We’re probably arguing the same thing. I think the confusion here is was your initial use of “aims” in that we could be looking at that differently.
This statement is inaccurate in that their overall aim was to establish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. All else fell under that, and as you agree, they felt they couldn’t achieve this without fighting America. If they had to have a choice, they would have dumped the Axis for their empire.
(The following is a general discussion, and not directed to anyone in particular.)
The problem with terminology is that while you need a certain amount of shortcuts in order to keep the discussion manageable, but simply adopting terms and then assigning meanings beyond reality can cloud the thinking. The members of the Axis were not working partners and their individual goals overrode all else.
Another issue is that Japan had distinct, powerful factions with diverse interests, including the army and navy which refused to talk to each other unless absolutely necessary. The generals on the ground in China were driving the reality and everyone in Tokyo, including the Imperial General Headquarters, were playing catchup.
For historians, the disappointing thing was the decision to whitewash any involvement of the emperor, in that it’s harder to get a clear picture of what was really happening behind closed doors.
It’s tough to define Japan’s war aims because of its schizophrenic command structure. The Army’s war aims were based around the mainland - they had no dreams of a Pacific Empire. The Navy, on the other hand, was pissed because the Army was having all the fun. So they wanted a war to call their own. The civilian government was going along for the ride and wishing the military would pay attention to orders. And who knows what Hirohito was really thinking?
But if somebody had been able to impose a little focus on the Japanese government, it’s possible they could have set some priorities. They were already committed to a war with China. They should have told the Navy to wait its turn. Avoid a full-scale war with the United States, conquer Southeast Asia from its absent European overlords, build up a strategic reserve from the resources of this captured territory, finish off China, and keep building up the fleet. Maybe invade Australia and New Zealand to keep the Navy busy.
Meanwhile your German allies are finishing off Britain and the Soviet Union and building up their own fleet (along with the captured French and British fleet and the Italians). Around 1948, you’re ready to launch a two-ocean invasion against America.
Of course, the American response is to fly a couple of B-29’s over and drop atom bombs on Berlin and Tokyo. So after Trinity, Germany and Japan start their own crash programs to catch up on atomic weapons. And we end up with a three-way cold war situation.
Churchill had many qualms indeed about throwing Poland to the lions. That decision was agonizing for Western leaders. The alternative was simply worse.
Most bomber-dropped munitions didn’t make their targets either, so the claim that V-1s were cost effetive remains plausible. Cost effectiveness is a comparative measure.
Considering the lion had already taken down the gazelle and was devouring its corpse, it’s not really like Churchill threw Poland away. The Soviets weren’t given Poland - they took it. All Churchill and Roosevelt did was acknowledge that reality.
Japan was pushed into war by the US-sponsored oil embargo. One of the prime war goals was to capture their own source of oil, and the only known such place within reach was the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). To get there they have to go past the Philippines, which has the largest military establishment in the western Pacific just sitting there. No military in that situation could just glide by hoping not to be attacked in the flank. And are the US going to sit there while the IJN sail by in an attempt to break the embargo that the US themselves imposed? Who knows, but the Japanese could not afford to take that chance. They had to take the Philippines, knew that would bring down the Pacific fleet on their heads, so had to attack Pearl too. No choice (aside from accepting the terms of the embargo - leaving China - which simply wasn’t going to happen either).
Cost-effective compared to other ways of delivering a ton of explosive to some field in Kent or street in London, yes. Not cost-effective in the sense of - was that $50 well spent on our war effort?
The reality is lots of unfriendly countries have existed in close proximity for decades without sliding into war. They may have confrontations but they avoid crossing the big line. And that’s all that Japan needed; for America to stop short of actually going to war. As long as the United States limited its response to below that level, Japan could ship its oil.
And Japan had every reason to avoid a war as well. Japan was already full involved in one major war. In their more rational moments, everyone in Japan knew that the United States was a more powerful nation.
