Japanese Invasion of America?

I’ve been doing some thinking about potential Japanese invasion scenarios. If you’re invading a small island, you can load some soldiers up onto transports, travel a very long distance, and know that when you arrive your combined land/air/sea force should be strong enough to overcome the forces on the island. But invading a mainland is different. The number of soldiers you can fit on your transports is likely to be much smaller than the number of enemy soldiers on the mainland. You don’t really have the option of dropping off one batch of your soldiers, sailing a long distance to your homeland, picking up another batch, and using the second batch to support the first. If you tried that, your first batch would be wiped out before the second could arrive to support it.

To solve this problem, you need a base for the invasion near the place you’re going to invade. That way your transports can make a lot of back-and-forth trips quickly so that your invasion force will grow large enough to resist the enemy’s mainland force.

The most logical invasion route for the Japanese to have used would have consisted of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. During the real war, Japan took one or two of the Aleutian Islands. The Aleutian Islands are position in a nice, long chain–a chain which seems to reach out from Alaska toward Russia and northern Japan.

Suppose that on December 7th - 8th of 1941, Japan had followed up its first two air attacks against Pearl Harbor with a third air attack. (As a good naval commander would have done.) Also under this scenario, Japan would have used its powerful surface fleet to have bombarded Pearl Harbor’s facilities. Then it could have sank the heart of the U.S. carrier fleet in the scenario Clyde described. These activities would have been intended to render both the U.S. Pacific fleet and the naval base at Pearl as impotent as possible, as quickly as possible.

After these tasks were finished, a large portion of the Imperial Japanese Navy would have headed north, to begin an island hopping campaign through the Aleutians. December or January may not seem like a great time of year to begin an invasion of Alaska. However, coastal Alaskan weather tends to be considerably milder than inland Alaskan weather. Coastal Alaskan weather is like Seattle’s weather, except with colder rain.

This island hopping scenario was well within Japan’s capabilities, especially under the favorable naval scenario outlined by Clyde. Within a few months of the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan could have taken possession of whichever of the Aleutian Islands are closest to the Alaskan mainland. That island could have served as a base for the invasion force.

At this point, it could be pointed out that Japan’s ability to transport a large invading force across a body of water in 1941 was considerably smaller than the U.S. and Britain would have for the D-Day invasion of 1944. In addition, it would not surprise me if the Aleutian island in question was farther away from the mainland than Britain is from Normandy. However, there are several factors which would offset this. As Clyde has pointed out, the U.S. Army was not very well-prepared for war in early '42. Witness, for example, the early embarrassments it experienced in its Algerian invasion. Had General Patton not subsequently been given command, that situation could have spiraled out of control.

Another offsetting factor was that the portion of the Alaskan coast vulnerable to invasion was much, much larger than the Normandy/Calais area Germany had to defend. Also, Japan had a very strong surface fleet, including the most powerful battleships ever built. American land forces could be bombarded along a wide stretch of Alaskan coast, and could also be subjected to air attacks from carrier-based planes. Given enough time, the Japanese could also construct airfields on the Aleutian islands they’d captured.

All of this might–might!–be enough to allow Japan to land an invading force in mainland Alaska, and not have that force get instantly pushed back into the sea. In late '41, Japan’s planes and pilots were often better than their American counterparts; giving Japan a very fleeting air superiority. I say fleeting because the U.S. very quickly improved its aircraft designs, and used its overwhelming industrial advantage to heavily outproduce Japan. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the U.S. had ten times the industrial capacity of Japan! During WWII, Japan gradually reduced that margin of superiority by industrializing itself. Nevertheless, in any long war between the U.S. and Japan, there could be only one outcome.

Presumably, the objective of the Japanese Army would be to move southward along the Pacific coast until it had reached the Mexican border. The Imperial Japanese Navy could intervene as necessary, delivering reinforcements and supplies where needed, while also shelling American positions. But it is a very long way from Alaska to Mexico, and the Japanese Army would have to contend with its American and Canadian counterparts along the way. A conquest like this would take time, even if it could be accomplished at all. (Which is highly doubtful.) Even if the invading force somehow reached Mexico, the heart of America’s war making and industrial capacity would remain intact. The next phase would involve a massive push eastward. The West Coast would be the starting line for the push, and the Atlantic would be the finish line. However, it is highly doubtful that the Japanese Army had the strength for such a massive undertaking.

Since we’re painting a best-case scenario for Japan anyway, I’ll borrow an idea from Herr Kaleun. Suppose that in the wake of the U.S. oil embargo, the Japanese ambassador to Mexico had begun achieving brilliant successes. Suppose he’d persuaded the Mexican government to begin arming itself in preparation for a future hypothetical war against the U.S. Presumably, Mexico would initially sit on the sidelines. But the more successes Japan’s Alaskan invasion achieved, the more likely Mexico would (presumably) be to enter the war. The Japanese ambassador could instill a sense of urgency with comments like, “the sooner you enter the war, the greater your rewards will be.”

My sense is that if these things were to have occurred, the Japanese Army would have been stopped partway through Canada via a joint U.S./Canadian effort. Mexico’s invasion would likely have fizzled out after a few relatively small initial victories. Things would be stagnant for a while, after which the U.S. would use its overwhelming advantage in industrial capacity to push back. The main effect of the Alaskan invasion would be that the U.S. would be sidetracked from its Kill Germany First strategy in order to deal with all this. That distraction element would probably have postponed Allied victory in Europe by a few months, or perhaps even a year.

