glenn239 wrote: ↑27 Jun 2022, 19:10
Gooner1 wrote: ↑27 Jun 2022, 13:59
Any Japanese southern strategy that doesn't involve taking the Phillipines is one that effectively puts their head in a noose.
The only viable end state for Japan in this period is to emerge in an alliance with the United States. This can be done the historical way, or it can go ahistorically, but the end state
will be Japan in the US orbit. The main question on the merits of attacking the USSR is whether or not for Japan it will make the inevitable transition into the US orbit with less damage to Japan or not.
From that there are two cases, the first where a German-Japanese attack on the USSR is so successful that D-Day does not occur until at least 1945. The second case is that, whatever the results in Europe, that the Soviets defeat the Japanese and start rolling forward into Korea and China. I submit that
both of these scenarios would leave Japan with more opportunities to transition into the US orbit more smoothly than did the historical case. The first for American fear of Germany, the second for American fear of Russian hegemony in Asia.
Not true. Japan, by avoiding war--
Avoiding war could have occurred if the nation's leadership had put more of a smackdown on the army. The whole problem that got Japan where they ended up was the army's leadership had a mindset that they could do no wrong, could win any battle. That meant that no matter how well they did in China if they didn't entirely defeat that nation, they hadn't won and couldn't stop.
Let's assume for a moment that somehow Japan's leadership in a moment of clarity moderates itself. It backs off in China holding what was taken, maybe even ceding some land back. Instead, the focus becomes increasing control over the areas Japan already has. That is, they expand and intensify their "Japanification" efforts in Korea, Manchukuo, etc., to make them thoroughly part of Japan itself.
Sure, this is racist as hell but at the time nobody would have blinked an eye at Japan doing it.
They gain considerable natural resources from the part of China they hold. They have a much larger nation with a much larger population. In the long run, they become enough of an economic powerhouse that they can stand as a business rival of the US and gain equal footing on the world stage.
In such a setting, a postwar Japan becomes a broker between Asia and the Soviet Union. They can play both sides to their advantage. They also loom as a counterweight to China becoming Communist.