The Americans did not join officially the Battle of the Atlantic until September 1941, so after Germany had given up on defeating England and invaded Russia. Before that, lower degrees of US engagement didn’t start until late, eg “April 1941 President Roosevelt extended the Pan-American Security Zone east almost as far as Iceland” (quoting from wikipedia here).
Well before that, in October 1940 the British realised the above mistakes and reorganised their whole system to reduce losses.
As for the famous 50 destroyer deal:
One British admiral called them the “worst destroyers I had ever seen”, and only 30 were in service by May 1941
Overall:
It is maintained by G. H. Persall that “the Germans were close” to economically starving England, but they “failed to capitalize” on their early war successes. Others, including Blair and Alan Levine, disagree; Levine states this is “a misperception”, and that “it is doubtful they ever came close” to achieving this.
The focus on U-boat successes, the “aces” and their scores, the convoys attacked, and the ships sunk, serves to camouflage the Kriegsmarine 's manifold failures. In particular, this was because most of the ships sunk by U-boats were not in convoys, but sailing alone, or having become separated from convoys.
At no time during the campaign were supply lines to Britain interrupted; even during the Bismarck crisis, convoys sailed as usual (although with heavier escorts). In all, during the Atlantic campaign only 10% of transatlantic convoys that sailed were attacked, and of those attacked only 10% on average of the ships were lost. Overall, more than 99% of all ships sailing to and from the British Isles during World War II did so successfully.
The bottom line is Britain was out of existential danger by the time US assistance reached significant proportions. Terrible losses, yes, but no chance of suing for peace or surrendering.
Just to add, the US was preparing for war with Japan years in advance. The aircraft carriers and battleships that were to defeat Japan from 1942/43 onwards had been authorized and laid down years prior with the Two Ocean Navy Act of July 19, 1940, the largest naval expansion in history. Drachinifel did a video on just this topic a couple of weeks ago graphically illustrating the enormous spike in capital ships and cruisers under construction prior to US entry into the war.
I don’t have a counter per se….but do want to point out that the period of time between 1918 and 1939 is close is to now and the Iraq War
And right now if our politicians beat the drums about wmds in Iraq we’d be pretty dubious
I don’t have a great grasp on the mindset of Americans in 1939, but I do know neutrality laws had been passed and the public felt the decision to enter WW1 was a mistake
The Northern strategy was most certainly not “militarily, politically, and economically unfeasible” nor “a moot point”- not until later in 1939, after the battle. Up until then, it was considered perfectly feasible. I even mentioned said battle.
Yes, but the USA did not attack or declare war. And all that was to help Britain, since FDR was an anglophile. And as you said, that started in summer 1941, not in September 1939, about two years later. What, exactly did the USA do to help the Netherlands, Poland, and Belgium? The USA was not going to declare war on Japan due to them taking the DEI, since we didn’t lift a finger when the Nazis invaded the Dutch homeland.
True. The Navy was certain the attacks would come in the Philippines and/or several small pacific islands.
The only way this scenario is plausible, I think, is if the US had a much worse experience in WWI. Far more casualties than in reality, leading to a far greater degree of isolationism in the 1920s-1930s. They don’t antagonize Japan in the Pacific, because the feeling at home is, “Defending a few islands in Asia isn’t worth more American lives”. Feeds into pre-existing racist attitudes, but in a different manner than what really happened.
“Just leave us out of it!” becomes the new rallying cry, and is powerful enough that truly isolationist leaders are elected in the US, who won’t go out of their way to put the US in the path of other warring nations.
You mean said battle where the Japanese Army was utterly crushed by the Soviet’s overwhelming superiority in armor, artillery, and mobile operations? The Japanese Army was utterly outclassed in firepower and its few tanks were paper mache tankettes, something that it was to find out it had the same problems with when facing the Americans in the Pacific once it ran into organized resistance from mid-1942 on. Zhukov was not the instrument of the catastrophic failures of Japan’s border conflicts with the USSR in 1939. Its lack of artillery, armor, basic logistical capabilities and its blind belief that its ‘superior’ fighting spirit would make up for all of these deficiencies and allow what was primarily a light infantry force to overcome overwhelming industrial inferiority is what caused its catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Soviets in 1939 - even with the effects of Stalin’s purges.