And Kurt you have essentially touched on part of what I was going for, you are quite smart  :-)

Yes, phase 2 of Japans plan is to capture chunks of the Alaskan coast line in the early months of 1942, taking the aleutians first and then moving and seizing Dutch Harbor on the tip on the penisula near the aleutians. Using this as a spring board Japanese forces would then move capture Anchorage and Juneau. US forces in this region are limited and spread out while the Japanese forces can be concentrated with total naval and air superiority. Also, the highly toted US infrastructure wouldnt have factored in as Alaska was very under-developed at this time, unlike the rest of the US. Also just to make clear, the Japanese arent pushing inland and trying to capture and occupy the entirety of Alaska, but rather create a number of enclaves along the coast from which to stage a landing force into the mainland US.
   Another thing to mention, while the US did have a number of superior aircraft designs and other new technologies ready to go, the creation and production of these things has been drasticaly delayed. The Combined fleet has a(relatively) free run of the west coast and after showing up off the coast of L.A. and San Diego one day and bombarding a few facilities (doing minimal damage but ensuing a panic and a massive air battle which caused a worrying number of casualties to the first air fleet) all the firms on the west coast developing these technologies were moved, by goverment order, to new facilities.
  This means firms like Consolidated Vultee, Lockheed, Douglas, North American Aviatio, Northrop, Martin Bell, Curtis, Republic, Grumman and Boeing would be dismantled and moved from the west coast to Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, with full operation being restored with in a year. In the hasitly packed up and cleared offices, drawing boards were cleared and blue prints stashed away along with tools, jigs, and wind tunnel models. This was going to have a serious effect on the production of the new and improved aircraft. The P-51A would not recieve the engine design it needed and P-38 would continue to suffer from mechanical problems. The B-17 and B-24 would have to restart production in Kansas and be avaliable in only limited numbers for a while, while the XB-29 design (that would eventually become the B-29) would spend almost a year as a desing on blueprints before being brought back out of storage. Also, the Republic P-47 would have become the main US interceptor and escort aircraft for the remainder of the war. While great at high altitudes and attacking from a dive, it lacked the manouverability and turning speed of it main opponent, the Zero.
    On the other fronts in the Pacific, the allies arent looking much better. Japan has taken over the Philipines with the survivors of corregidor being put through the bataan death march. Midway, and other smaller atolls in the pacific, have also fallen to the Japanese. With Japanese wolf-packs bringing everything but coastal shipping to a stop, the allies arent recieving the essiential lend-lease equipment they need. While the Australians are able to provide for home defense and are dug in around Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea they are able to do little else. However Japan has made no offensive moves in the south-west pacific outside of the odd submarine attack. The British have been thrown out of Burma all together and the supply route to China has been cut. The lack of US forces in the region means that China is currently getting NO supplies from the outside world, greatly weakening Chinese forces ability to resist. Already the famous Flying Tigers must ration out their remaining fuel, limiting their operational effectiveness.  Knowing that Japans main offensive attention is focused at the continental US, the British are relatively sure Japan cant threaten India, but a tense situation remains along the Indo-Burmese border. With their defeat at Singapore Britian suffered a major military defeat (largest in their history) and are desprate to hold India. Churchill has struck a deal with the INC (Indian National Congress) party, promising independence in exchange for internal stability, but the situation in India remains as tense as the situation along the border. The lack of resources avaliable to Japanese forces in thess theaters are doing more to hamper their progress then the allied forces arayed against them. Currently Japan is involved in the very slow process of absorbing the Duth East Indies. The sheer vastness of the area tasked for the limited Japanese forces is causing the slow speed, although the native Indonesians seem to welcome the Japanese over the Dutch, at first anyway.
    On other fronts in the war, the US general staff has postponed indefinitely the Operation Torch landings, and operations in the European Theater, until the threat to the west coast had abated. The US has also greatly reduced its assistance to Britian and the USSR through lend-lease at the worst possible times. The lack of US airpower in Britian give the luftwaffe a bit of breathing space and allows for them to have a bit of a resurgance over the skies of Britian. The fighting in North Africa remains a bloody sea-saw affair, but the new threat posed to the British in India with Japan in Burma means that the manpower and resource edge the Allies were hoping for remains as inconclusive as the battles so far. In Russia the German Case Blau has just smashed Soviet forces around Karkov and little seems to be able to stop the German drive to the Volga. The reduction of US aid couldnt come at a worse time as the Soviet logistical system remains archaic and backwards without the addition of all those US made turcks. Also, with the Ukarine under occupation and the US’s reduced aid shipments the STAVKA (soviet high command) is having trouble feeding the Red Army. Facing death and stravation the Red Army is threatened with total collapse.

(I will try to finish this at some point and time tomorrow, I just never seem to have enough time!!!)

San Diego and Alaska are over 3,500 miles apart.  I don’t think there would be any surprise as long range surveillance aircraft and VASTLY superior US sub tactics and operations would have the Japs under 24 hour surveillance.

There is talk of Jap wolfpacks……  The Japanese had terrible sub tactics and employments, it was the US who was killing the Japs with subs.  The Japs would have their subs sailing in formation with big fleet operations to the point some of theirs subs were being sunk by the wakes of the battleships.  They RARELY detached their subs from fleet operations

But as long as we are changing everything…

Say the Japs and Germans got together much earlier.  That the Germans taught the Japs how to actually use subs and perhaps something like the enigma.

But the question remains, why put you balls in the enemies homeland knowing you will lose them?  Why again was Japan invading the mainland only to pull back and or lose?

Ok, you know, if you arent even going to read the posts then dont comment. If you are unable to willingly suspend disbelief (not only must it be very boring to go to the movies with you) dont waste your time reading this. As was stated earlier, the Japanese HAD learned from the Germans in the run up to Pearl and employed their “wolf-pack” style submarine operations shortly after the attack. While the US may of had better tatics for their subs, they dont have many subs left right now as Pearl was throughly worked over and the Japanese had better subs then the US’s aging WW1 era subs anyway.

