WI: Japan Sits WW2 Out?

If Japan does half as good as in OTL (you know, after firebombing, nuking, complete destruction of anything valuable, occupation, ban of research for a decade and such things) it should be superpower number 3. For a good portion of the Cold War Japan had a bigger economy than the Soviet Union (after all those unpleasant things), now they wouldnt have restrictions on their military and constitution - they're sure as hell going to have a big, modern military and nukes by 1955 at the latest.

Of course the word "superpower" might lose any meaning - the USA wouldnt have much presence in Asia (South Korea, Taiwan, Japan go poof), the Soviets are stuck between East Asia and Europe and Japan is holed up in East Asia. I'd think that this would be more of a "great power" world where the European ones simply drop out that category due to the wars destruction and dependence on the USA.
 
If Japan does half as good as in OTL (you know, after firebombing, nuking, complete destruction of anything valuable, occupation, ban of research for a decade and such things) it should be superpower number 3. For a good portion of the Cold War Japan had a bigger economy than the Soviet Union (after all those unpleasant things), now they wouldnt have restrictions on their military and constitution - they're sure as hell going to have a big, modern military and nukes by 1955 at the latest.

Of course the word "superpower" might lose any meaning - the USA wouldnt have much presence in Asia (South Korea, Taiwan, Japan go poof), the Soviets are stuck between East Asia and Europe and Japan is holed up in East Asia. I'd think that this would be more of a "great power" world where the European ones simply drop out that category due to the wars destruction and dependence on the USA.

Ha! Japan? Industry? Japan was one of the least developed countries in WWII, almost only beating Italy. Don't mix up modern Japan with WWII Japan, they're not similar at all.
 
Ha! Japan? Industry? Japan was one of the least developed countries in WWII, almost only beating Italy. Don't mix up modern Japan with WWII Japan, they're not similar at all.

Italy got destroyed, and today it's pretty good, now if Japan merely becomes todays "Italy" equivalent, with 3 to 4 times the population ... well, that's still huge. Please dont fall for the "broken windows fallcy", a country not getting destroyed by war will always (barring some unforseeable social developments like the great leap backwards) out develop one which does get destroyed by war.
 
Against the post war USN, without a fuel supply, from bases that can be target by atomic bombs?

They might retain a few islands, but as I've said before, anything in mainland Asia will have to be abandoned. They will probably have to leave China during the war, and abandon Manchuria and Korea when the war ends or soon after.

But ITTL, Japan has made no aggressive moves against American possessions. For sitting WWII out, Japan has to avoid the full-scale war in China.

I seriously doubt that America would launch unprovoked nuclear attacks against a country that's not made moves towards them. Hell, without the invasion of China, they don't even have cause to embargo Japan.

Now, personally I think that we need a POD further back than this to avoid Japan entering WWII. The OP isn't the most realistic thing ever. But if we're following the terms of the OP - which involve Japan not getting involved in WWII at all - then there's no reason that America would go picking a fight with Japan post-WWII. Because they wouldn't have done the things that involved America taking a more aggressive stance towards them OTL ;)
 

Deleted member 1487

Italy got destroyed, and today it's pretty good, now if Japan merely becomes todays "Italy" equivalent, with 3 to 4 times the population ... well, that's still huge. Please dont fall for the "broken windows fallcy", a country not getting destroyed by war will always (barring some unforseeable social developments like the great leap backwards) out develop one which does get destroyed by war.
I mean German was destroyed far worse than anything the Japanese suffered, especially in terms of human losses and they grew faster and went higher than they ever had pre-WW2 or WW1 even with the country divided in half and the East with the horribly inefficient communist system. Of course we can still discuss the impact of the improved economic systems that came after the war, plus the overall global free trade system that evolved under the US aegis too, which enabled said global growth (plus the end of the imperial systems). Also both Germany and Japan, more Japan than Germany though, benefited from not having militaries or at least far smaller ones, so didn't have to spend on their defense, while being able to export based on the back of the US military system securing global trade.
 
The problem here is that any resurgent Chinese government would ALWAYS want to reclaim Manchuria (not so much Taiwan). No WWII means that Chiang fixes the CCP and warlords up, while he continues industrialization.

