Alternatively, rather than leaving their flank open to the US Philippines, they could have encircled the American position by capturing the European colonies around it. That is, they could’ve strengthened their tactical position by saving the Philippines for last while strengthening their strategic position by grabbing the oil supplies earlier. Obviously, they didn’t take that route, but one wonders if they even considered it.
My first reaction was “Absolutely not.” After carefully reconsidering it for a while, my final thoughts are “Absolutely not.”
Think back to September 11, 2001 and suppose that this attack were made by a foreign state rather than a terrorist organization. Let’s say Gaddafi organized it and it was quickly proven that was the case. Would the US had stood by and allowed that to happen?
The hatred of Japanese after that attack cannot be understated. The mood was expressed by Halsey famous quote using the racial slur of the time, “kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs” although possibly not as well known is his immediate response to seeing the destruction at PH, “Before we’re through with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell.”
The declaration of war on Japan passed the Senate 88-0 and the House 388-1. War against Japan was immensely popular and immediately saw many volunteers join the military.
The US and Britain had agreed prior to PH on the German First approach, but after the attack the reality changed and it was recognized that the US public would never have accepted not going after Tokyo as well.
While the Marines get a lot of credit for defeating the Japanese, the Army actually had more troops in the Pacific, 22 divisions and about 25% of the overall Army strength. It affected progress in the European war.
The US would never had needed to negotiate with the Japanese. It simply could wait to attack, but that was recognized as politically impossible and well as completely unsatisfactory to the military.
They did. Actually the IJA wasn’t that excited about the Philippines for obvious reasons. Their plan was to go through Malaya and Singapore to attack DEI. The IJN knew that they needed to knock out the US Navy before so their counter proposal was to occupy the Philippines first then take DEI.
The compromise was to adopt both plans and take it with a pincer movement, attacking the Philippines and Malaya simultaneously.
While I’ve argued that it would have been foolish to leave the Philippines alone, it would have been worse to have attacked them later. The US was rabidly building up its military while fortifying the Philippines and its possessions, and the more time Japan gave the US, the harder it would be.
DEI fell on March 9th, and it may not have been that much faster even if they had left the Philippines for last. It also depends on what you propose by encircling it. The Japanese attempted to take Port Moresby in New Guinea in early May, 1942. Without the US involvement, that may have been possible and may have been done a little earlier. Postponing the attack on the Philippines until that would have given the US six additional months to prepare.
OTOH, a few months may not have made much difference. The US was really, really not prepared for war and it took most of 1942 to get its ducks in a row.
Yes, the Americans didnt understand the Imperial Japanese way of thinking either. For example, when America demanded the IJA get out of China, the Americans apparently didnt mean Manchukuo also. But the Japanese read it that way. The IJA was in a quagmire in central China , they might have considered withdrawing- but not out of Manchukuo. Doubtful, but at least the American demands would not have been rejected so strongly, there might have been room for compromise.
No. But what if what the US had really wanted as a war with China? Would the US have buried the hatchet over 9/11 if it’d had distracted Bush from going after China? No, probably not. Indeed, it did not even stop him from going to war against Iraq—which could almost stand for Germany in this comparison, but for the fact that neither Afghanistan nor Iraq had the ability to pose a true existential threat to the US, and part of the equation with Japan and Germany represents at least one of them being a genuine existential threat to the US, or at least one of its allies, in the near term. The sort where, if it ever would make sense to overlook and otherwise unforgivable action by a third party, they would surely be the one to bring it about.
I am sure you’re right, that the war against Japan would have played out no better for the Japanese in the end. I guess the question is (and I suppose it probably falls under the “that would require them to be capable of high-level strategic thought” umbrella—I think that’s paraphrasing your position, which I share, that they didn’t really think that far ahead or that advanced), might the Japanese at least have thought that a factor in their favor would have been FDR’s clearly communicated (through belligerent action in the Atlantic and a series of undeniable departures from genuine neutrality) desire for a war with Germany in time to save the UK? As in, “but for the situation in Europe, they would surely pursue us, but given the situation in Europe, and their desire to shift focus to Europe, maybe just this once we’ll be able to bully them into a peace negotiated in our favor?”
But again, don’t put too much effort into a response, it’s just a thought—and not even one I am fully on board with, particularly as I’m pretty well convinced that the Axis nations were strategically bankrupt.