@MrMalachiCrunch:

But as long as we are changing everything….

Yeah, you’d pretty much have to change everything from how it went historically hence why its called a Best Case Scenario for Japan

Have you ever heard or read anything on the Japanese plans for the(possible) invasion of Australia? You may want to look into it because the plan involved invading Australia but not conquering it. Yes, there is a way to invade a place without conquering it and still not lose!

Clyde…I’ve actually read the thread fairly completely.  I do recall that being mentioned, I suppose in the heat of my response I forgot that was one of the many many alterations to history to make this a plausible scenario.  Must be the brain injury.

I can suspend disbelief quite easily, I was a dungeon master for many years.  But even dungeons and dragons had certain realities that a good DM or a good scenario spinner should adhere to.  If you want to give all the Japs +4 weapons we can do that if you like.

What’s really cool is being able to disagree without being disagreeable.  Witty repartee is welcome.  Telling me I must be a boring person and telling what I should and should not read is…in my humble opinion…not a great way to spend ones time.

So, we have the complete crushing of Hawaii, a completely different military philosophy.  Still not enough yet for me but perhaps I am getting old and set in my ways.  There is a certain quality to quantity.  I still think overwhelming economic output wins.

Speaking of winning…

Question, why are the Japanese invading the US mainland again?  I mean, you do things for reasons and any strategy has metrics to allow you to gauge success.  The Japs felt Pearl Harbour and the subsequent 6 months would convince the US to just agree to peace and spheres of influence.

Perhapse I was to harsh in my earlier criticism, I understand not everyone has the same abality to extrapolate hyperbolies.
    I will give a more detailed summary later but in short, I am taking from the Japanese proposed invasion of Australia, in which the proposed to occupy a chunk of northern Queensland close Papua, around Townsville. Then using this as a staging base the Japanese plan was to attack and occupy places like Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne, not in a single mass but as a number of enclaves, controling the cities and the srounding suburbs. After acheiving this, they would sue for terms. I was kind of adapting this to fit an atempted invasion of the US. I was going to speculate that Japan would land in Seattle next, using it and victoria island as jumping points to attempt landings at other major cities along the west coast. However, as you say, the Japanese would come up against stiff resistance and Americas industrial might. So while they wouldnt be able attempt landings at other loactions they expand their holdings (like the first stage of the Australia invasion) and just dig in there.
  The big thing to look at is the riplpe effect this is having on the other fronts of the war. While the US is tied up on its own western coast, the Japanese are, slowly, creating their defense perimeter, China is decaying, the Brits are still sea-saw fighting the Euro-axis and the Soviets are taking a pounding. Perhapse by the time the US pushes the fanatical Japanese off the US mainland Europe will be in even biger trouble, the Japanese will be entrenched in their desired perimeter, China will have fallen, and the Soviets will be near total collapse. Perhapse the US would accept Japans terms to seperate spheres at that point.

@Clyde85:

Perhapse I was to harsh in my earlier criticism, I understand not everyone has the same abality to extrapolate hyperbolies.
   I will give a more detailed summary later but in short, I am taking from the Japanese proposed invasion of Australia, in which the proposed to occupy a chunk of northern Queensland close Papua, around Townsville. Then using this as a staging base the Japanese plan was to attack and occupy places like Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne, not in a single mass but as a number of enclaves, controling the cities and the srounding suburbs. After acheiving this, they would sue for terms. I was kind of adapting this to fit an atempted invasion of the US. I was going to speculate that Japan would land in Seattle next, using it and victoria island as jumping points to attempt landings at other major cities along the west coast. However, as you say, the Japanese would come up against stiff resistance and Americas industrial might. So while they wouldnt be able attempt landings at other loactions they expand their holdings (like the first stage of the Australia invasion) and just dig in there.
  The big thing to look at is the riplpe effect this is having on the other fronts of the war. While the US is tied up on its own western coast, the Japanese are, slowly, creating their defense perimeter, China is decaying, the Brits are still sea-saw fighting the Euro-axis and the Soviets are taking a pounding. Perhapse by the time the US pushes the fanatical Japanese off the US mainland Europe will be in even biger trouble, the Japanese will be entrenched in their desired perimeter, China will have fallen, and the Soviets will be near total collapse. Perhapse the US would accept Japans terms to seperate spheres at that point.

You and Malachi Crunch have both made good points in this discussion. I agree with Malachi Crunch’s point about the sheer size of the territory Japan would have to conquer if its goal was the conquest of America. The United States has roughly as much land area as China, and the latter had proved beyond Japan’s ability to conquer. (Granted, about 20% of the U.S.'s land area is in Alaska, but even if that is subtracted away, it’s still a very large land territory.)

I think that earlier you made an excellent point about how a Japanese conquest of the U.S. west coast would cause serious, if temporary, disruption to American aircraft manufacturing. A lot of American aircraft manufacturing was (and is) out on the West Coast.

In thinking of alternative history scenarios, I like to ask the question, “what is the exit strategy for the Axis?” I’d break exit strategies into one of two categories. 1) Using military means to encourage the Allies to negotiate peace. 2) Using military means to force the Allies to choose between negotiation and destruction.

Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack was premised on the idea that the former exit strategy was a viable option. That represented a diplomatic blunder of the first order. Before concluding that a series of quick Japanese victories would inspire the FDR administration to agree to a negotiated peace, the Japanese should have asked questions like, “Why is the FDR administration deliberately provoking a war with us? What do they hope to gain? Could they still achieve those gains if they agree to terms after we’ve scored a few lightning victories against them?” Had they considered the matter in these terms, they would have realized that FDR had zero interest in giving Japan the short war/peace treaty it wanted. Also, there was little or no chance of FDR being subjected to external political pressure to negotiate with Japan.

