WI:The Japanese only declared war on Britain and the Netherlands?

raharris1973

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The same geographic logic that made it a "must" to attack the PI

...would have mandated an attack on the Soviet Far East as well, but the Japanese military rationalized not doing so.

The Philippines were indeed adjacent to the shipping lanes carrying oil and other supplies from Southeast Asia, but US forces in the Philippines were limited, far from reinforcement, and not capable of impeding Japanese attacks on European colonies. Relatively minor re-routing, for instance, running most South China sea shipping through the Taiwan Straits instead of the Luzon straits, could protect Japanese shipping pretty well in the early forties.

The Soviet Far East was even more proximate to the Soviet homeland, and more chock full of hazardous Soviet ground, air and naval forces than the Philippines was. If US air power or subs in the Philippines were an unacceptable threat, than consider the threat of Soviet airpower against shipping between Korea and Japan. While these lanes were not Japan's oil lifeline, they were its lifeline for troop redeployment from the home islands and imports of foodstuffs and metals from Northeast Asia. The geography of the Soviet position posed a greater threat of bombardment of the Japanese homeland, or interference with Japanese forces in Asia, than the relatively small capability the US had in the Philippines.

Soviet Far East and Japanese Shipping Lanes.jpg
 

CalBear

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This always proceeds from three false assumptions every time it comes up

1. The U.S. was utterly isolationist.

Not True. The U.S. had a very strong minority that didn't want to get caught up in Europe again. Once had been, the thinking went, enough. Hitler managed to alter that bit by bit. After the Fall of France, Isolationism, even from Europe, was not a growth industry

The Pacific was also a very different matter than Europe. Japan was not well thought of (and yes, racism was very much a factor) nd its depredations in China were highly publicized by elements on the U.S., including the sovial media of its day, Movietone News(that pretty much everyone saw when they paid their nickel to go to a movie).

2. Japan understood American politics.

Imperial Japan's leadership was totally befuddled by the American political system. The leaders believed that FDR could literally do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to do it. The very idea that Congress could prevent him from going after Japan if the mood struck him was alien, even after previous Ambassadors to the U.S. and senior officers tried to exp;ain the system of checks and balances.

If the understood anything at all about the U.S. political system it was that the Government had publicly announced plans to build 7 Battleships (in addition to the 10 BRAND NEW ships already either in commission, under construction, or already approved), 6 battle cruisers, 18 aircraft carriers, 27 cruisers, 115 destroyers, and 43 submarines, along with $50 million of other escort and supports vessels. The Japanese didn't take long to realize that sort of fleet wasn't needed in the Atlantic. It was aimed at one country, and that nation-state wasn't located on the European Plain.

3. Japan could take the risk of ignoring the threat posed by the Pacific Fleet, Wake, Guam and the Philippines.


They could not. The most important factors when planning combat operations is accepting that the enemy is at least as capable as you are, and that his forces represent a threat. You them plan around those two basics. You ALWAYS honor the threat.

Wake was being upgraded as a B-17 Base, with range to reach the Marshall Islands, Guam was, finally, receiving upgrades that would allow it to threaten the Mandates. Clark Field and Subic Bay were perfectly located to cut Japan off, not just from the DEI, but from the South China Sea completely. Combined the U.S. was positioned to dominate the Pacific with air power from the coast of China to San Francisco and Panama, and had, everyone (on all sides) believed, the perfect weapon to use that position in the B-17.

Not honoring the threat presented by the U.S. against Japanese plans would have been beyond foolhardy.
 
Why do some people seem to think the US politcians and public circa 1941 were idiots? That they would have watched a hostile power gobble up the whole Pacific and just shrug because they hadn't directly attacked the USA? ....

That fairly well sums up a lot of details concerning US politics and social attitudes in late 1941.
 
...would have mandated an attack on the Soviet Far East as well, but the Japanese military rationalized not doing so.

Isn't there the slight difference that the Soviet Union was fighting *for its life* against Germany, and that anyone could therefore reasonably conclude that it would not want to go to war with Japan?
 
...would have mandated an attack on the Soviet Far East as well, but the Japanese military rationalized not doing so.

No they didn't. They saw the Soviets as the main enemy but had got their asses handed to them in the last confrontation and so judged that if they were going to make a second go of it they needed an advantage and prep time, something they couldn't manage in the timeframe the oil embargo left them.
 
The Soviet Far East was even more proximate to the Soviet homeland, and more chock full of hazardous Soviet ground, air and naval forces than the Philippines was.

Your post is accurate up until here, at which point it becomes completely wrong and illustrates the opposite of the actual situation. The VVS was geared for tactical support of the ground forces, not shipping interdiction. The Soviet Pacific Fleet may have been a formidable force against, say, China... but against the IJN it was an absolute joke. That only left Soviet ground forces which indeed had proven themselves able to kick Japan's ass. But the Red Army was committed to a life-and-death struggle far to the west and those forces left in the Far East were there to stop a Japanese invasion rather then to drive into Manchuria.

Furthermore, an attack on the Soviet Far East does absolutely nothing to improve Japan's resource situation. The major Soviet centers of natural resources at the time are across thousands of kilometers of Siberian wasteland that the Japanese have roughly a snowball-in-hells chance of fighting their way across even if they were not faced with completely running out of oil and other raw materials in less then a years time.