Saying ‘it was considered feasible until it was proven, in point of fact, to actually be utterly infeasible’ isn’t actually saying anything.
Ah, so depth charging German U-boats on sight doesn’t count as attacking them without a proper declaration of war now. Gotcha. Moving to a policy of all aid short of war, lend-lease, the first peace time draft in US history, authorizing the largest naval expansion in the history of the world (and all of those masses of Essex-class fleet carriers, fast battleships, heavy and light cruisers weren’t being built to combat Germany’s barely anemic surface naval threat), repealing Neutrality Acts, massively expanding its military industrial capacity and output, embargoing the sale of oil and strategic materials to the Axis in general and Japan in particular and everything else it did between September 1939 and December 1941 didn’t happen and don’t count because they weren’t immediately taken on September 1st 1939?
Another thing you’ve overlooked is that the Polish, Belgian, and Dutch governments in exile were being armed with US supplied lend lease. The Dutch East Indies was being armed directly from the US, ~71 of 144 Brester Buffalos ordered had been supplied by the time Japan attacked, for example. Oh, and there’s the fact that US destroyers were at Balikpapan in the DEIs on December 7th which you keep ignoring. And the fact that some of them had orders to sail to join up with and escort the Prince of Wales and Repulse in Force Z upon completing refueling.
Considering that attacking the US plunged Japan into a war which left over 2 million military dead and over half a million Japanese civilians burned alive in firebombing attacks and nuclear explosions, destroyed 40% of the urban areas of Japan’s cities leaving 8.5 million homeless, and simply sidestepping the US to take the oil from the DEI would have avoided all of this without having to go to war with the US, surely you can present evidence of a single Japanese officer or cabinet member noting this obvious and simple way out of its dilemma prior to plunging it into this apocalypse. No? Perhaps a single officer or member of the Japanese government lamenting in their post-war memoirs that no one in Japan stopped to think of such an obvious, simple solution to their problems? How about a single reputable historian who thought of this brilliantly simple solution, researched it, found it to be plausible and wrote about it? In fact, any evidence at all that doesn’t amount to someone on an internet message boards pet theory 80-some years after the fact?
This is the problem with alt-history scenarios, that they typically require such changes to situation that it becomes impossible to make even educated guesses.
Japan and America were strategic rivals in Asia, and with Japan’s insatiable hunger for greatness that overwhelmed the realities of its relative power makes it seem inevitable that there would be conflict between these two countries.
As Japan knew that the US was rapidly arming and strengthening its forces and positions, they recognized that they had a limited window of opportunity to strike at America with any kind of hope of winning a limited war. (They knew they couldn’t win a protracted conflict, but they hoped for a repeat of the 1904-05 Russo-Japan War.)
Even had the US not taken the steps they did, there were those in the leadership of the Japanese military arguing in 1941 that they had very little time remaining before they would not have been able to defeat the US.
The next problem is that Japan was in an unwinnable quagmire in China, with no way out. Even had the US continued to provide oil and other resources, and the Japanese had not provoked a war with the Western countries, the Japanese wartime situation would not have be sustainable, economically or politically. China was too big and Japan was too small. The percentage of the economy dedicated to the war was unstainable. (Likewise, despite any ridiculous references to the Strike North Faction, most of the leaders in the IJA knew they didn’t have enough men to fight both the Chinese and the Soviets.)
The public was war-weary and was tired of the sacrifices thrust upon them. While the secret police could have slowed down open dissent, as they did historically, it would not have been able to maintain that forever.
However, even if the public would have eventually gotten tired of it, there were no checks on the hawks in the Japanese military. Unlike all other major players in WWII, Japan alone had no single person in charge. No overall leader making strategic decisions, balancing the risks and potential benefits It was war by committee, with the various factions competing against each other and driving themselves off cliffs.