If Japan were to conquer the major Canadian and American cities on the West Coast, the result would be a major short-term disruption in American and Canadian production, and a smaller (but still significant) reduction in Canadian and American industrial potential. While significant, those factors in themselves would not have been enough to defeat the United States.

In order to achieve even those victories, Japan would have to significantly reduce its military pressure on China. (And perhaps even covertly negotiate with one or more of the Chinese factions.) The Japanese Army could not be strong everywhere: strength in North America would imply weakness in China. The loss of Chinese territory would be acceptable, as long as Japan held onto Manchuria and some coastal Chinese territory further south.

I agree that this Japanese invasion scenario would have significantly reduced, or even eliminated, Lend Lease aid to the Soviet Union and Britain. It would also have prevented the American landing in Algeria (1942), and subsequent invasion of Italy (1943). But these things would not have been enough to alter the fate of the German Army on its eastern front.

In 1938, Germany had 69 million people, as compared to 169 million for the Soviet Union. By the summer of '41, 80% of German men between ages 20 - 30 were members of the Wehrmacht. (The remaining 20% were considered vital to German industry.) In comparison, the Soviet Union was able to recruit 500,000 men a month, starting in the summer of '41, and ending in late '44 or early '45. This meant that Germany could not afford anything remotely close to a 1:1 exchange ratio.

During 1942, the Soviet Union produced four times as many tanks as did Germany, three times as many artillery pieces, and nearly twice as many military aircraft. Germany would significantly increase its military production later in the war. But over the short-term, the Soviets’ massive production advantage did significant harm.

The battle of Stalingrad is a good case in point. Germany needed the oil of Caucasus. Control of Stalingrad was a necessary prerequisite to begin the planned invasion of the Caucasus oilfields. The German summer offensive of 1942 initially caught the Soviets by surprise, and resulted in hundreds of thousands of Soviet prisoners. But many Soviet soldiers escaped the pockets Germany had surrounded. Also, the street-to-street fighting necessary to take Stalingrad itself proved ugly. (Ugly in this case meaning a roughly 1:1 exchange ratio.) By the fall of '42 Germany had gained control of nearly all of Stalingrad.

But then the Soviets launched an offensive, not against Stalingrad itself, but against the Romanian and Italian units near Stalingrad. (Due to a shortage of German soldiers, soldiers from Germany’s allies had been used to support the flanks of Stalingrad.) After Stalingrad had become surrounded, the German plan had been to support the soldiers there over the short-term with air transports. Later, a German invasion would relieve the solders in the pocket. Germany had used that general strategy before to successfully supply and later relieve a surrounded German pocket. Goering assured Hitler that the same could be done on a much larger scale for the soldiers at Stalingrad. Goering’s boasts and promises soon proved hollow and empty, and the garrison at Stalingrad gradually starved. (It also lacked remotely adequate ammunition and medical supplies.)

Generally when the story of Stalingrad is told, the focus is on Hitler’s foolishness in refusing to allow the Stalingrad force to evacuate. But as important as that decision was, and as disastrous as it proved, there was another, equally important aspect to the situation. The German military, from Hitler on down, understood that it was absolutely essential to reestablish a land link with the Stalingrad force. They moved forces to the area to try to accomplish exactly that. Instead, the main German Army was pushed farther and farther away from Stalingrad. In this raw contest of military strength, the Red Army had proved stronger than its German counterpart.

One could point out that the main German force in the area would have been considerably stronger had the Stalingrad force escaped. (Or had avoided being surrounded in the first place.) On the other hand, the Soviet offensive in that region would have been a lot stronger if they had not had to detach a very large force to surround the German force at Stalingrad. The German Southern Army minus the Stalingrad force against the souther Red Army minus the force surrounding Stalingrad seems like a relatively good test of the relative armies’ strength.

The Red Army came very close to achieving a 1:1 exchange ratio at the Battle of Stalingrad–a ratio which Germany absolutely could not afford. But even had that battle not occurred, the Red Army would still have been stronger than its German counterpart in late '42 and early '43. New Soviet conscripts were arriving at the rate of 500,000 men a month, whereas Germany’s manpower reserves had been depleted. The Soviets were becoming more skillful in war, and had reduced the gap between themselves and the Germans. (Though that gap still persisted–at the Battle of Kursk in 1943, German infantry proved three times as combat-effective as their Soviet counterparts.)

Even if the United States had spent 1942 and '43 wholly distracted by a Japanese invasion, it would not have been enough to allow Germany to achieve victory against the Red Army.

Kurt, again another well written and excellent point!
    I agree with you that the Soviets would have eventually won on the eastern front even with the changes made to history in this scenario. My point in mentioning it is to show that the Soviets would need more of their own resources to check the German thrust against Stalingrad and Caucasus region. Forces that they would be likely to take from Central Asia and the Far East. With the reduction of Soviets forces arrayed against them in Manchuria, Japan would be able to reduce its own garrisons in the areas and redeploy these forces to other theaters, mainly freeing up divisions to fight in North America.
    Another key development is the decay which is going on in China in this scenario. You are correct that Japan was unable to conquer China from a logistical standpoint alone. However in this scenario China has finally been cut off from outside support and is begining to fall apart. With allied supplies cut off Chaing no longer has the US to bankroll his goverment, and he no longer has American supplies to equip his own foprces let alone moll over the many regional warlords he had tamed. The weakening here would allow Japan to free up much needed resources for other theaters.

Kurt, another detailed and excellent analysis.