Skip forward to 1950 or 1960. China has been funding the Koreans and Manchurian separatists with all their money. When Japan continues to commit huge atrocities, they have their casus belli.

Given how militaristic Japan was, once they lose Manchuria, China is going to have to push into Korea, too. Only then can they be safe from land-based counterattacks.

Taiwan probably won't be taken, though. China doesn't have the navy for it, unless they can build one up in the two or three decades of peace they got. But the Japanese would be building too...

Personally i seriously doubt the KMT led China would be able to beat Japan in a conventional war anytime soon in this TL. By the time you mention Japan will almost certainly be a nuclear power and their military will be state of the art. I doubt the KMT could push China towards becoming an economic powerhouse like it did OTL since the late seventies under the CCP, if only because of endemic corruption and infighting, and certainly i doubt even in 30 years they will be anywhere close to Japan militarily. They may be armed by the US but their own military industry will still be well behind.

Ha! Japan? Industry? Japan was one of the least developed countries in WWII, almost only beating Italy. Don't mix up modern Japan with WWII Japan, they're not similar at all.
Japan had built the second most powerful navy in the world, eight times more aircraft than Italy and so on. This didn't came from a poorly industrialized country not much better than Italy. Being far outmatched by the americans in that respect does not mean they weren't industrialized.
 
I mean German was destroyed far worse than anything the Japanese suffered, especially in terms of human losses and they grew faster and went higher than they ever had pre-WW2 or WW1 even with the country divided in half and the East with the horribly inefficient communist system. Of course we can still discuss the impact of the improved economic systems that came after the war, plus the overall global free trade system that evolved under the US aegis too, which enabled said global growth (plus the end of the imperial systems). Also both Germany and Japan, more Japan than Germany though, benefited from not having militaries or at least far smaller ones, so didn't have to spend on their defense, while being able to export based on the back of the US military system securing global trade.

I dont see a military as a drawback - if you spend it locally like the USA and Russia do, keeping that money circulating inside the country paying for jobs and taxes. Global free tarde is coming no matter what Japan does, so there's all the opportunity it needs to develop - the cash strapped Soviets are still going to sell resources to anyone willing to pay for them, so there goes Imperial Japans main concern.

The countries which didnt develop well were the ones which went down the ideological rabbit holes, which were post colonial looted backwaters or had frequent civil wars with constantly changing leadership.
 
Personally i seriously doubt the KMT led China would be able to beat Japan in a conventional war anytime soon in this TL. By the time you mention Japan will almost certainly be a nuclear power and their military will be state of the art. I doubt the KMT could push China towards becoming an economic powerhouse like it did OTL since the late seventies under the CCP, if only because of endemic corruption and infighting, and certainly i doubt even in 30 years they will be anywhere close to Japan militarily. They may be armed by the US but their own military industry will still be well behind.

Japan had built the second most powerful navy in the world, eight times more aircraft than Italy and so on. This didn't came from a poorly industrialized country not much better than Italy. Being far outmatched by the americans in that respect does not mean they weren't industrialized.

Nuclear power? No, no way. The army and navy had separate programs.

KMT corruption is easily solved. Jiang Jieshi writes that he was going to get rid of the CCP first before getting rid of the warlords and corruption.

Meanwhile, the Japanese army was a sham. They lost extremely quickly to modernized armies like the Soviets. Only the inefficiency of the OTL Chinese army saved them.

And Japan having the second most powerful navy in the world? Sorry, what? USN and Royal Navy? By the way, they had stockpiled up for years, which was the only reason they lasted as long as they did. They were horribly inefficient at churning out products, and their replacement rate was much lower than the USA or USSR.
 
I dont see a military as a drawback - if you spend it locally like the USA and Russia do, keeping that money circulating inside the country paying for jobs and taxes. Global free tarde is coming no matter what Japan does, so there's all the opportunity it needs to develop - the cash strapped Soviets are still going to sell resources to anyone willing to pay for them, so there goes Imperial Japans main concern.

The countries which didnt develop well were the ones which went down the ideological rabbit holes, which were post colonial looted backwaters or had frequent civil wars with constantly changing leadership.

The military is a particular problem for Japan because it gets itself in huge adventures (read: wars). These wars (read: World War II) aren't exactly beneficial for jobs and taxes (read: oil embargoes).
 

