WI: More extensive investment in Philippines defense in 1930s?

... so perhaps a decision by the civil authorities earlier to build up more airstrips for domestic commerce would be the way forwards. Given the limited roads and rail this is a plausible scenario, perhaps the goal is a more efficient poastal system.

Differing requirements, but if there is a subsidy to the civil airfields are built to accommodate military aircraft as well then yes.
 
Next, the Army had about 500 M1902, M1904 and M1905 3" field guns that were in a chambering that was obsolete, not even used for training by the '20s

there was no more ammunition for the 3" gun by the early 1930's....the gun that fired the last 3" round is in the Fort Sill museum with a memorial plaque on it....
 
I found your post most informative generally and wonder if in particular that book or any other turned up a blue sky study in which some US military person undertook to estimate what level of force would be needed to blunt and throw back any possible Japanese assault. As I argued, and correct this if wrong, some finite level should be adequate if Hitler could not invade Britain for instance, as we all agree he could not. Of course logistics matters a great deal, Britain could produce its own munitions as needed provided vital inputs could be imported fast enough; PI could not, so stockpiles on hand would have to be multiplied to cover depletion until new supplies could be brought in. Planners could not count on Australia as a source, but in hindsight we see they could have.

The point is to get a dollar price tag, to compare with the overall Army-Navy budget, to get a sense of scale.

...Second, the Philippines could become independent in 1898 in a Cuba-like relationship with the United States. This regime would probably build up its own army and perhaps its own domestic weapons industry, and might be able to put up a more credible defense of the islands than the United States Army could. That might change the attitude of the Navy towards the probability of the Philippines falling.

Liking this as I do takes us far off OP topic, since OP assumes PI remain an American possession when Pearl Harbor day comes. But indeed this I think would have been the moral and ethical thing for us to do, and also quite pragmatic. Why go to the expense of subjugating a bunch of unwilling people when a modest treaty lease gets you the forward base so lusted after by American students of Mahan and imperialists generally? Indeed by refraining from gross imperialism and relying on informal hegemony one can politically rope in people with moral qualms about imperialism, but who do recognize the value of a forward military presence in a crucial reason to assert and protect legitimate American interests. Meanwhile recognizing the grassroots Philippine independence movement and its republican, US influenced government leverages the good feeling of people we could unambiguously claim as allies, sidesteps the knotty legalisms parading before SCOTUS OTL in the Insular Cases. Pragmatically, the Filipinos being obligated to defend themselves means as you suggest here a stronger interest in achieving it, yet they also benefit from being under the US deterrence umbrella. So many people say "ah, if we hadn't taken them the Germans or Japanese or British would have!" PI all alone and ignored is one thing...PI with a leased USN base in Manila Harbor is quite something else. We could not cite the Monroe Doctrine but in effect PI would be covered by it due to our strategic interest, and any aggressive power would have to reckon with the likelihood of the USA going to war against them if they tried anything hinky. We get the base, we get the benefit of Filipino self defense, the Filipinos benefit from American deterrence.

So much better and wiser than the course of action we took OTL.

And the OP scenario would be different, but not unrecognizable. US spending would be not on the PI in general but just on our base, and we'd have avoided the fiscal, life and moral cost of the repression of insurgency. We could expect similar outcomes in general, therefore PI at risk of Japanese invasion and it being a problem for Filipinos. They'd come to us asking for help, and as someone upthread suggested, saying "get serious or get out." Later in the 30's the idea of giving money to the Filipinos outright to enable them to purchase US manufactured arms and other defense assets, to arm themselves, might go over pretty well considering 1) their defense protects our asset and 2) they might not be party to treaties tying our hands. We might be limited in what upgrades we could make to our base, but the Filipinos might have quite a free hand. Then the time comes when the treaties are clearly broken.

Logistical problems remain. But the Japanese political line of being about liberating Asia for Asians would be weak in the PI where the USA preempted them almost half a century before.
 
I found your post most informative generally and wonder if in particular that book or any other turned up a blue sky study in which some US military person undertook to estimate what level of force would be needed to blunt and throw back any possible Japanese assault.
A number, in fact, for various contingencies and possibilities. One of them, for instance, was for a favored base location by certain persons at the time (shortly after the Spanish-American War) and came to the conclusion that an immense force would be needed to keep invaders from being able to shell ships at dock. In all cases, however, the levels were far too high to be sustained given realistic budgets. Whether this was to some degree sandbagging by the Navy I leave to you to decide.