If the goal of a Japanese attack on the mainland is to disrupt the US economic output to aid the Germans then that is a more plausible scenario.  Now, how to do that on the ‘cheap’ is an important question.  It might have aided Germany more if Japan never attacked the US and Germany didn’t declare war stupidly on the US.  Although the US was bending the rules to help the allies, there was a limit as to what FDR could do, the Japanese attack have FDR a free hand.

I think perhaps not doing Pearl Harbour to being with is still the angle I would favour.  Do all the other opening attacks on non-US territories.  Force the US to declare war so the home front is not pump up and ready to sacrifice.  Then do Pearl Harbour.

Assume the Japs had been preparing for years before Pearl, secretly building german u-boats that were forbidden to the Germans under the treaty of Versailles.  With better technical exchanges the Japanese would have radar and improved tactics.

With subs prepositioned and ready, when the US to declare war they are given a punch on the mouth that the home front might not like and might be willing to settle on favourable terms.

Again, its the initial statement of goal and the the tactics/strategy to achieve the goal.

Thanks, Malachi Crunch and Clyde for your respective responses to my post.

I like Malachi Crunch’s idea of Japan attacking the British and Dutch possessions in the Pacific, but not attacking the United States. The objective in that scenario (if I understand it correctly) would be for Japan to take a wait-and-see approach. If the United States did not respond to Japan’s attacks by declaring war, so much the better! Japan would get what it needed (oil from the Dutch East Indies) without getting something it really did not need (a war against the United States). If the U.S. did not go to war against Japan, Germany would not have declared war either. Political constraints would have prevented FDR from putting the U.S. economy on a full scale war footing.

However, FDR was gradually moving the U.S. economy closer to a war footing. In 1941, the U.S. produced more military aircraft than the entire Axis, even though the U.S. was still technically at peace. But it produced four times as many military aircraft in '43 than it had in '41. The point here being that the Soviet Union and Britain could have expected considerable Lend Lease aid even from a “peaceful” U.S., but a declaration of war would have significantly increased America’s level of military production.

Had the U.S. declared war on Japan in retaliation for Japan’s attacks against British and Dutch possessions, the Japanese could then have responded with attacks against U.S. ships. It’s nearly certain that after declaring war, the U.S. would have put its Pacific forces on alert. (A step it did not take in the weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack, even though the U.S. government knew a Japanese attack would soon be hitting the U.S. somewhere.) This would make it more difficult to take the Pearl Harbor fleet by surprise. On the other hand, the main effect of the Pearl Harbor attack was to destroy the U.S. Pacific battleship fleet–which was far less relevant that the U.S.'s Pacific carrier fleet. The chance of sinking those battleships by surprise was not worth turning the possibility of war with the U.S. into a certainty.

Suppose Japan had attacked the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, and other British territories near the Pacific. Suppose FDR had been unable to use these attacks as a springboard for a declaration of war. The Japanese military would have had free rein to do what it wanted, as long as it didn’t attack the U.S., and as long as its plans involved islands, coasts, oceans, and the Pacific. With the Japanese Army not tied down by the American threat, even a lightning strike to take India would have become more likely to succeed. (Though it would have needed to have been done quickly–Britain built up its India force in the months after the initial Japanese attacks against British territory.) Japan could build up a Pacific empire for itself.

One test of an empire’s strength is to ask, “How many men are willing to fight and die for it?” Another is to ask, “How much military production capacity does it have in relation to its current or potential enemies?” In answer to the former question, it’s doubtful that very many non-Japanese men would have been willing to fight for Japan. In answer to the latter, there would likely be a considerable delay between Japan grabbing all this new territory and experiencing resultant gains in its military output. Factories require raw materials, but doubling or tripling your access to raw materials does not necessarily mean you can double or triple your factories’ output!

Over the long term, Japan’s Pacific empire could be turned into a powerful thing, by building up industrial capacity in Japan, Manchuria, and elsewhere, and by colonizing key parts of the empire with Japanese settlers. But these things would take time, and over the short run this empire would be considerably weaker than it might appear to someone looking at a map of the territory Japan had taken. Due to Japan’s comparatively small population size and its lack of industrial capacity, it would not have the same capacity to wage a land war that the U.S. or Soviet Union had. Japan might, at that point, still be able to get away with invading the Soviet Union, due to the latter nation’s preoccupation with the German attack. But even if Japan devoted most of its army’s strength to the invasion, it would still represent by far the weaker of the two threats the Soviets faced.

If, however, the U.S. responded to Japan’s attacks against British and Dutch holdings by declaring war, and if Japan responded by invading the Canadian and American Pacific coast, the result would be long-term disaster for Japan. The attacks would merely serve to convince Americans that it was very important to win the war, because the American homeland itself was being threatened and invaded. The Japanese advance would stall, and would then be pushed back. Eventually it would be time to evacuate the Japanese force from the North American mainland altogether. But by that point the U.S. naval and air presence would be strong enough, and its radar technology good enough, that the evacuation would be far from a guaranteed success. This raises the specter of much of Japan’s army being trapped and destroyed on the North American continent.

The best scenario I can see for an overall Axis victory would be for Japan to give itself the winter of '41 and spring of '42 to run wild in the South Pacific, pray to God the U.S. does not declare war, and to follow all that up with an invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of '42. Japan could have used its local air and naval superiority to take coastal cities, such as Vladivostok. That would have taken away one of the points by which Lend Lease aid had entered the Soviet Union. In addition, it would have represented another problem for the Red Army when it was under severe pressure already, and would have likely lowered Soviet morale. Whether all this would have been enough for the Axis to have achieved victory over the Soviet Union is less certain. But if Japan began using its powerful battleships to shell Soviet positions, and its (by 1942 standards) first-rate planes to strafe Soviet soldiers, those things certainly wouldn’t hurt Germany’s chances for victory in its war against the Soviet Union!

