Could Japan have blockaded Australia?

@imperious-leader

I think Japan still would have invaded the Soviet Union though, if the Second Sino-Japanese War continued (the oil embargo only really happened once they invaded Indochina).

Other than that I agree with you. That would be curious alternate reality.

@abworsham4

I read that, and is one of my sources. Funny enough, KaLeu put a link to Quora asking the same question, and one of the answers just copied and pasted the article you sent me.

Well during the era of the Clan which by the way still technically exist, which ever clan controlled Kyoto, their Daimyō would then become Shogun if my knowledge is correct. So technically a Shogun is a military leader but I think Daimyo is technically a civilian who just happens to know how to fight like a Samurai.

Besides anyone with knowledge knows that Kam. Pilots were all volunteers and only existed out of desperation.

I voted for the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.

Prior to the dropping of the first atomic bomb, the Japanese were already willing to agree to a conditional surrender.

The Soviet Union was fundamentally hostile to the Western democracies. Some Japanese leaders hoped for an alliance between Japan and the Soviet Union–an alliance against the U.S. and Britain. Their hope was that the Soviet Union would enter the war on Japan’s side.

The Soviet invasion of Manchuria demonstrated that any kind of diplomatic arrangement with the Soviet Union was no longer an option. With its diplomatic options exhausted, Japan’s only way of avoiding the Americans’ demands was to achieve some kind of military victory. There was a shortage of Japanese military victories from '43 - '45, and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria only made things worse. That invasion was regarded by both sides as a prelude to the invasion of Japan itself. The quick collapse of Japan’s Manchurian forces inspired little hope that Japan would do well in a follow-up Soviet invasion of its home islands. Still less did it seem possible for Japan to defeat a combined invasion of American and Soviet forces. At that point, it was concluded that it was better to unconditionally surrender to the Americans, than to have unconditional surrender imposed anyway by a combined Soviet-American force.

Why wasn’t Stalin interested in joining Japan’s war against the U.S. and Britain? I see two main reasons: 1) He wasn’t yet ready for such a war, and 2) By 1945, Japan’s military had little left to offer. By the early '50s, Stalin may have felt himself ready or close to ready for war against NATO. Some historians feel that Stalin permitted the Korean War to proceed because he wanted to test American military readiness. The results in that war were such that Stalin felt comfortable moving forward with his plans for WWIII. However, he died before putting those plans into effect.

@abworsham4

We’ll say that magic happens-the Japanese would have surrendered by regular bombing before the planned invasion, even without the atomic bomb. So I’ll say that five nuclear bombs would be ready for tactical use.

I think the Allies would have lost 1.5 million men, including naval losses, radiation poisoning after entering area attacked by atomic bombs, and regular land fighting. Countless more would have been wounded. This also includes Soviet losses from the planned Soviet invasion of Hokkaido.

The Japanese would have lost at least 12 million men killed, due to the enormous losses fighting, from the nuclear bomb, and the mass of Kamikaze attacks. This total includes PCFC losses. 1 million more might have died in guerrilla warfare after the war.

20 million would have been wounded, if not more.

If you had to point to the biggest Axis blunder of WW2 it would be that Japan never attacked Russia.  Yes, they may not have gotten very far and the terrain did suck, but the real estate was improtant enough to Stalin that he had 100,000s of troops stationed there just in case it was attacked.  Once Stalin found out that Japan had no intention of attacking they diverted those troops, and that was what made stalingrad possible.  It can be argued that w/o that victory the Germans may have broken the Russians, captured Stalingrad and than than the oil fields.  Hitler’s idea that was w/o oil Russia would lose the war (and he was probably right).

No, The back half of russia is much like Alaska, a frozen wasteland. It would take them forever to get troops north of manchuria, and supplying them would be nearly impossible. There werent any natural resource up there so the japanese had no interest in “capturing” (if you can even call it that) north russia. It would be smarter to send troops into china or inda, where the resources were.