While it was suicide for Japan to drag America into its war, it wouldn’t have been any better to have waited. In addition to the unprecedented peacetime naval buildup posted above, the US was actively fortifying the Philippines and its Pacific Ocean possessions. Delaying the war even six months would have lead to considerably different results.
Because of the chaotic nature of the Japanese command structure, where local commanders were able to force Japan into wars, Joseph Grew, the Ambassador to Japan in 1941, was warning Washington as early as January that there was real danger of hotheaded navy captains shooting at US ships. Unlike the incident with the USS Panay, the situation was completely different in '41.
In short, because of the nature of the Japanese leaders in 1941, war was pretty much inevitable.
The Imperial Japanese claimed victory at several battles before Khalkhin Gol, such as the Battle of Lake Khasan.
You are absolutely right, the T34, with it’s 76mm gun and 45mm armor (along with the US Sherman) was way superior to the Type 95 Ha-Go light tank, with it’s puny 37mm gun and 12mm armor… but Zhukov didn’t have T34s, as they weren’t around yet. He had BT-5 and BT-7 light tank with a puny 45mm gun and 13mm of armor. They were equivalent. Note that the Soviets lost 253 tanks, Imperial Japanese only 26.
Up until Khalkhin Gol, when Zhukov was in command, the Imperial Japanese had much superior commanders and troop moral, as all the good Soviet commanders have been purged. Zhukov did a “all or nothing battle” committing everything to this one battle, and he thus heavily outnumbered his foe, about 2-1. note that even Zhukov took 26000 loses vs 18000 losses of men. Zhukov is generally regarded as one of the top generals on WW2, and the best Russian general of the war.
The Imperial Japanese certainly thought the Northern strategy was viable- up until they met Zhukov, who crushed them.
Again, that didn’t start until 1941. The Netherlands was invaded in 1939. Math.
No, the Imperial Japanese were certain the USA would intervene from the Philippines (They were wrong). The Imperial Japanese were certain that a massive naval victory would cause the USA to sue for peace (They were wrong). The Imperial Japanese also were certain they could conquer China-(They were wrong). The USA was certain that the IJN couldn’t attack Hawaii-(we were wrong). I could go on and on about how various governments and General staffs were certain about various assumptions before contact with the enemy- and how wrong they were.
The Japanese thought they could win against us.
In fact a few have- in various “What-If” books about WW2. But historians tend to stay away from “what-if” hypothesizes. Nor do I claim that grabbing the DEI without a Pearl Harbor was a "obvious, simple solution - but the USA would not have declared war over it. Period. Sooner or later American assistance “short of war” would have caused war to break out- which was Roosevelt’s plan against the Nazis. IMHO, Roosevelt would have hit Germany first- just like he really did.
My apologies if it looks excessive, but this isn’t the first, second, or likely even fifth time having this exact same discussion - and considering the continued denial of facts, yeah, it probably was necessary.
Who said anything about T-34s? Seriously, where do you get this from? The reason the Soviet lost more tanks than the Japanese is that they brought 1,000 of them to the fight while the Japanese brought 73. Similar ratios apply for artillery. That what the Soviets having overwhelming advantages in tanks and firepower means.
That’s funny considering the number of cites I’ve provided just in this thread and your inability to cite anyone to back up your claim that attacking the DEI without provoking war with the US was possible.
You did "The Japanese Army was utterly outclassed in firepower and its few tanks were paper mache tankettes, something that it was to find out it had the same problems with when facing the Americans in the Pacific once it ran into organized resistance from mid-1942 on."
You were wrong as the Russians had the equivalent light tank. Calling the Japanese tanks " paper mache without saying the same about the Soviet tanks shows that you have no idea of tanks during early WW2.
Yes, as I said Zhukov did a “all or nothing battle” - committing everything to this one battle, and he thus heavily outnumbered his foe, about 2-1. note that even Zhukov took 26000 loses vs 18000 losses of men. Certainly, for this one battle the Soviets had an “overwhelming advantage”. Again, Zhukov threw everything the Russians had in the front into one “do or die” battle, since if he lost, he was gonna be purged. On the front as a whole, the Soviets had no such overwhelming advantage. You’d know that if you studied the period. On the Front the Soviets has about 70K men, the Imperial Japanese 80K. The Soviets did have more tanks, but their tanks were just as crappy as the Japanese.