Really, truly, this question is posed more on the off chance that I’m wrong (that I’m not giving Japan, at least, enough credit for what may have been a modicum of strategic thought at least), rather than that I truly believe the absence of a German war declaration would have somehow tied FDR’s hands and led him to be more quick to negotiate with Japan (or that the Japanese might have been counting on that, but then failed to communicate to Germany that it absolutely should not declare war alongside them).
Again, whatever Japan may have expected, I have little to no doubt that the US would have pursued the same ends against Japan, with or without the German declaration of war.
I missed the edit window, but reading the wiki below, it seems that not only did Japan not “not want” Germany to declare war against the US, it specifically asked it to declare war if things came to that, as the situation was deteriorating in late 1941. So it seems my speculation that Japan might have hoped that FDR would give them a pass (a negotiated peace on favorable terms) in order to make it easier to bring about the war with Germany was/is a non-starter:
Specifically:
Japan had not informed its ally, Germany, in advance of the attack, although the Japanese ambassador had informed the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, at the beginning of December that relations between the US and the Japanese Empire were at a breaking point, and that war was imminent. He was instructed to ask Germany for commitment to declare war under the terms of the Tripartite Pact should that occur.
The plans were presented to the full cabinet along with the Emperor but there was no meaningful dissent at that point. Political leaders who argued against war had been denounced as unpatriotic and removed from power (if they weren’t killed outright). By late 1941, the military knew that any plans they presented would be agreed to by the rest of the cabinet.
The only significant check on the military was the military itself. The army and the navy often had different goals and competed for money and other resources. But once the two services negotiated an agreement, cabinet approval was essentially a rubber stamp.
But there was a third alternative to attacking them now or attacking them later; not attacking them at all. Japan didn’t have any actual goals in the Philippines. It wanted China for its land and resources and Southeast Asia for its oil.
It’s true America was building up its military. But Germany was its intended target, not Japan. If Japan had chosen to avoid a war with America, the United States would most likely have become involved in the European war within a year or two. And that would have stopped any desire to start a second war in Asia. Japan could have had a free hand in Asia to pacify the region, build up its defenses, and set up the exploitation of local resources.
When the United States and its allies finished beating Germany sometime in the mid-forties, Japan would have been in a much stronger position. Other countries would have been exhausted by the European war while Japan would be at full strength. And Japanese occupation of China and Southeast Asia would have been in force for several years and would be seen as the new status quo. America might have even seen Japan as a useful counterweight to the Soviet Union in Asia.
I think the American felt that if they pushed hard enough Japan would back down. They had a more realistic view of the disparity in power between the United States and Japan and knew that Japan would lose a war with America. So they figured Japan would go to great lengths to avoid such a war.
America’s blunder was failing to anticipate the possibility of a Japanese blunder.
As I recall, The Tripartite Pact required Germany to declare war against an enemy of Japan only if Japan were attacked.
If you want a real conundrum for FDR, imagine that Hitler decided to declare war on Japan after Pearl Harbor, claiming sanctimoniously and hypocritically that Japan’s sneak attack was something beneath Germany’s dignity.
Well said.
The other American blunder was delivering the embargo ultimatum incorrectly. The plan was to apply significant but tolerable pressure with the highly credible threat of a lot more pain to come. Instead somebody goofed and we put the end-state embargo into action all at once.
And that proved to be a bigger hit faster than the Japanese political & military leadership could get used to the idea. I’m not suggesting that our planned actions weren’t well-founded or reasonable. I am suggesting that we we turned up the pressure faster than they could reorient their decision-making to the abruptly significantly different reality.
Which disorientation left them highly vulnerable to misplaying their hand. Which they duly did.
It’s an unfortunate aspect of diplomacy. Countries put forth public declarations with the assumption that other countries will understand what they meant but didn’t explicitly say. And sometimes the other country doesn’t get the unspoken meaning.
Correct. Which is one reason that I allowed (until positively refuted by that wiki I linked to) that maybe Japan was thinking Germany wouldn’t declare war and that would be to its advantage. Because I knew Japan attacked Pearl Harbor without prior warning to Germany. I just didn’t realize that in addition to Pearl Harbor being an example of them NOT coordinating, it was also an example of them coordinating to do something stupid (Germany’s declaration of war after).
Strategically bankrupt.
Ooof, it would have never happened, but you kicked my brain right in the yarbles with that suggestion. What a strange world that would have been.
Depends on what you mean by “goofed.” Do you mean “goof” as in did something by mistake or blundered?