For a comparable situation look at the current relations between Iran and the United States. The two countries are hostile to each other but have not gone to war. American reluctance to declare war allows Iran some freedom of action. Iran would be foolish to throw this advantage away by pre-emptively declaring war on the United States.
The difference here is 1/ the Japanese military more or less ran the country and 2/ we’re not talking about two hostile countries living next to each other, we’re talking about the IJN running huge invasions forces right past the US forces in the Philippines in order to defy the very embargo the US imposed, and to attack the possessions of the US’s near-allies like Holland and the UK. Naturally the IJN wanted to take care of those forces, which given their control over the government meant a DoW on the US.
The calculation on Japan’s part was that the US would not tolerate Japan invading DEI, and if the US didn’t, then it was left in an untenable position, vulnerable to attack by the US from PI to the east and Britain from Singapore in the west and Hong Kong to the north. The problem was they needed oil and with an embargo by both the US and the Netherlands, then they were up shit creek. When diplomacy failed, they elected for war, and elected to make a surprise attack to catch the US unprepared. Given that they weren’t going to abandon China, I’m not sure they had many other options.
Even in their irrational moments, they knew the US was more powerful. The problem was that they didn’t count of the US doing as much leapfrogging as they did, as well as failed to take into consideration the US’s submarine strategy, an inexplicable failure.
Their assumption was was that the US would get tired of the fight and they would negotiate a settlement which would leave most of its empire. One of their major problems was the successes they had had against Russia and China and so they falsely assumed that that they didn’t need to fight as hard as they ended up.
There are a number of things which they could have done to make the war more difficult.
First, and foremost would be for the IJN and IJA to actually talk to each other and come up with effective joint planning.
Had the IJA not believed all of its own propaganda, dug in more, not fought on the beaches, and behaved more like they did on Iwo Jima, it would have been one hell of a bloodier fight.
Had Yamamoto been prepared to lose one or two of their carriers, and had they built more tankers, they could have stuck around Pearl Harbor a little longer. Destroying the dry docks and the submarine facilities would have hurt the US much more. Japan’s idiotic use of its submarines keep it from realizing how much they could get hurt.
For chrissake, when you go to shoot up a base, take more than two lousy destroyers. Occupying Midway early in the war would have eliminated that sub base as well, forcing the US to build one in the Aleutians.
All this would do is simply delay the inevitable, and with the US naval buildup already in place from before the war, it would still have been a matter of time.
For a comparable situation look at the current relations between Iran and the United States.
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Not even close to being comparable militarily, politically or geographically.
My point was that Japan’s policy should have been “go as far as we can while keeping the United States one step short of war.” Japan had good reason to believe the United States wouldn’t declare war over the occupation of European colonies - it hadn’t declared war over the occupation of French Indochina. (For that matter, it hadn’t declared war over the occupation of France either.)
That’s the comparison I see with Iran’s situation. The United States would easily beat Iran in a war. But that’s only a factor if the United States and Iran go to war.
I agree with your points about submarines and dry docks. The Japanese Navy had a blind spot about logistic warfare - which is surprising given how much trouble logistics caused their war effort. But they never developed a coherent strategy of attacking American logistics even when the Americans attacked theirs. The Japanese kept trying to attack American combat strength rather than target the logistic support that combat strength needed.
The US had placed an oil embargo which would cripple Japan’s economy, and diplomacy had failed to get the embargo lifted. Japan really had two choices, abandon China or go to war, and if they went to war, it makes sense to hit hard first.
Even without the pressing need for oil, had Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies, it would be coming closer and closer to US interests. The problem was that they didn’t know where the States would draw the line in the sand, so they assumed they were getting too close.
The difference in military between imperial Japan and the United States of 1941 and Iran and the US of 2012 cannot be compared. That the US would completely destroy Iran is a forgone conclusion. It was not so much for Japan at the time. Japan had already beat two larger enemies in limited wars, and thought it had a game plan to beat the States. It wasn’t counting on a total war.
While the UN sanctions are hurting Iran, they aren’t empire builders like Japan was in the late 30s.