Since I claimed no such thing- nothing. Yes, Roosevelt- as I have said over and over, was trying to get the USA into a war to help Britain.
Are you saying the USA declared war on the Nazis in May 1940? They did not. And they did nothing to help the Dutch at that time, They didn’t even start the antisubmarine patrol in and area of the Atlantic until September 1941. Battle of the Atlantic - Wikipedia
But as I said (and TokyoBayer seems to agree)- war was inevitable. Sooner or later US “aid short of war” would have started a war. I have said that over and over. Now, IF GB had become Neutral things would have been different. But the IJN taking the DEI would not have been the immediate cause, as Nazi Germany invading the Dutch Homeland in May 1940 did not cause the USA to declare war.
You choosing to believe that stating the Soviets had an overwhelming superiority in tanks, artillery, mobile operation and logistics means comparing the quality of individual tanks as opposed to the gross superiority in numbers enjoyed by the Soviets is bizarre and your problem, not mine. Note my use of the word “few” in describing the number of Japanese tanks compared to the numbers employed by the Soviets as well as the Japanese army being described by me as a predominantly light infantry force that felt ‘superior’ fighting spirit could make up deficiencies in material and its overwhelming industrial inferiority. Here’s a cite for you on numbers, and the abstract which reads, bolding mine:
From May to September 1939 Japan and the Soviet Union engaged in what started out as a small border clash but quickly escalated into a large undeclared war in the Mongolian plains near the city of Nomonhan. The Soviets won by employing over 1,000 tanks against the Kwantung Armys predominately infantry force by executing a near perfect double envelopment. However, the isolation of the battlefield, combined with the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, overshadowed the conflict. But today, both the Soviets and the Japanese examine the Nomonhan Incident in minute detail. It even serves as a case study at the advanced tactical schools of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force. The intent of this paper is to look at the development of the Kwantung Army from a strategic perspective using the Nomonhan Incident as a backdrop. Specific emphasis will be placed on identifying and analyzing the Kwantung Armys relationship with Imperial Japanese Army and the civilian authorities located in Tokyo. In the final analysis, the incident was a major contributor to the Japanese strategic decision to pursue a southern axis of advance in 1941, rather than joining the German attack on Russia.
I’d say that I’m still waiting for you to provide a single cite of a reputable historian, Japanese officer or Japanese political figure who stated that they felt Japan could have taken the DEI without provoking war with the US, but I’m not. We both know such a cite doesn’t exist, yet you’ve been peddling this idea for what, at least half a decade now? I’m not going to go line by line with all the strawmen you’re trying to attribute to me; you could build a village of thatch roof cottages out of it.
I don’t have to since the USA didn’t declare when the Nazis invaded the Dutch homeland, not a colony. Why would the USA declare over a colony, when they didn;t declare over China, France, Poland, Belgium, Denmark etc etc etc.?
*World War II began in September of 1939 when both Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany followings its invasion of Poland. While other allied nations such as Canada and Australia joined Britain and France in their fight against Nazi aggression in Europe, the United States remained on the outside.*
The United States would not join the Allied war effort until 1941 when it was attacked by the Japanese Empire in Pearl Harbor on December 7th. So, why then did the United States not join the war effort before the Pearl Harbor attack?
In order to understand this decision by the United States, it is first important to understand the foreign policy of the time and lack of support for war by the American public.
Show me a cite that says the USA was ready to declare war on such a thing.
Yes, indeed, the Imperial Japanese got their butts whipped at Khalkhin Gol as my cite shows. By Zhukov - the best General the Soviets had. Not some mediocre inexperienced second or third rater (which is pretty much all they had after the purges - read up on those too). The very best.