Kurt, yep, pretty much my thoughts.  I think if the US could turn the Pacific into a Vietnam then the American hearts and souls would not be in it and they would be willing to sue for peace on favourable terms.

I think once you attack the US mainland or occupy Hawaii permanently you get the US citizens willing to fight to the death.  Perhaps taking Hawaii and offering to return in during peace negotiations or ‘liberate’ it.  Mind you, the Japanese idea of liberation didn’t work out well for the locals.

Now, if the Japs had been nice to the local countries and truly did ‘liberate’ them then perhaps they could raise forces from those locations.

If Japan had concentrated on the hearts and minds of everybody starting the 20s, used some north american PR they could have carved themselves a nice sphere of influence and played a significant role against the USSR.

I think once you pissed the US population off by the ‘cowardly’ surprise attack, then it was all over but the crying and a few years on the calendar before the inevitable crush of the US GDP swept them away.

I would have to agree, Japan attacking the UK and commonwealth forces would have been the better option. I would like to strongly recommend the book “Rising Sun Victorious” as something anyone intrested in this thread should read. Most of the ideas I’ve put forward were inspired by what i’ve read in this book, if not directly borrowed from. Im going to post a link to a review to this book and I hope some take the time to check it out.

http://www.epinions.com/review/Rising_Sun_Victorious_The_Alternate_History_of_How_the_Japanese_Won_the_Pacific_War_edited_by_Peter_G_Tsouras/content_147268079236

Here is a page which might interest the participants in the current discussion:

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

It includes a hypothetical scenario in which the U.S. loses all three of its carriers at Midway and Japan loses none of its four carriers, then speculates on what the comparative carrier strengths of the two countries would have been in each of the next few years due to the imbalance of the industrial production capacities of the two countries.  Its conclusion: “Even if it had lost catastrophically at the Battle of Midway, the United States Navy still would have broken even with Japan in carriers and naval air power by about September 1943. Nine months later, by the middle of 1944, the U.S. Navy would have enjoyed a nearly two-to-one superiority in carrier aircraft capacity.”

There have been some very good responses in this thread!

The book Clyde mentioned looks like a worthwhile read. I came across the following quote from the Amazon book review page:

For instance, one essay examines what might have happened had the American divebombers been unsuccessful in finding the Japanese carriers at Midway. . . .  the Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown [would have been] dispatched to the bottom of the Pacific. . . . In the long run, however, the author concludes that American industrial might and greater population would still have carried the day.

Quotes like the above give the impression that the book had been written by level-headed experts–people who were aware, at least in general terms, of the data CWO Marc recently posted. The link Marc provided is to an excellent summary of the relative military manufacturing potential of the U.S. and Japan. I have heard it said that, when Japan launched the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States had ten times the industrial capacity of Japan. Japan industrialized during the war, and produced over five times as many military aircraft in '44 than it had in '41. But even in '44, the U.S. produced about 3.5 times as many military aircraft as Japan.

As Malachi Crunch correctly pointed out, Japan’s only real hope of avoiding defeat in a war against the U.S. would have been to arrange conditions under which American support for the war would gradually have eroded, much as it had during the Vietnam War. He also correctly noted that beginning with a Pearl Harbor-style attack was not the right way to go about arranging those conditions!

A unique series of factors came together in Vietnam–factors which eroded America’s will to fight. Those factors included the following:

• The American radical left wanted the Viet Cong to win.

• More moderate members of the American left were much less interested in opposing communism than in opposing fascism.

• A large subset of the American left is pacifistic.

• North Vietnam becoming united with South Vietnam does not seem nearly as threatening to the United States as would Japan’s conquest of the Pacific and creation of an empire spanning a quarter of the world’s surface.

• A guerrilla war can take a very long time, and success or failure can be hard to measure. A body count is a far more depressing way to measure success than victories or defeats in land or naval battles.

• LBJ had very little interest in actually winning the Vietnam War. His reason for being there in the first place was to prove to the American people that he was a political moderate. Someone who could be trusted to oppose the spread of communism, but without adopting the kinds of measures one might associate with Barry Goldwater.

• Many in the American military did not feel they had the moral authority to wage a full-scale war. For example, there was serious opposition to the use of snipers. (American snipers proved very effective, but few were deployed.) Within the American military, many felt that it is one thing to kill an enemy soldier when he’s actively trying to kill you. Not only are such killings a sort of self-defense, but the enemy soldier had presumably had the chance to surrender, which he didn’t take. But if you kill an enemy soldier before he even sees you–which is what a sniper is supposed to do–it was seen as an act of murder. This contrasts sharply with America’s attitude during WWII, when it was willing to destroy entire enemy cities, and hundreds of thousands of civilians, on the off chance the bombings might shorten the war.

• The American military’s level of organizational effectiveness was low during the '60s and '70s–much lower than it had been during WWII.

More generally, the American Left formed a natural nucleus around which opposition to the Vietnam War could coalesce. There was no similar natural nucleus for opposition to a war against Japan. In the American South, many feel that once the President goes to war, you must stand behind the President. (The only exception to that rule being if the President appears weak or indecisive.) Members of the radical American left would have favored a war against Japan, because that war would have reduced or eliminated the threat Japan posed to the Soviet Union. While more moderate members of the American left would have been less excited about the idea of dying for communism, they would still have liked the idea of opposing Japanese imperialism and fascism.