As was stated by someone earlier in the thread, Roosevelt didn’t intend to place the embargo on oil at that time, but it wasn’t by mistake. Dean Acheson was an assistant secretary of state and part of the anti-Japan faction within the US government. Roosevelt went off to Newfoundland to meet with Churchill and Acheson made the decision which ultimately lead to war. Japan was not the only country where actions by junior leaders had a profound effect.
If you mean “goofed” as in blundered, then yes, it was a severe blunder as it essentially started the countdown to war when the US wasn’t ready and when it needed to concentrate on Germany.
I’m not following this part. The embargo for oil has been called by many prominent Western historians the step which forced the war. It was opposed by the Secretary of Navy (aside, a cabinet position in 1941) because the Navy wasn’t ready to fight in 1941. It wasn’t the speed of the decision, it was the decision itself.
This is correct in that Americans believed that if they pushed hard enough, Japan would back down. However, this was a blunder on the American side as they were demanding actions which Americans wouldn’t have tolerated if others demanded of them.
(As an aside, IMHO, although horrifically expensive in terms of lives lost, pain and suffering of millions and tens of millions of people, Japan itself was better off by losing the war, while the rest of Asian was saved from a terrible enemy. However, looking strategically at the war from the US point of view, it wasn’t necessary at the time, as I pointed out before. )
Until December 8th, (note where I’m posting from) the US and Britain, et al, had severely underestimated Japan’s military capacity and abilities. It took several months on nonstop Japanese victories to make the Allies realize that it was going to be a harder fight than they had anticipated.
Certainly there was racism on both sides. The Japanese believed they had an unmatched fighting spirit and the West believed the Japanese incapable of modern warfare. Sadly, both sides were mistaken, causing untold sorrow.
You stated before :
Please be very clear about this point.
Did the Japanese military make the unilateral decision in 1941 to occupy the Philippines, given that attacking the Philippines would mean that this would involve attacking the US? Was there indeed no discussion of political, diplomatic or economic aspects of the issues? Were these decisions all made prior to any discussion with the Emperor and then presented to him? In fact, when where these discussions made between the Army and Navy and which officers were involved?
This is a matter of historical record, so it should be trivial for you to provide a site, as I am requesting now.
“Goofed” in the generic sense. I wasn’t aiming to get into the distinctions between “FDR mistakenly thought Acheson would follow orders which he didn’t” versus “Acheson misread the tea leaves” vs …
The official stated intent at the US Cabinet level was to ease into the embargoes. That’s not what actually happened. That discrepancy is a “goof”.
All big organizations have the problem that they’re not actually a single consistent consciousness no matter how much people want to personify them. Using e.g. “Washington” as a synonym for “all US politico-military thinking, plans, intentions, and actions” implies far more unanimity and consistency than is warranted. Yet we all do it.
Yes, the embargo triggered the actual shooting war. I said as much someways up thread.
What I was trying to say here was that had the embargo been done the FDR way, not the Acheson way, there would have been months or even a year of both sides adapting their thinking and their behavior to a more slowly changing circumstance. During which time a more rational response and a more diplomatic outcome would have been possible.
Just as the actual PH attack threw the USA from a peace- to a war- mentality literally overnight and was a great shock to our decision-making apparatus which led to some hasty actions, the speed and severity of the US embargo greatly changed Japan’s perception of their situation overnight. Which led them to some hasty moves that might have been avoided had the whole thing evolved much more slowly.
Poetically: WWII opened for the US as a 1940s-speed “wargasm” using 1940s level tech and 1940s level administration. We well understand the downsides of 1960s or 2020’s wargasms; haste leads to bad decisions.
While I enjoy participating in a discussion, I don’t feel like responding to challenges.
I dont think the oil embargo was a mistake. Sure, it triggered the war, but the IJA, with it’s atrocities like the Rape of Nanking, couldn’t be let to run unchecked.
And yes, decades later, Japan is better off, but one reason for that is that the Militaristic elite were wiped out.
I am curious about this.
Was anything ever run by the emperor? Technically he ran the whole show but seemingly he didn’t run anything.
Only at the very, very end after the nuclear bombs did he clearly step in and assert his authority (and he was almost the victim of a coup for it). Prior to that I have never heard he did anything one way or another. Not even rubber stamp things. Just out of it. Maybe I missed something.
They presented plans to him. I think he more or less just sat there and nodded or something.