alternatehistory.com

Some time in the 1930s, someone in the Japanese government makes an analysis similar to the one quoted below, and is listed to:

Zero probability event.

I think that Jonathan Parshall posted the best analysis of the economic issue available online here:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm


A couple highlights

The United States had:

Nearly twice the population of Japan.
Seventeen time's Japan's national income.
Five times more steel production.
Seven times more coal production.
Eighty (80) times the automobile production.

That's BEFORE the war

Overall the United States had almost 42% of the total industrial warmaking potential of the entire world, Japan had 2.5%

As a result, Japan's foreign policy towards the US in the late thirties and after can be summud up as 'Let Sleeping Giants Lie'. Don't give the Americans a reason to go to war, and if someone else does, make sure Japan is seen as either neutral, or an ally.

So, what effect does this have on WWII? Personally, I could see the European from still happening. Hitler was a megalomaniac, and Churchil and Roosevelt were just ruthless enough to create a casus belli that could be reliably blamed on Germany.
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