Deleted member 1487

I dont see a military as a drawback - if you spend it locally like the USA and Russia do, keeping that money circulating inside the country paying for jobs and taxes. Global free tarde is coming no matter what Japan does, so there's all the opportunity it needs to develop - the cash strapped Soviets are still going to sell resources to anyone willing to pay for them, so there goes Imperial Japans main concern.

The countries which didnt develop well were the ones which went down the ideological rabbit holes, which were post colonial looted backwaters or had frequent civil wars with constantly changing leadership.
The military is one of the most inefficient ways to spend money relative to healthcare, education, infrastructure, 'big science', unemployment benefits, etc. Global free trade within the US sphere is coming, Japan would be unable to take advantage of it outside of their sphere due to their lagging economic practices. They were industrialized, but technologically behind the West and unlikely to catch up with the Zaibatsu corporate system. It was only after the war that they took to heart US management principles espoused by Edward Deming. More likely they stay stuck in some sort of military socialism and remain economically marginalized. The other issue with the military spending of Japan is that they couldn't export weapons, because they were technologically behind their competitors. Even a rebuilt Germany would be well advanced compared to Japan and would outstrip her as time went on, while the Brits, US, and French, not to mention the Soviets, dominated any likely weapons markets.
 
The military is a particular problem for Japan because it gets itself in huge adventures (read: wars). These wars (read: World War II) aren't exactly beneficial for jobs and taxes (read: oil embargoes).

The basic idea of this thread is that Japan doesnt get into the war.

The military is one of the most inefficient ways to spend money relative to healthcare, education, infrastructure, 'big science', unemployment benefits, etc. Global free trade within the US sphere is coming, Japan would be unable to take advantage of it outside of their sphere due to their lagging economic practices. They were industrialized, but technologically behind the West and unlikely to catch up with the Zaibatsu corporate system. It was only after the war that they took to heart US management principles espoused by Edward Deming. More likely they stay stuck in some sort of military socialism and remain economically marginalized. The other issue with the military spending of Japan is that they couldn't export weapons, because they were technologically behind their competitors. Even a rebuilt Germany would be well advanced compared to Japan and would outstrip her as time went on, while the Brits, US, and French, not to mention the Soviets, dominated any likely weapons markets.

So you're saying that Japan would never ever reform its practices and become North Korea while in fact they clearly were interested in export of goods and growth of their economy? We'll have to disagree on that.

As for the military, in the USA military, science, education and infrastructure are more or less tied together, one workint towards the other and it shows! And i dont think that you can only export weapons if you have pictures with said weapons as you use them to liberate Berlin. Modern weapons development is more scence than fighting.
 

Deleted member 1487

So you're saying that Japan would never ever reform its practices and become North Korea while in fact they clearly were interested in export of goods and growth of their economy? We'll have to disagree on that.
Given the structure of their political system the tendency was to more central planning than market mechanisms. What will they export that will keep up with the rest of the world given the stifling economic system and the fact that they were already behind in the technological race?

As for the military, in the USA military, science, education and infrastructure are more or less tied together, one workint towards the other and it shows! And i dont think that you can only export weapons if you have pictures with said weapons as you use them to liberate Berlin. Modern weapons development is more scence than fighting.
Sure, but that is a peculiarity of the US system of funding science that is a relic of WW2 and the Cold War. Most modern countries fund science not through military decision making, but through scientific offices. In the US science research funding is an afterthought compared to military driven research; luckily we have DARPA that doesn't just fixate on military needs per se, but right now the US system is starting to fall apart because of its refusal to properly fund civilian science and things like NASA. A far less wealthy and economically competitive Japan cannot expect to coast on its vast budget, especially with a problematic economic system/corporate structure, stifling governmental system, and divided military (with the army and navy running separate research programs, badly duplicating research and production and effectively leveraging the government for competing foreign policy).
 
Given the structure of their political system the tendency was to more central planning than market mechanisms. What will they export that will keep up with the rest of the world given the stifling economic system and the fact that they were already behind in the technological race?