And read my cite " These events led to the strategically decisive battle of Khalkhin Gol. Zhukov requested major reinforcements, and on 20 August 1939, his Soviet offensive commenced." Zhukov was able to get those major reinforcements since his mentor , the Marshal, was Stalin’s friend. Read up on Zhukov someday. Try Marshal of Victory: The Autobiography of General Georgy Zhukov
Let us go back to my original point-
So, if no Zhukov, the Imperial Japanese would face a mediocre inexperienced commander- not Russia’s very very best . Zhukov got the massive reinforcements, other leaders could not. Thus no Russian victory at Khalkhin Gol. Are you claiming that the quality of the commander can’t make or break a victory? The Russians wouldn’t have that “overwhelming superiority in tanks, artillery, …” without
Zhukov, who could call in favors from his Mentor.
You also used “paper mache” to refer to the Japanese tanks, in obvious lack of knowledge that the Russian BT tanks were just as “paper mache”. You made that point, I didn’t- and you were wrong.
I really don’t understand what you are trying to argue here. Is your whole point that had the Japan limited their attacks on December 8, 1941 (because of the International Dateline) to only Dutch and (possibly??) British territories (note 1), the US would not have declared war on December 8, 1941 (US date) but rather the war would have happened anyway, and it was just a matter of timing?
If the “sooner or later” was “sooner” than “later,” it seems to be a pointless, overly pedantic argument. In other past threads, others have wrongly argued that the US would have stayed out forever, but we both agree that would not be the case. If it’s later, then there is an argument which isn’t being made. What about the conflict is inevitable but not related to a Japanese invasion of DEI?
So, what exactly is your point? Say that Japan invades Southeast territories, and while the US doesn’t declare war on December 8th, as a direct response, sends some of its Pacific Fleet to Singapore where they are bombed. In response to that, the US declares war. Would that be a “win” for you? I actually have no idea what your argument is here, so this is a hypothetical demonstrating one of the potential points you could have.
Going back to that argument you have repeatedly made without any supporting statements or justification. Let’s look at what you said earlier, with my bolding.
How did that logic work for Hitler? There’s no way that Britain would do anything if Poland was invaded because they didn’t do anything when Germany started to violate the treaty of Versailles. Britain and France didn’t react when they invaded the Rhineland. They stood by in Austria, in Czechoslovakia, in Sudetenland. Britain had done very little before, "so no way they would react with war if Imperial Japan Nazi Germany took the DEI Poland." Your words and argument, just changing the players.
First, the argument fails because everyone, from individuals to countries and alliances, have breaking points where they finally put their feet down. It also ignores the escalation of situations so while an act may not merit a response the first time, the circumstances have changed and a reaction is now necessary given the new facts.
In this case, the “logic” fails because it ignores the complete differences in the situations, which I will go into details below.
So what was different?
First. 1941 was not 1940. (See, I can create a soundbite as well, then annoy everyone by throwing it out each time without elaboration. The difference, though, is that I will show why the difference in just one year makes your point pointless.)
Mostly importantly, in 1940 FDR truly believed he could keep the US out of war. It took another year and the continued war, along with the changing understand of the Roosevelt administration of the
Politically, in 1940, FDR was campaigning that we would keep the boys out of war while in 1941, the US was actively taking steps which could have lead to war.
The signing of the Tripartite Pact in September of 1940, directed primarily at the US, elevated the danger of hostile acts by the these three countries.
By 1941, the US was concerned not only about Britain, but also the survival of the USSR.
Next, the Roosevelt administration considered a Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia as strategically unacceptable, especially the oil-rich DEI and tin- and rubber-rich British Malaya. Control of these and the SLOC (sea lines of communication) would threaten India, Australia and New Zealand as well as reducing the dependence of Japan on the US.
This directly answers your question of why would the US react to the invasion of the DEI while not reacting to the homeland being invaded. All other factors aside, in isolation the loss of the Netherlands themselves did not strategically affect the US while having Japan overrun their territories was against the strategic interests of the US.