Planners could not count on Australia as a source, but in hindsight we see they could have.
Not really, because the Japanese Navy could get in behind, as it were, and cut off the Philippines from points to its south. They were really in quite a bad location for defense.
 
there was no more ammunition for the 3" gun by the early 1930's....the gun that fired the last 3" round is in the Fort Sill museum with a memorial plaque on it....

Yet OTL the Philippine Army had 3 dozen of those old field guns in active service, plus M1903 at Fort Wint, Fort Frank, plus a couple on Ford Drum plus other Forts around Subic bay, with the Coastal Artillery.
 
Why go to the expense of subjugating a bunch of unwilling people when a modest treaty lease gets you the forward base so lusted after by American students of Mahan and imperialists generally?

Partly, I believe it was due to the ongoing insurrection which was on a strict independence bent that desired no ties to any great power. In this case, it's poor timing for the war. If the US invades before the 2nd Republic rebels from Spanish control in the first place, then you could potentially have a scenario where the US sets up the Philippines in the scenario that you suggested, with a 10 year occupation to stabilize and turning over the new government by 1909 or so... with plenty of leases and such set up.
 
The relaity was that had the USA turned over the PI to the independence folks, at best you would have seen a very weak PI. It is also likely that the PI would have split along ethno/religious lines. In any case there is no way an independent PI could have defended itself against Japan, so you are still dependent on an outside power (USA, UK, etc) to do the heavy lifting. The USA until WWII basically had no significant bases NOT in US territory, so having a naval base in the PI would be out of character. Furthermore if the USA was unwilling to spend money and effort on PI military and defense when it was a US possession because of impending independence, do you think the USA would be more generous with an independent PI. Prior to the post WWII period there was no US military assistance program of any size, and the PI was not going to have the money to buy goodies. For better or worse druing the 1898-1941 period the PI got a lot of infrastructure both hard facilities and soft stuff like a public health system basically at US expense. If an independent PI has to pay for all that itself, not much left over for ships, guns, aircraft...

Of course a neutral independent PI means no threat to Japanese supplies comong to the home islands from the DEI/SEA, so no need for PH.
 
Suppose that after the Panay and Nanking incidents and seeing what was going on in Munich in late '38, the Army and Navy got together (truce, I suppose) and decided to do a little brainstorming on how to help Plan Orange along when (not IF) it was needed. The more Navy-Marine-centric Pacific team gets a little squirrelly on the Army's contribution, and decides to go down the path of involving more Colored combat formations, specially overseas. Sometime in mid '39, the 9th and 10th Cavalry Rgts are rotated to the PI, greeted by the Scouts, and given an intense tour of the terrain features of Luzon. They then train, with the Scouts, to become something of an "OPFOR" type unit, simulating an invading force, call themselves the "Pajanese", maybe. Existing white non-coastal defense formations train against them, rotate back to CONUS and are replaced by newly raised units that train against the Paj. Additional Colored units are raised in the US, they rotate to the PI, train, replace some of the prior deployed battalions, who rotate back to the US to serve as cadre for standing up a new formation, call it the 2nd Cavalry Division. Some of these units of 2nd Cav are deployed piecemeal to seemingly backwater Pacific locations where they replace/eliminate the need for the Marine Defense Battalions, allowing those units to train in the PI against the accursed Paj before returning to the US to cadre new Marine formations. 2nd Cav replaces the rotated units, yadda, yadda, yadda, lather, rinse, repeat. You get the idea.

Hopefully, you can get in a few iterations of this before the manure contacts the rotary air mover, allowing a PI defense that's about the same size as in real life, but, much batter trained, and, reinforced by a roughly division size former OPFOR outfit. I know, I know, won't work if Mac's around...so have him fallen off a horse and kicked in the head when he's out showing off with the new guys. The horseshoe lobotomy works so well that he sneaks out of the hospital one day while in the grasp of a major delusion, wanders into the hills, and is never seen again (CONUS hospital to boot)...happy now? The invading Japanese are severely frustrated by the defensive prowess of all the PI's defenders, but really hate facing the "Night Fighters". Stories get back to the US as the invaders are stung by the occasional defeat and the pain of a large number of Pyrrhic victories; Eleanor Roosevelt goes into high gear...

Whoops, how'd I miss that...need to say this makes a start on 2 problems; stiffens the defense of the PI, and, advances the effective utilization of non-whites in combat arms. There...
 
If an independent PI has to pay for all that itself, not much left over for ships, guns, aircraft...
My assumption is that an independent Philippines would be similar to the Caribbean and Central American states which the United States influenced in the same time period, and hence would be placing a fairly high priority on a military force for self-defense and suppression of internal unrest. This is likely to mean a relatively low level of spending on internal development, yes, again very much like those Caribbean and Central American states.
 
