Would WW II Have Gone Differently if the U.S. wasn't attacked first

Would WWII have gone differently if in 1941:
  1. Japan had already invaded China;
  2. The U.S. had already put its embargo of raw materials on Japan, triggering Japanese search for alternative sources of oil and minerals; BUT
  3. Japan understood that it could not militarily defeat the United States.
Assume that:
  1. On December 7, 1941 Japan launches its war of conquest in the Pacific Islands;
  2. Indonesia (Dutch East Indies), Singapore and Malaya, all British and Dutch territories are conquered;
  3. American territories Hawaii, the Philippines, and Guam are completely left alone;
  4. The Japanese don't molest American ships or bases.
How does the war go from here?
  1. Does America come to Britain's aid, or do we remain isolationist?
  2. Does Japan keep their new empire?
In other words, how would the world look different?
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
Questions:

1. The US wasn't isolationist in 1941; Lend Lease was passed in March, 1941 for Britain and the British Empire, and extended to the USSR and the other Allied nations during the course of the year; likewise, the US had enacted the first peacetime draft in its history in 1940, had deployed US troops overseas onto foreign territory (the British western hemisphere colonies, Greenland, Iceland, etc.), and was actively engaged in an undeclared shooting war with Nazi Germany in the North Atlantic in 1940-41. The US was in the middle of setting up what amounted to US auxiliary forces (the Flying Tigers, for example) to support the Chinese military, and certainly could have enacted similar policies to provide additional direct support to the Allies, including - for example - extending escort of convoy from the mid-Atlantic all the way to the UK. As it was, one of the largest US Navy task forces at sea in December, 1941 was actually covering the movement of a British Army infantry division - in USN troop transports - from the North Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.
2. No.
 
The rational idea, if not quite consensus, on this forum for "Hitler doesn't declare war on America in late '41" has long been, Come At Our Rapidly Escalated USN/Coast Guard Atlantic Convoy Escort Strategy, Karl.

But Japan decides to try and limit it's new found aggression to the European empires?

If this somehow happened, I think America simply decides to force the issue on unimpeded access for arming Nationalist China via the sea lanes and Burma Road.
 
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