And, of course, you are wrong because unlike the situation in Europe in '40, the US was taking active measures, including the oil embargo and freezing assets, which were considered by many to be tantamount to declaring an economic war on Japan in direct response to Japan’s advancement into southern Indochina, which threatened these territories. In a meeting with the Japanese ambassador, FDR directly said that the advancement into southern Indochina could lead the US into war.
In addition, the was the racial factor hinted above by @Dissonance, but to add to his post, the US public never felt as strongly about isolation from Asia as it did from Europe. Damn nearly every white person in the world at the time believed that Asians were inferior to white nations and most American and European politicians and military leaders anticipated that a war with Japan would not be as costly as one with Germany. Hence, the reluctance to get entangled with a powerful Germany did not also mean that people were as worried about a potential conflict with Japan.
Of course, because Japan only had one tenth of the war industrial capacity and had gotten its ass kicked by the Soviets, there were legitimate reasons (even if the wrong lessons were taken from them) in addition to the straight up racism.
The overly simplistic and unsatisfactory assertion that because the US had not thrust themselves headfirst into a war against the Nazis over “a patch of reclaimed land” (I can’t remember where I read that and while it’s not respectful to the Dutch, it’s an indication of the lack of strategic importance of that nation to the US) that means that they would have folded when its vital interests were challenged is simply silly.
You have to go back to my original scenario, where I take two small things that could have changed WW2:
Lord Halifax, not Churchill becomes PM, and gets a peace treaty with Germany. Halifax was the preferred man, but as he was a Lord, he’d have to give the title to an heir. He was willing to do it if the King asked him, and he was the Kings preferred man- but things worked out so that Churchill got it. No GB at war, not War of the Atlantic, no USA Security zone, etc. No foreign aid to Russia.
Zhukov missed that one in a hundred chance meeting , and gets Purged. Imperial Japanese have a much easier time on it with the Northern Strategy.
Thereby, between No foreign aid to Russia and a two front war- things get very dicey for Stalin, especially with he best General gone.
Now in that world, or even in the real one- the USA is not gonna declare war on Japan simply because they grabbed a colony. That doesn’t mean Japan still might not have attacked us, nor that some other incident would have caused war.
Britain and France weren’t Isolationist. The USA was. Also, both of them were directly threatened by a powerful Germany. The USA was not.
Because why would the Isolationist USA declare war on Japan for just taking a Dutch colony when the USA did not declare war when Poland, China, Netherlands, Belgium, France, and so forth? Are you saying a Dutch Colony would have gotten the US congress to declare war? I doubt that in the extreme. Of course, that is simply a opinion by either you or me, we will never know.
Would FDR have been taking those steps if GB had been at peace with Germany? FDR was a known Anglophile.
This is the main point that needs to be emphasized. It would have been a strategic blunder of the part of Japan to not take the Philippines because the US would be able sever Japan’s access to those resources, as well as to threaten the invasions themselves.
@Dissonance understands all of this, but for those who have more productive and diversified hobbies than an obsession concerning the Japanese strategic thinking in the Pacific War. . .
When the decision was made to go south and forcefully take these resources, the IJA wanted to advance through Malay then the DEI. The IJN, knowing the necessity of neutralizing the American threat wanted to advance through the Philippines. The two services compromised by doing both.
There never was a consideration of attacking only the DEI and Malaya and leaving the Philippines alone. That would be military suicide.
Japanese military planners were aware of the numbers of troops in the region, as well as the levels of training (local troops tended to not be trained or equipped as well as those from the Western counties themselves.) They were watching the US and British fortify their possessions and bases, increasing their readiness and looked on as what would become the ABDA (American, British, Dutch and Australian) forces starting to cooperate. They were monitoring the training schedule of troop in the Philippines as well as the movements of the British in Malay.
The Japanese were well aware of the production schedule from the Two Oceans Act in the US. for ships and planes. The planners estimated that as early as by spring of 1942, Japan would no longer be able to defeat the US and because of weather considerations in southeast Asia as well as Hawaii, they set the date of the start of the conflict in early December.