The problem with the PI arming itself, compared to the Central American and Caribbean states is the geography both internal and external of the PI, and the potential external threat it faces. while the states of the Western Hemisphere at most had to worry about an immediate neighbor who was pretty much in the same class as they were, and protection from a significant power was via the USA right next door, the PI has to worry about Japan. Furthermore the PI, especially if independent much earlier than OTL has very little industry to support arms, so almost all must be purchased, and the PI does not have domestic petroleum or major mineral deposits and while self sufficient for agriculture would be import dependent to support significant arms manufacturing. Even ignoring internal development, and some is necessary and can't be ignored, the PI can't afford to have a military that can put up any real defense against Japan by itself.
 

Driftless

Donor
Plus, as a startup in self-defense, what areas would the Philippine government defend? The old adage of "If you defend everything, you defend nothing" comes into play; especially for a nation composed of several thousand islands spread over 100,000+ square miles.
 
Plus, as a startup in self-defense, what areas would the Philippine government defend? The old adage of "If you defend everything, you defend nothing" comes into play; especially for a nation composed of several thousand islands spread over 100,000+ square miles.

Luzon is pretty much it. The US had started preparing some defense of Mindanao, but the War Plan revolved around Luzon.
 

Driftless

Donor
Luzon is pretty much it. The US had started preparing some defense of Mindanao, but the War Plan revolved around Luzon.

Which circles back to the idea that it was really hard for either the US or a European power to defend the whole chain. Japan in the first half of the 20th Century maybe, modern China maybe?
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
I really, really encourage you to read the book War Plan Orange by Edward S. Miller, who gives a much lengthier and more thorough explanation of American strategy in the Pacific than I possibly can here, including information about the (non-)defense of the Philippines. However, I will note that several of your assumptions here are incorrect:
  • Naval planners had assumed that Japan would be the most likely enemy of the United States in the Pacific pretty much since 1898. By the 1920s, planning for a war between the United States and Japan was in fact well advanced.
  • The Philippines were written off not in the 1930s, but pretty much as soon as they were acquired (curiously enough), at least by the Navy (this bit is crucial!). In this respect, the 1920s stand out as a brief aberration where the Navy signed up with Army plans for defending the islands. Otherwise, though, it was always the Navy that was skeptical and the Army that was optimistic about the prospect.
The really fundamental issues with defending the Philippines were that it was a long ways away from all of the major fleet bases and production centers of the United States, and very close to the fleet bases and production centers of Japan--while, moreover, Japan controlled the Caroline and Marianas Islands (aside from Guam, of course) and therefore possessed many bases astride the most obvious line of advance from American bases in California to those in the Philippines. What this meant was that moving the fleet forward to the Philippines and trying to fight the Japanese there meant fighting them where they were strong and the United States was weak, an untenable and losing situation. So the Navy recognized that the Philippines and Guam simply could not reasonably be defended. Putting the fleet there ahead of war would be both provocative and likely to end up with the fleet shattered; leaving it in San Diego or Hawaii meant that a barrier of Japanese-controlled bases barred it from reaching the Philippines quickly enough to keep it from falling. No way to win.

I can see a couple of factors that could change this, but they're pre-1900 technically. First, the United States could get the Pacific islands of Spain after the Spanish-American war instead of leaving them for Spain to sell to Germany. This would turn virtually all of the Japanese bases in the entire Pacific into American bases, and mean that it would be much more plausible for the United States Navy to sail to the Philippines in relative safety and thence conduct a defense of the islands. Instead of facing the prospect of air and submarine attacks on that route, American aircraft and submarines would now be detecting and harassing any Japanese ships attempting to interfere with the fleet or its logistics train. Second, the Philippines could become independent in 1898 in a Cuba-like relationship with the United States. This regime would probably build up its own army and perhaps its own domestic weapons industry, and might be able to put up a more credible defense of the islands than the United States Army could. That might change the attitude of the Navy towards the probability of the Philippines falling.

I think there are some opportunities to shore up defensibility even in the 20th century. Yes, ideally the US would have gotten Spanish Micronesia along with the PI in the 1800s. But if not, the US may be able to buy those islands off of Germany later. For instance, after the European arms race switches back from sea to land in 1911-1912, Germany might be ready to sell if the US makes a decent offer. Alternatively the US could make the offer right as Britain declares war in WWI which makes them indefensible from the German POV. If the sale can be concluded and publicly announced in the first few weeks of the war, that could preempt the Japanese invasion and takeover of those same islands.
 
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