But if Japan did not attack the United States, declare war against it, or give it reasonable belief to see itself as provoked, and if the U.S. nonetheless declared war (because of Japan’s conquest of British and Dutch Pacific possessions), it’s possible that an anti-war movement could have had significant effects on the subsequent course of American foreign policy. A series of lightning victories would make FDR look weak and inept; potentially losing him some of his support in the South. But if the anti-war movement were to succeed in getting the U.S. out of its war with Japan, it would be necessary for Japan to keep making FDR’s war strategy look weak and ineffectual for many years. The anti-war movement would need those years to build up momentum and political force. America’s industrial capacity was great enough that the anti-war movement would not have been given those years. Additionally, FDR was much more interested in destroying fascism than LBJ was in destroying communism. It is impossible to imagine FDR using Vietnam-era weak half-measures in a war against Japan. History shows that FDR and Truman were willing to do whatever was necessary to obtain Japan’s unconditional surrender, up to and including the use of nuclear weapons against civilian targets.

@KurtGodel7:

There have been some very good responses in this thread!
… it’s possible that an anti-war movement could have had significant effects on the subsequent course of American foreign policy. A series of lightning victories would make FDR look weak and inept; potentially losing him some of his support in the South. But if the anti-war movement were to succeed in getting the U.S. out of its war with Japan, it would be necessary for Japan to keep making FDR’s war strategy look weak and ineffectual for many years. The anti-war movement would need those years to build up momentum and political force. America’s industrial capacity was great enough that the anti-war movement would not have been given those years. Additionally, FDR was much more interested in destroying fascism than LBJ was in destroying communism. It is impossible to imagine FDR using Vietnam-era weak half-measures in a war against Japan. History shows that FDR and Truman were willing to do whatever was necessary to obtain Japan’s unconditional surrender, up to and including the use of nuclear weapons against civilian targets.

I think your analysis is very sound.  I would add, however, that the Japanese atrocities in China (such as the rape of Nanking) along with various German atrocities (though the Holocaust itself would not be publicly known until the end of the war) would further diminish or even prevent entirely any anti-war movement.

Instead of creating and nurturing an antiwar movement, I think a better option for the Axis would have been to foster the isolationist movement which was quite powerful in American politics even as late as 1940.  Even this would have been quite difficult for them to do so however because the British (by destroying all undersea communication cables to Europe) controlled most of the news media (except a small trickle via wireless - Axis Sally) and therefore was better able to shape American public opinion.  Japan was in no better position as American sympathies were towards the Chinese, and Japan was clearly the aggressor…and Tokyo Rose did not change American public opinion.

@221B:

I think your analysis is very sound.  I would add, however, that the Japanese atrocities in China (such as the rape of Nanking) along with various German atrocities (though the Holocaust itself would not be publicly known until the end of the war) would further diminish or even prevent entirely any anti-war movement.

Instead of creating and nurturing an antiwar movement, I think a better option for the Axis would have been to foster the isolationist movement which was quite powerful in American politics even as late as 1940.  Even this would have been quite difficult for them to do so however because the British (by destroying all undersea communication cables to Europe) controlled most of the news media (except a small trickle via wireless - Axis Sally) and therefore was better able to shape American public opinion.  Japan was in no better position as American sympathies were towards the Chinese, and Japan was clearly the aggressor…and Tokyo Rose did not change American public opinion.

You’ve raised an excellent point about the importance of controlling information flow. Communists–especially in the Soviet Union–were guilty of mass murder on a truly terrifying scale. But Western media outlets were often silent about these atrocities, or else sought to downplay them. Many in America and elsewhere formed the opinion that the communists were somehow “the lesser of two evils” in comparison with the Nazis, even though the communists had killed more people.

It’s also worth noting that because of the British (and later American) food blockade of Germany during WWII, Germany could not feed all the people within its borders.

As 1940 drew to a close, the situation for many of Europe’s 525 million people was dire. With the food supply reduced by 15% by the blockade and another 15% by poor harvests, starvation and diseases such as influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis, typhus and cholera were a threat. . . .  Former president Herbert Hoover, who had done much to alleviate the hunger of European children during WW1, wrote

| The food situation in the present war is already more desperate than at the same
| stage in the [First] World War. … If this war is long continued, there is but one
| implacable end… the greatest famine in history.

. . .

In January Herbert Hoover’s National Committee on Food for the Small Democracies presented the exiled Belgian Government in London with a plan he had agreed with the German authorities to set up soup kitchens in Belgium to feed several million destitute people.[60] . . . However, Britain refused to allow this aid through their blockade. . . .

Hoover said that his information indicated that the Belgian ration was already down to 960 calories – less than half the amount necessary to sustain life – and that many children were already so weak they could no longer attend school, but the British disputed this.

Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were similar in that both killed millions of innocent people. Nazi Germany’s mass killings took place during famine conditions, at a time when it could not possibly hope to feed everyone within its borders. Most of the Soviet Union’s mass killings occurred during a time of peace, when the Soviets were actually exporting food to fund Stalin’s industrialization effort.

For a more in-depth look at Germany’s wartime food situation, as well as the intersection between economics, diplomacy, and military policy, I strongly recommend Adam Tooze’s Book Wages of Destruction.

I realize I’ve drifted a little off topic, except insofar as the contrast between actual facts and public perceptions of facts illustrates a) the importance of media bias, and b) the fact that during WWII, the American media strongly preferred the Soviet Union and Britain to Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. I have also seen it alleged, by a source which came across as plausible, that during the late '30s and early '40s pro-isolationist American media outlets were being bought out by pro-war media outlets.

But most of that pro-war sentiment was directed against Germany, not Imperial Japan. This means that Japan might have been able to have invaded British and Dutch possessions in the Pacific without causing the U.S. to declare war.

Japan’s best option would have been to avoid war with the U.S. completely. Its next-best choice would have been to delay that war as long as possible. That delay would have given it the chance to industrialize itself and its Manchurian possessions, thereby greatly reducing the production gap between itself and the U.S. It’s worth noting that the Allies produced four times as many military aircraft as the Axis in 1942, but only twice as many as the Axis in 1944. In 1942, the U.S. produced over five times as many military aircraft as Japan. That margin had been reduced to 3:1 by 1944.