So while Soviet geography may have put it in an ideal place to threaten Japan's shipping lanes and homeland, Soviet forces do not. Thus in the final analysis, the Japanese gain nothing and lose everything by attacking the Soviets. At least by heading south, they gain oil and rubber for a brief period before losing everything.
 

CalBear

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...would have mandated an attack on the Soviet Far East as well, but the Japanese military rationalized not doing so.

The Philippines were indeed adjacent to the shipping lanes carrying oil and other supplies from Southeast Asia, but US forces in the Philippines were limited, far from reinforcement, and not capable of impeding Japanese attacks on European colonies. Relatively minor re-routing, for instance, running most South China sea shipping through the Taiwan Straits instead of the Luzon straits, could protect Japanese shipping pretty well in the early forties.

The Soviet Far East was even more proximate to the Soviet homeland, and more chock full of hazardous Soviet ground, air and naval forces than the Philippines was. If US air power or subs in the Philippines were an unacceptable threat, than consider the threat of Soviet airpower against shipping between Korea and Japan. While these lanes were not Japan's oil lifeline, they were its lifeline for troop redeployment from the home islands and imports of foodstuffs and metals from Northeast Asia. The geography of the Soviet position posed a greater threat of bombardment of the Japanese homeland, or interference with Japanese forces in Asia, than the relatively small capability the US had in the Philippines.

Well this would be correct, IF JAPAN WAS ATTACKING THE USSR. If the USSR was already engaged in a full embargo of Japanese goods, refused as a matter of course to allow sale of any "war materials" to Japan, and had frozen virtually ALL of Imperial Japan's international exchange currency, the Soviet military might also have been more of a consideration.

Since they were not, and since both countries had bigger fish to fry, the logic here sort of escapes me.
 

CalBear

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No, it doesn't. There's a reason you see so much anti-isolationist propaganda at this time, and it's not because a minority of the people or politicians felt that way.

It is EXACTLY because a minority felt that way. You needed 64 votes (2/3 of the Senators voting) in the Senate to cut off debate or move things to the floor between 1927 and the mid 1960s all eleven attempts to stop filibusters failed. In 1975 the Senate (at the time 61 Democrats +1 independent who caucused with the Democrats) reduced the requirement to 3/5 of those voting.

Same as today, a minority of the Senate could stop things cold, and frequently did. The only difference was that the minority could be even smaller than today.
 
The question would be if the declaration of war can still pass at congress if Japan bypass the USA and no attack happens like Pearl Harbor.
 
It is EXACTLY because a minority felt that way. You needed 64 votes (2/3 of the Senators voting) in the Senate to cut off debate or move things to the floor between 1927 and the mid 1960s all eleven attempts to stop filibusters failed. In 1975 the Senate (at the time 61 Democrats +1 independent who caucused with the Democrats) reduced the requirement to 3/5 of those voting.

Same as today, a minority of the Senate could stop things cold, and frequently did. The only difference was that the minority could be even smaller than today.

Perhaps you're misunderstanding what I was saying. On the eve of war, in November 1941, Americans seemed to have supported going to war. They were not in the minority.
 
A look at the Gallup Polls for that year might reveal something about voter attitudes. Tracking the polls from early 1941 through October or November could show if there was a trend towards acceptance of war. Terry Stibal did a study on those. Maybe he can provide me with some web links.
 
So no Pearl Harbor,but the Japanese only declares war on Britain and the Netherlands,will the US still intervene given the strength of isolationists?And how will things turn out if there's no intervention from the US?

It's chick to second guess Japanese militarists on everything because they made so many stupid decisions, but this was not one of them.

The NEI participated in the oil embargo on Japan by the request of the United States. It is not realistic, IMO, to imagine that after US prestige had become directly engaged by organizing said embargo, that it would be possible for Japan to skirt the embargo by invading a participating nation, thereby humiliating the United States.
 
A look at the Gallup Polls for that year might reveal something about voter attitudes. Tracking the polls from early 1941 through October or November could show if there was a trend towards acceptance of war. Terry Stibal did a study on those. Maybe he can provide me with some web links.

Which would depend on how it is worded.

Wanting a war is different from expecting a war. Fighting Germany is different from fighting Japan. etc, etc.

If the Japanese package it as Asian liberation from the British and the Dutch how will the public react to it without Japan attacking USA?

Then you got an issue of margin of error. If the survey was done unscientifically which makes that survey not representative of the public wants.
 
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Given that there's no Pearl Harbor,would the US navy actually be much more vulnerable given they would have still believed battleships still being the key to naval battles?

As opposed to Japan believing...what exactly? The idea Japan saw carriers as the war winners is not correct, Japan (including the much vaunted Yamamoto) thought battleships were the war winners as well.

What's more...frankly the United States could afford to lose its entire fleet in an opening battle. Its cold-blooded and kind of sick to think about, but if it comes down to it and the United States loses every ship in the entire USN as it stood in 1941 and Japan "only" loses say one-third of their forces the US came out on top in the long-run. Why? Because it doesn't matter. In two years the USN will have numerical superiority, even assuming Japan doesn't lose anymore ships. In three years that superiority will have turned to overwhelming numbers, again assuming Japan doesn't lose anymore ships.
 
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