At the time, the IJA only had 51 divisions, of which because of the commitments in China and Manchuria, they could only spare 11 divisions (Japanese divisions had up to 20,000 troops) and 700 planes. They estimated enemy strength as:
Although outnumbered, the Japanese were better trained than the majority of the local troops; had, on average, better planes; were prepared and organized; and under one command but time was against them.
They needed to attack sooner than later. At no time did they ever consider not attacking US forces in the Philippines. Planning for that had actually predated the acceptance by the Imperial HQ of Yamamoto’s raid on Pearl Harbor.
Of course the US committed more than its share of strategic errors in the prelude to the war. Although containing the Japanese from capturing the resources in the DEI and Malaya was determined by the Roosevelt administration to be of strategic importance to the US, forcing Japan out of China was not.
After the Japanese started to move into southern Indochina in July, 1941, then a possession of Vichy France, putting them into a position where they could threaten the Dutch and British territories as well as the Philippines, the US froze Japanese assets and enacted the oil embargo, acts which starting the clock ticking to the beginning of the war.
The strategic error by the US was to insist that to reverse these measures Japan not only abandon Indochina, but also retreat from China itself, something which Japan was unable to accept.
Thus, while the US enacted tough measures to ensure its strategic interests were protected, it then insisted on conditions which were not of critical importance. Of course, this does not absolve Japan of the responsibility for the war, but rather demonstrates the fog of war and how both sides misunderstood each other.
Japan was certain that it was being encircled by the ABCD nations, America, Britain, China and the Dutch. They believed that this alliance was conspiring to reduce them to full dependence and they felt cornered. Certainly, the US did not see their actions the same, but that was how Japanese leaders perceived it.
The story of what we know of the discussion and negotiations among the Japanese leadership is fascinating, and given that, I don’t see how they could have allowed the US to stay neutral in WWII.
I’d like to reemphasize this point for the sake of those who might not be aware of how much this was the case. The Mukden Incident in 1931 which started Japan’s adventures into China via a false-flag incident leading to the seizure of Manchuria was carried out by a cabal of junior officers against the express wishes of the Japanese government and Emperor:
Believing that a conflict in Manchuria would be in the best interests of Japan, and acting in the spirit of the Japanese concept of gekokujō , Kwantung Army Colonel Seishirō Itagaki and Lieutenant Colonel Kanji Ishiwara independently devised a plan to prompt Japan to invade Manchuria by provoking an incident from Chinese forces stationed nearby. However, after the Japanese Minister of WarJirō Minami dispatched Major General Yoshitsugu Tatekawa to Manchuria for the specific purpose of curbing the insubordination and militarist behavior of the Kwantung Army, Itagaki and Ishiwara knew that they no longer had the luxury of waiting for the Chinese to respond to provocations, but had to stage their own.[13]
The Panay Incident was likely a deliberate action by junior officers, but as you said the situation in 1941 was entirely different from the one in 1937, where:
Public outrage was loud in the U.S., but both sides were conciliatory and quickly settled the dispute. The Japanese claimed that they did not see the U.S. flags painted on the deck of the gunboat. Tokyo officially apologized, and paid a cash indemnity. The settlement mollified some of the U.S. anger, and newspapers called the matter closed.[1]
This leads me to Colonel Tsuji, who dovetails into this conversation in quite a few ways. Briefly,
Tsuji was deeply involved in Japanese atrocities throughout the war, including the Bataan Death March and Sook Ching. He evaded prosecution for Japanese war crimes at the end of the war and hid in Thailand. He returned to Japan in 1949 and was elected to the Diet as an advocate of renewed militarism. In 1961, he disappeared on a trip to Laos.[3]
Tsuji was among the most aggressive and influential Japanese militarists. He was a leading proponent of the concept of gekokujō, (literally “the bottom overthrowing the top”) by acting without or contrary to authorization.[3] He incited the 1939 border clash with the Soviet Union and was a vehement advocate of war against the United States.[4]
He held strong “pan-Asian” views and thought that the people of other Asian countries should support Japan against Western powers. His ultranationalist and militarist views and war record won him the support of so many like-minded Japanese nationalists that his supporters erected a statue of him in Kaga City, Japan.