The Oil embargo was the direct result of Japan’s invasion of China. Thus, the “crippling of the economy” was the fault of the war party running Japans interests. Dont blame it on the USA.
The United States placed a total embargo on Cuba in 1962. The Castro regime is still there.
A country can survive an embargo as long as it can get other sources for the embargoed items. And that was what Japan was doing by occupying the DEI. Once they had control of that oil, the American embargo was no longer decisive.
I already addressed that point. Japan could see that the United States had not gone to war over previous occupations of foreign territories. So they had reason to believe that occupying the DEI would be inside the line.
Yes, I agree. There were two reasons for the IJN to attack the USA; they thought their “national honor” had been insulted due to the embargo, and they thought they could win- part of that last was that the IJN wanted to show off all the wonderful new expensive toys they had just launched, and defeating the Dutch Navy (or even the British Far East Squadron, which proved to be easier than imagined) would not do so. Altho the Royal Netherlands Navy proved a pretty hard nut to crack, those Dutch (can we still say “Dutch” on this MB?) fought very hard indeed.
It’s hard to believe Pearl Harbor, which led to the bombing of Hiroshima and the unconditional surrender of the Imperial Japanese forces, was started by something that silly. But the real reason for invasion of Iraq by GWB was just as silly and immature. So, it happens.
In other words, the IJN really had no realpolitik reason for “Japs Bomb Pearl Harbor!”- they just wanted to.
Having played this out in wargames, if the Japanese leave USA alone, and attack Kamchatka, etc- this is just about the only way for the Axis to win. They would have had to do that, and the Nazis would have had to have more luck and better leadership. Keeping the USA out of actual war is the only thing that could have done it. Of course, neither Tojo or Hitler was smart or sane enough to do that. Nor did any of the Axis actually operate as “aliies”- Hitler & Tojo simply had some of the same set of foes, and the rest of the Axis were stooges for Hitler (Mussolini didnt start that way, but..)
So, to postulate a Axis victory we have to postulate no Tojo or Hitler (or they are assasinated early, before they make their biggest blunders). Otherwise the Axis must lose.
One slight chance- maybe, just maybe- Hitler’s forces have a little bit more success (Maybe if Hitler had made friends with the Ukranians who welcomed his men originally as liberators) and Stalin completely collapses, thus the Soviets go into complete collapse. This occurred during WWI, so it could have happened during WWII. But even so- “Japs Bomb Pearl Harbor!”- then Hitler declares war on the USA and it still ends badly for the Axis. It just takes longer, and Berlin is Nuked, too.
Mussolini wasn’t fond of Hitler and originally thought that Italy and Germany had unreconciliable interests, especially in central Europe and the Balkans. The failure of the west to prevent Hitler expansion, beginning with the Anchluss that Mussolini had actively tried to prevent, eventually convinced him to make a 180° diplomaric turn. Germany and Italy ending up allies wasn’t a foregone conclusion.
Who is taking about blame anywhere in this tread? We are talking about actions, not who is right or wrong.
Yes, and they had the Soviet Union supplying them until it’s fall, and again, Cuba isn’t trying to build an empire, which the Japanese were. Another apples to oranges comparison.
This is where you and the Japanese disagree. They felt that the US would not stand by or that it was too risky.
Nope, and no historian I’ve read has suggested this.
There is nothing remotely comparable between Tojo and Hitler.
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Not at all. The similarity is that Cuba and Japan both had access to supplies outside of American control which made the American embargo manageable.
So to head off the risk of the United States declaring war, Japan declared war on the United States. Interesting move.
There is the fact that they were both the heads of expansionist militarist regimes during World War II that allied together and declared war on the United States in the same week. That’s kind of comparable.
Well, yeah, but it’s more like “To head off the risk of the United States declaring war and hitting Japan in the flank, at a time of the United States’ choosing, while Japan was overextended into Indonesia, Japan declared war on the United States and neutralized its navy in the opening move.”
Ultimately a bad idea anyway, but that’s how they thought of it, instead of your formulation.