This was prompted by a question regarding World War II in General Questions, and a quick search didn’t turn anything up like this in GD (although it’s been asked about Germany, apparently).
Japan came very close to winning the war in the Pacific in the early 1940s. Had they done so, what sort of impact would it have had on today’s world?
Japan would likely control most, if not all, of the Pacific Ocean north of Australia, and would have colonies along the Chinese coast (if they didn’t own it outright).
But think about the technological advances made by Japanese industry – advances made necessary because they no longer had a military to speak of, and their survival depended upon trade. Although Japan may not invent a certain technology, they have proven extremely proficient at making improvements on that technology and getting it to market faster than anyone else. Would they have established such a strong industrial program without the defeat-imposed necessity of doing so?
In addition, the U.S. destroyed much of Japan’s industry during WWII, and then helped them rebuild it with newer machines, facilities, etc. Had Japan not been defeated, this rebuilding would not have occurred. Would Japan have gone back into its feudal mode after winning WWII, stagnating their industry? Would the Japanese steel industry be as strong as it is today? Would we have the advances in automotive technology? Electronics?
The question you’re asking is “what would have happened if Japan had won the military conflict in 1941-43.” And the answer is “the same thing that did happen.”
Let’s say Japan wipes out the Pacific fleet, carriers included. The US would have built more. The US had, so much more economic power than Japan that it was not, and could not be, a fair fight, especially with Japan streched thin from Manchuria to Saigon to the Phillipines. If they don’t capture Hawaii, they still have that dagger sticking in their side. And if they do, they piss off the US even more.
Besides the economic inevitability of the thing, there’s the A-bomb. Even if the Japanese held every speck of land from San Francisco Bay to Tokyo, all it would take is one carrier group sneaking through to do a Doolittle, or for that matter, subs dropping off commandos to leave time-delay bombs.
A more interesting question would be what would have happened if the US had made (or been forced to make) the Japanese priority #1, what would have happened in Europe? How long could England have held out without more US help? I suspect a 2-4 years at least, which would still have been enough.
Well, one case I’ve seen made (and I’m no expert here), is that if Japan had taken Hawaii, they would have had a sweet position in mid-Pacific to threaten the U.S. - a war-weary U.S. that might have been willing to take the loss of this recent territory gained from the Spanish War (which wasn’t even a state yet).
Japan would consolidate its Co-prosperity Sphere, and the West would do business with them.
As for the atomic bomb, apparently there’s been evidence of Japan smuggling radioactives by sub from Germany - they had a program of their own…
And the atomic bomb was too rare and valuable (and massive) to be used in any commando missions.
Eh? Hawaii gained through the Spanish/American war? It’s my recollection that Hawaii was never ever a Spanish posession (in fact, the British discovered it, IIRC). the US did take Hawaii, but it was from the Hawaiian people it was taken from, not Spain.
The Philippines on the other hand were a Spanish posession, and were taken as a part of winning the Spanish American War.
Let’s see, they would have taken American technology and used it to build state of the art factories and then improve upon American technology. Instead, they were given American technology, and state of the art factories, and then they were given the ability to not trade with us if they don’t want to. We beat them in a fight that they started, and we didn’t keep their country as a reward. The question I have is why not?
furt:
How about this for a scenario: the Japanese destroy most of the US Pacific Navy. They manage to get the US to sign a peace treaty. The US rebuilds its Navy, but is not willing to break its word, especially with a war-weary population.
In this case, we would end up with a three-way Cold War, with both the US and Japan preparing for war with the USSR, both the USSR and the US preparing for war with Japan, and both the USSR and Japan preparing for war with the US. I think that the stress of a three way Cold War would stimulate the economy of all three nations more than the two-way one did. With Japan still in the picture, the Chinese almost certainly have stayed united much longer, and unless the USSR declared war on Japan, China would not have gone Communist.
At the end of World War II, the Japanese had two million men in China. The Japanese feared an American invasion of the home islands greatly because those two million men were inaccessible - they had to stay in China to hold off a mobilized Chinese Army. The Soviet Union was coming as well, once they were done mopping up in Europe. It’s not clear at all that keeping the U.S. out of the war would lead to a Japanese victory in the Pacific.
Nonetheless, one of the key elements in the rebuilding of the Japanese economy following World War II was American industrial and economic expertise. In short, prior to World War II, Japanese manufacturing was a bad parody of Soviet manufacturing - no quality, low yields, no real products. This column by Bob Cringely is a good read about how American management expertise saved Japanese industry from itself, and made possible their powerhouse manufacturing that became such a terror in the U.S. in the eighties.
In other words, had America not conquered and rebuilt Japan as their bulwark against communism in the East, they’d be another Asian paper tiger, good for cheap labour and little more.
That’s an interesting position, TR, and one I hadn’t considered.
furt, with all due respect, I’m not asking what would have happened if Japan had won the first half of the war. I’m wondering what the outcome would be if we’d sued for peace with Japan early in the process, and there’d never BEEN a second half of the Pacific war.
Japan was incredibly xenophobic, and their overall goal was to secure enough resources with their expansion plans to be self-sufficient and not have to trade with any other nation. Since their industry was destroyed, and their post-war possessions were basically limited to their home islands, they were forced to trade.
Just curious as to everyone’s opinion on what the world would look like today if Japan had achieved its goals. I hadn’t considered The Ryan’s vision of a three-way Cold War; my thoughts ran more along the lines of the U.S. in its isolationism phase. But a Cold War scenario may actually be more likely.
IMHO, the likeliest scenario for a Japanese victory is never attacking the U.S. in the first place. Just attack the British and Dutch possessions in the Far East, and leave it to FDR to convince an isolationist, war-jittery American public that we must once again send the G.I.'s to die to save the colonies of the European powers. After all, they were so grateful after the last war. Then the Japanese just bide their time until 1946, the Philippines becomes independent - and Japan promptly gobbles it up!
The theoretical purpose of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was to provide an economically self-sufficient “autarky.” If this were attempted, Japan’s economic life would be much different from what it became in our history. So would the world’s: no “tiger” economies in Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, or China. But I’m not sure if the zaibatsu were really wedded to this idea.
The Japanese Army much preferred the idea of invading the Soviet Union (in spite of their non-aggression pact) and taking over Eastern Siberia rather than tangling with the United States, but the American oil embargo pretty much set a course of events in motion which dictated either severe loss of face or war with the U.S.
For an entertaining view of what an America under Japanese domination might look like, I recommend Philip K. Dick’s The Man In the High Castle. In that book Dick pokes fun at the “alternate history” craze thirty years before it took off. The man could see for miles and miles.
Then the Japanese just bide their time until 1946, the Philippines becomes independent - and Japan promptly gobbles it up!