The Sook Ching was the massacre of Malaysians of Chinese descent on the grounds that they could be a security risk to Japan given the atrocities already carried out against the Chinese populous by the Japanese, so that should give some idea of exactly what he felt was “pan-Asian,” it was the rest of Asia knowing their place under their new Japanese overlords replacing the Western ones. More importantly to this conversation, he literally incited the Soviet-Japanese border conflict in 1939 (the ‘strike North’ camp) and drew up the plans to invade and conquer British Malaysia (the 'strike South camp). The debate between striking north to the USSR or south to the DEI and British possessions wasn’t entirely a debate between two separate camps, a lot of it was the same camp changing their views based upon the facts on the ground. Note that he was also a “vehement advocate of war with the United States.”
He also wrote his port-war memoirs, Japan’s Greatest Victory/Britain’s Worst Defeat, in which he was unapologetic and propagandistic about his actions - without noting any of the war crimes he was involved in - and oddly, didn’t propose that Japan should only have attacked the DEI and the Commonwealth possessions in Asia.
I read it. A long time ago. Acting like you know more about the Soviet Union during the Second World War than I do with absurd lines like this isn’t doing you any favors.
Your strawmen are so thick and obvious that you really don’t need to bold them to point them out to everyone. Your hero-worship of Zhukov aside, you seriously think the USSR was only able to have overwhelming superiority in tanks, artillery, mobile operations and logistics because Zhukov was on the scene and able to call in favors from Stalin? Zhukov wasn’t even one of Stalin’s personal favorites at the time. That honor fell more on the heads of those like the rather incompetent Budyonny. The Soviet Union had ~20,000 tanks at the start of WW2. Stalin didn’t need Zhukov to personally ask him to send forces to the Border Conflict for it to have happened; that you think this is the case is again something truly bizarre. It’s something so extraordinary and bizarre that I’d ask you to provide a cite or some evidence for it, but again there’d be no point asking you for one since none exists. It doesn’t take a strategic genius to win when you outnumber the enemy by about 15-1 in armor and artillery. Even with the purges, even with a heavily fortified position (which the Japanese didn’t have) like the Mannerheim Line. Just ask the Finns.
“The Russians wouldn’t have that “overwhelming superiority in tanks, artillery, …” without Zhukov, who could call in favors from his Mentor.” That Mentor as I said before was an incompetent Marshal, who was a Stalin favorite.
Then why did the Russians lose nearly all the prior battles such as Battle of Lake Khasan?
Oh and your Massive superiority of Artillery? Nope, none such, the Imperial Japanese had 300 guns, about the same as the Russians. The USSR had 490 crappy tanks (not 20000, those were on the other front) vs 180 crappy tanks, true, but the Imperial Japanese had 581 top notch fighters and bombers vs 450 second rate mostly outdated Soviet Aircraft, of which about 2/3rd were biplanes. It was the Nakajima Ki-27 vs the Polikarpov I-15 and yes, some !-16s as well. On the Bomber side the USSR had some Tupolev SB, which aren’t bad, but not compared to the Mitsubishi Ki-21, which was faster, better armed and carried twice the bombload.
Not to mention, Soviet Losses were far higher. Yeah, the USSR had more ground forces over all, sure, but if they had pulled them all to Mongolia, the Germans could have just walked in. It was a very long trip via the Railroad. Now yes, the Nazis didn’t attack until later, but the USSR needed forces for Poland, Finland, etc.
The difference was the leadership. Zhukov was Russia’s best, Yasuoka was mediocre.
The Battle of Khalkhin Gol was the largest tank battle hitherto fought. Zhukov’s battle tactics and his use of armor at Khalkhin Gol presaged the blitzkrieg tactics that the Wehrmacht unleashed in Poland. For his success, Zhukov was declared a Hero of the Soviet Union, the first of four. The next year, he was made a general in the Soviet Army.
The defeat at Khalkhin Gol discredited the proponents of the Northern Road Strategy in the Japanese Imperial Army and tipped the balance to the proponents of the Southern Road Strategy and the Imperial Japanese Navy.