Sure, but that is a peculiarity of the US system of funding science that is a relic of WW2 and the Cold War. Most modern countries fund science not through military decision making, but through scientific offices. In the US science research funding is an afterthought compared to military driven research; luckily we have DARPA that doesn't just fixate on military needs per se, but right now the US system is starting to fall apart because of its refusal to properly fund civilian science and things like NASA. A far less wealthy and economically competitive Japan cannot expect to coast on its vast budget, especially with a problematic economic system/corporate structure, stifling governmental system, and divided military (with the army and navy running separate research programs, badly duplicating research and production and effectively leveraging the government for competing foreign policy).

Both Sweden and Switzerland were a whole lot less advanced compared to their bigger neighbors (Germany, France, Britain) before the war, did dont get destroyed due to sitting it out and today they're doing fine, in fact better than most of the countries which did participate in the war. Why would Japan be immune to reforms while everyone else does so when needed? Even North korea under Kim the third is showing significant changes in how local economy works.
 
The basic idea of this thread is that Japan doesnt get into the war.



So you're saying that Japan would never ever reform its practices and become North Korea while in fact they clearly were interested in export of goods and growth of their economy? We'll have to disagree on that.

As for the military, in the USA military, science, education and infrastructure are more or less tied together, one workint towards the other and it shows! And i dont think that you can only export weapons if you have pictures with said weapons as you use them to liberate Berlin. Modern weapons development is more scence than fighting.

I didn't say that Japan would get into WWII (which would be hard to achieve in the first place).

But it's liable to get them involved in A war - and maybe multiple, if they aren't able to control it. Maybe a war with the Soviets (if they keep Manchuria), after which they would lose Manchuria.

Maybe a war with the US (later). Or China (later).
 
Both Sweden and Switzerland were a whole lot less advanced compared to their bigger neighbors (Germany, France, Britain) before the war, did dont get destroyed due to sitting it out and today they're doing fine, in fact better than most of the countries which did participate in the war. Why would Japan be immune to reforms while everyone else does so when needed? Even North korea under Kim the third is showing significant changes in how local economy works.

What I see here is just someone who is trying to wank Japan (not that it wasn't obvious in the first place). If you want to get Japan a super-powerful country, you might as well start wanking them in 1000 BCE, since that would be much easier.

In fact, right now, you seem to be claiming that Japan was extremely good in a lot of things. Second best navy, lots of industry... You might as well have an ISOT timeline, transporting Imperial Japan to 1000 BCE, if you want to have a wank like this.

By the way, Japan wouldn't be immune to reforms in the way that we know it. The Emperor might try some reforms, but the military will stop them. The problem is the military, despite all your claims to the contrary.
 

Deleted member 1487

Both Sweden and Switzerland were a whole lot less advanced compared to their bigger neighbors (Germany, France, Britain) before the war, did dont get destroyed due to sitting it out and today they're doing fine, in fact better than most of the countries which did participate in the war. Why would Japan be immune to reforms while everyone else does so when needed? Even North korea under Kim the third is showing significant changes in how local economy works.
They also were neutrals profiting off of their larger neighbor, especially Switzerland. They were technologically ahead of Japan in the areas that mattered to them and were specialized to service their local markets. Japan however was not really well positioned to do the same in the long run. I'm not saying Japan would implode due to its economy or be as bad as North Korea, but consider how poorly South Korea was doing economically until the 1970s until the US made a lot of investments in them; that is despite the North being far more destroyed during the Korean War and getting significantly less help than the South to rebuild. Japan needed export markets and they were too caught up on making their colonial system work in an era that saw the decline of overt imperialism. It was the loss of WW2 that caused Japan to fix its structural problems and unfortunately only a total collapse of its system would fix those.
 
What I see here is just someone who is trying to wank Japan (not that it wasn't obvious in the first place). If you want to get Japan a super-powerful country, you might as well start wanking them in 1000 BCE, since that would be much easier.

In fact, right now, you seem to be claiming that Japan was extremely good in a lot of things. Second best navy, lots of industry... You might as well have an ISOT timeline, transporting Imperial Japan to 1000 BCE, if you want to have a wank like this.

By the way, Japan wouldn't be immune to reforms in the way that we know it. The Emperor might try some reforms, but the military will stop them. The problem is the military, despite all your claims to the contrary.