Kurt, you make many excellent points.  I however…get extremely uncomfortable when you steer the debate to the ‘German Food Shortage’ tact to some how explain nazi actions.  It was the action of nazis, not Germans I note just as it was the actions of a brutal dictator Stalin than it was the actions of communism as an idea in action.

But most of that pro-war sentiment was directed against Germany, not Imperial Japan. This means that Japan might have been able to have invaded British and Dutch possessions in the Pacific without causing the U.S. to declare war.

Japan’s best option would have been to avoid war with the U.S. completely. Its next-best choice would have been to delay that war as long as possible. That delay would have given it the chance to industrialize itself and its Manchurian possessions, thereby greatly reducing the production gap between itself and the U.S. It’s worth noting that the Allies produced four times as many military aircraft as the Axis in 1942, but only twice as many as the Axis in 1944. In 1942, the U.S. produced over five times as many military aircraft as Japan. That margin had been reduced to 3:1 by 1944.

Right on the mark.  The US killed Japan’s economics with sub warfare.  If Japan had sonar, anti-sub techniques and used convoys and a protection schemes their production combined with production from outside Japan would have tipped the scales of production towards a much closer ratio.

@MrMalachiCrunch:

Kurt, you make many excellent points.  I however…get extremely uncomfortable when you steer the debate to the ‘German Food Shortage’ tact to some how explain nazi actions.  It was the action of nazis, not Germans I note just as it was the actions of a brutal dictator Stalin than it was the actions of communism as an idea in action. . . .

Right on the mark.  The US killed Japan’s economics with sub warfare.  If Japan had sonar, anti-sub techniques and used convoys and a protection schemes their production combined with production from outside Japan would have tipped the scales of production towards a much closer ratio.

You make excellent points as well, and I’ve enjoyed reading your posts in this and other discussions.

I’d like to get a better understanding about why you feel uncomfortable with my discussion of Germany’s wartime food situation. My own feeling is that any nation unable to feed everyone within its borders would have to make difficult choices about who was to live and who was to die. I do not feel that the choices Hitler made in that situation were the best possible ones. In particular, I think the Jews were unfairly singled out. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this matter. If I’ve left something out, or have presented anything in an unfair or inaccurate light, I’d definitely like to know of it!

You hit the nail on the head with your comment about the damage U.S. sub warfare did to Japan’s economic and production ability. I also agree that if Japan had had sonar technology, and had used it in conjunction with convoys, America’s sub warfare would have been much less effective.

Before WWII, Japanese researchers had made important advances in radar technology. However, the Japanese military saw little promise in radar. Pre-war radar installations were expensive, and were too large to be mounted on ships. Their detection ranges were limited. Japan’s radar research program was not given adequate funding, which is why Japanese radar technology languished. More generally, Japan’s military leaders tended to believe that technology and industrial capacity were no substitute for valor or the will to win. Japan’s military leaders feared that emphasis on the former could distract it from the latter; and therefore emphasized the latter to the exclusion of the former. These attitudes changed as the war went on, and as they saw how useful technology and industrial capacity really were.

I think you summed up the ‘Food Shortage’ situation.  I would substitute ‘not best possible choice’ with ‘insanely evil choice’.  I would further add that the ‘choice’ was made before the food shortage occurred.   To argue that the food shortage was primarily the reason for the attempted genocide of the Jews I think is misguided.  Perhaps the argument is to determine what percentage the food shortage contributed to the ‘choice’ of implementing the genocide, let the unknown percentage be represented by the variable ‘X’.

Now, one could in an academic setting debate the value say 0 <x<20% say.=“”  i=“” would=“” think=“” it=“” a=“” stretch=“” to=“” conclude=“” the=“” ceiling=“” value=“” of=“” x=“” were=“” any=“” greater=“” than=“” 20%=“” as=“” hints=“” hitler’s=“” genocidal=“” intent=“” evident=“” long=“” before=“” food=“” shortage=“” manifested=“” itself.=“”  so,=“” we=“” are=“” debating=“” whether=“” choice=“” hitler=“” made=“” was=“” insanely=“” evil=“100%-X.”  <br=“”>I feel dirty even spending this much of my time contemplating this and articulating my discomfort.  Of all the interesting topics to discuss…this is what you WANT to talk about?  This doesn’t make my top 5000 topics I care to discuss.

Now, back to this fascinating topic…

I would think the culture of the Japanese military vis-a-vis technology being an aid would have to be modified.  Your point about valour overcoming technology is bang on.  Today, Japanese scientist produce a great deal of papers and patents, they do have a culture of innovation, though no nation seems to beat the US on willingness to embrace innovation.  I think with a combination of these factors and an emphasis on the US home front and public opinion Japan would be well poised to dominate its sphere of influence.  Post war Japan was a huge asset against the USSR, indeed, the US President Nixon embarrassed communist China against the USSR.  I could see if Germany fell eventually to the allies, a ‘neutral’ Imperial Japan would be an ally against the USSR once the US and Japan came to terms.</x<20%>

@MrMalachiCrunch:

Your point about valour overcoming technology is bang on.

A similar situation existed in the Confederacy in the early stages of the U.S. Civil War, where it was believed that the material advantages of the North (in terms of industrial capacity, natural resources and sheer population numbers) could be overcome by (if I recall the quote correctly) “the gallantry and fighting spirit of the Southern Gentleman.”  The contrary (and ultimately correct) view was expressed by a certain Northerner to a friend he had in the Confederacy: “No nation of agriculturalists has ever defeated a nation of industrialists.  You are bound to fail.”