tojo, and that could at least possibly have delayed the war, and obviously that would have significant butterflies (albeit ones that won't be favoring Japan!). It's harder to say where his breaking point would have been. Taft was a statesman who spent a whole lot more time engaged with domestic policy than he did foreign policy, which to me suggests that there's more room for adjustment once he's forced to engage with it heavily.
 
The key factor is who Japan is allied with. In realistic terms being allied with Germany did nothing for Japan. In July 1940 I suspect that Japan could have found a receptive ear in London to some form of talks. Occupation of NEI to 'protect' them from the Germans for the duration of the crisis. Japanese expeditionary force to Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. A fig leaf halt of deeper moves into China, the fighting continues of course but Japan focus trying to secure control of the country side of their little tar baby. Japan doesn't withdraw and UK doesn't recognize Japanese advances but UK does try on a low level to work out a deal and defuse things with US.

Figure by 42 FDR will have found some way to get US into war and then USA and Japan are now co-belligerents. All sorts of amusing options like lend lease to Japan. Of course China War is going to remain a weight around the neck of Japan and US relations. Along the way Japan occupies Indo-China too.

By end I doubt things are resolved in China but USA isn't going to go to war over China any more then they went to war over Poland.

Michael
 
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3. All that said, it could be worth asking if and when Taft would undertake the asset siezures and oil embargo that FDR authorized in July of 1941, since after all that was the final straw that decided the Japanese on going to war. Judging by his public remarks at the time, I do think that Taft would have tried harder to negotiate with Tojo, and that could at least possibly have delayed the war, and obviously that would have significant butterflies (albeit ones that won't be favoring Japan!). It's harder to say where his breaking point would have been. Taft was a statesman who spent a whole lot more time engaged with domestic policy than he did foreign policy, which to me suggests that there's more room for adjustment once he's forced to engage with it heavily.

Fdr never authorised the oil embargo, he told his staff that the asset freeze was not to result in an oil embargo. By the time he came back from newfoundland there had been an embargo already and he couldn't undo it or lose face

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3638003

If Taft freezes the assets it's likely the administration ignore him too
 
Fdr never authorised the oil embargo, he told his staff that the asset freeze was not to result in an oil embargo. By the time he came back from newfoundland there had been an embargo already and he couldn't undo it or lose face

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3638003

If Taft freezes the assets it's likely the administration ignore him too

You don’t think that the relevant figures appointed in a Taft Administration would act any differently?
 
My thoughts on the subject has always been that when entering WWII, the victory Japan was hoping for was a peace settlement with the US and possibly the UK where Japan leaves them in control of their possessions and spheres of influence but retains the possessions it took from France and the Netherlands - both now under Germany's boot anyway- in particular the oilfields of Java.

Japan's main goal has always been to secure the oil, coal and ores it needed for it's growing economy. If it had to go to war with the US over it, their main plan was to grab as much land as quickly as possible to have the upper hand in the peace negotiations. It had no real design on the US and UK territories and would swap them without second thought for peace, non-interference in China and Korea and control over Dutch Indonesia. It may try to get parts of the Philippines as a bridge between Japanese Taiwan and Java, but will probably settle for French Indonesia/Vietnam instead if they get some reassurances on the Philippines remaining neutral and not interfering in their shipping lanes. The same probably goes for British controlled Malaysia.
 
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