Whoa, keep it down, we get it that you have a huuuuuge axe to grind. And there wont be wars because there WILL be a Japanese nuclear bomb, full stop, no more wars. I'm not wanking Japan, i dont need to because i only have to see the potential to become the second largest economy, which it was until 2008 or so, hell throughout most of the Cold War they had a larger economy than the Soviets, the official 2nd superpower because believe it or not industrialized/scientific nation + 130 million people = power.

i'm out before i catch fire through my laptops screen.

They also were neutrals profiting off of their larger neighbor, especially Switzerland. They were technologically ahead of Japan in the areas that mattered to them and were specialized to service their local markets. Japan however was not really well positioned to do the same in the long run. I'm not saying Japan would implode due to its economy or be as bad as North Korea, but consider how poorly South Korea was doing economically until the 1970s until the US made a lot of investments in them; that is despite the North being far more destroyed during the Korean War and getting significantly less help than the South to rebuild. Japan needed export markets and they were too caught up on making their colonial system work in an era that saw the decline of overt imperialism. It was the loss of WW2 that caused Japan to fix its structural problems and unfortunately only a total collapse of its system would fix those.

Without the war there's still China to trade with, they do so today too, they might hate each other but it doesnt keep them from working together to boost their respective economies and directly after the war in Europe in this scenario they can sell everything they like to Europe because Europe is destroyed and desperately needs everything it can get no matter where it comes from - the Soviets are not selling, they're buisy dismantling eastern european industry to bring it to Russia, Japan would be selling.

And i'm still not seeing a reason why Japan has to totally collapse to change while North Korea, the real life example of bat shit crazy country supposedly doesnt have to.
 

Deleted member 1487

And i'm still not seeing a reason why Japan has to totally collapse to change while North Korea, the real life example of bat shit crazy country supposedly doesnt have to.
Because they're in different situations. North Korea is propped up by holding South Korea's capital hostage with its artillery and extracting food aid to avoid collapse and a huge burden on South Korea's economy, while getting trade and aid from China so they don't burden China with collapse. Meanwhile they have all sorts of connections with international crime via illicit arms trade, counterfeiting currencies, drugs, slavery, etc.

Japan had elements of that pre-WW2 too, growing and selling opium in China at huge profits ($300million per year in 1940 dollars, i.e. over $3 billion today). Yes theoretically they could trade with China, but when China has the aid and support of the US and the US is outcompeting Japan in terms of trade in China then Japan's less advanced trade is far less interesting to China. Same with most of Asia/the Pacific. Also Japan is a lot bigger and less relatively resource rich than North Korea, so needs a lot more to survive on.
 
What I see here is just someone who is trying to wank Japan (not that it wasn't obvious in the first place). If you want to get Japan a super-powerful country, you might as well start wanking them in 1000 BCE, since that would be much easier.

In fact, right now, you seem to be claiming that Japan was extremely good in a lot of things. Second best navy, lots of industry... You might as well have an ISOT timeline, transporting Imperial Japan to 1000 BCE, if you want to have a wank like this.

By the way, Japan wouldn't be immune to reforms in the way that we know it. The Emperor might try some reforms, but the military will stop them. The problem is the military, despite all your claims to the contrary.

As the poster above me said, let's be realistic here and not get emotional. Personally i admire China greatly and what the people managed to do for their country through hard work and enormous sacrifices, despite some truly dark moments in it's history (just talking about the recent one). Mileage may vary, but looking at past history and especially chinese-japanese conflict and China under the KMT, they lost a huge amount of land to the japanese, they got defeated in battle countless times by much smaller forces, and the KMT got defeated by Mao in the end as well. The thing is to get a strong China like you describe, you need an iron hand at the top that keeps everything glued and strictly obeying the state and mobilizes the country in a particular direction (like economical/ military development). I can't see the KMT being that iron unifying hand, and i'm not sure if the KMT won't fall to the CCP even in this TL. Paradoxically, the japanese might help KMT to prevent that.

Btw regarding what you said about the nukes, maybe IJA and IJN had different programes but you can be sure that as soon as they find out the americans have it will become a matter of survival. They will do whatever it takes to get the nuke asap. Of course, i fully expect the services to use different plaforms for it, first bombers, then IRBMs, ships, subs, ICBMs etc. and an intense rivalry as to who gets the bigger slice (just like the USN and USAAF rivalry back in the day).
 
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