America would never have surrendered under any conditions.
I agree that the threshold may have been higher than in most counties, but I really beg to differ that they would have continued the fight. Everyone has a breaking point.
If the oh so fabled pride of the Japanese wasn’t enough to stay them from giving up. The Yankee-Doodle isn’t going to keep the US going either.
Famine at home or a plague would have likely beaten the US. A few hundred to a thousand Americans in body bags is enough by modern standards.
As soon as there was a loss in the will to fight, it would have been over.
Boredom has also defeated Americans. Just look at Vietnam. When the war becomes old news, so does the effort.
I think that if the Japanese had complete control of the US western sea-board, a blocked panama canal, a conquered Hawaii/Midway/Wake/Johnston, in a fairy tale scenario. The US would be considering sue for peace options - in order to buy time.
A continental invasion - Fortress America Style would be the only way for Americans to consider an unconditional surrender.
And lets not forget - “Major General Edward P. King Jr. surrenders at Bataan April 9th 1942, Philippines–against General Douglas MacArthur’s orders–”
The USA also sued for peace with my country whilst it was still under a British flag. In the War of 1812. Your Grandfathers Grandfathers didn’t seem interested in “getting payback” after we burned the not yet white-house to the ground.
I agree with your assertion that every nation has a breaking point. You are also correct to point out that there is nothing magical about the U.S. which causes it to automatically win wars–as the war of 1812, the Vietnam War, and the Korean War attest.
I see two possible limits to a nation’s ability to win wars: 1) physical limits, and 2) lack of complete commitment to winning. I would argue that the U.S. failed to win the war of 1812 mostly for the first reason, and failed to win or lost the Korean and Vietnam wars mostly for the second reason.
A commitment to winning–or lack thereof–stems largely from power holders and opinion makers. If people with money decide (for example) that Nazis must be destroyed at all costs, and communists left alone, then they can use their ownership of media outlets to cast Nazis in as negative a light as possible, while downplaying the negatives associated with communism. Over the short run the general public may seem to have a mind of its own; but over the long run opinions tend to flow from the top down. This means that when we examine the United States’ commitment to winning any particular war, we need to start by looking at its power holders’ commitment to winning.
As I’ve hinted at above, there is nothing which would suggest that FDR’s commitment to defeating Germany was less than total, or that he was all that concerned about the number of American or German lives which might be expended in the process. When anti-Nazi German generals quietly approached the FDR administration, and asked what would be demanded of a post-Nazi Germany in exchange for peace, FDR responded by saying that Germany would be required to unconditionally surrender to all the Allies, including the Soviet Union. Realizing that their nation could not escape the horror of Soviet occupation even if they overthrew Hitler, many German general abandoned the plot to assassinate him. Had FDR been willing to make peace with a non-Nazi Germany in 1943, America could have been spared two years of war in Europe, and the evil of a Soviet-occupied Central Europe could have been avoided.
My sense is that FDR wasn’t all that concerned about Japan in and of itself. However, if he wanted to require unconditional surrender of Germany–as he clearly did–then he also had to require it of Japan. His best method of taking advantage of the rage created by the Pearl Harbor attacks was to lump Germany and Japan together as much as possible, and apply the same harsh policies toward both. By 1943, Japan’s leadership had realized their war against the U.S. was doomed. They assumed that if they fought well enough, bravely enough, and long enough, they could obtain better surrender terms than implied by unconditional surrender. The last two years’ of expenditure of American lives on the Pacific front was therefore done to prevent Japan from obtaining those better surrender terms. That decision also was not exactly the mark of a man who had placed minimization of American or Japanese casualties at the top of his priority list.
FDR was far from alone in having a deeply hostile view toward Nazi Germany, and a benign view of Soviet communism and Joseph Stalin. Large numbers of people in positions of power felt exactly the same way. In a war fought on the same side as the communists, and against the Nazis, their influence would have consistently been to push America toward ever-greater levels of self-sacrifice and valor. During the Vietnam War, they had attempted (with some success) to influence the nation in exactly the opposite direction. Any successor to FDR who wanted to pursue a pro-communist/pro-war foreign policy would have had a great deal of institutional support; much like the support FDR himself had enjoyed. (It is worth noting here that the media was strongly biased in favor of FDR, and against his conservative political opponents.)
A single bullet would have solved the problems for Japan that FDR’s personal existence entailed. Had he been assassinated in 1933 - '40, his successor would have been John Garner. Garner was far more conservative than FDR, and would have been far from enthusiastic about a foreign policy which, if successful, would result in communist domination of the heart of Europe. (As FDR’s policy eventually did.)
Had FDR been assassinated from 1941 - '44, his successor would have been Henry Wallace. If anything, Wallace was to the left of FDR! (Which one would not think possible.) In 1948, Wallace ran for president as a member of the Progressive Party. He was endorsed by the Communist Party USA, and he refused to publicly disavow this support. "Wallace believed that both the American and the Russian revolution were part of ‘the march to freedom of the past 150 years.’ "
A president like that would have created an unpredictable situation for Japan. Wallace was far less subtle and politically skilled than was FDR. While both men shared the goals of aiding the Soviet Union and destroying the Nazi government, FDR’s methods for achieving those goals were far more subtle than Wallace’s would likely have been. Left to his own devices, Wallace would probably have done his best to pursue war with Germany through the front door–that is, directly–rather than through the backdoor method of using an oil embargo to provoke war with Japan. On the other hand, it is far from certain he would have lifted the oil embargo that FDR’s administration had put in place. After becoming president, there is no telling how many of FDR’s advisors Wallace would have left in place, nor the extent to which he might have relied on their advice. Therefore, a Wallace presidency might well have resulted in an oil embargo against Japan.
It’s not clear whether FDR would have been able to turn a Japanese attack on the Dutch East Indies into a declaration of war on Japan. But whatever his chances of success may have been, they would have been better than Wallace’s.
To make a long story short, the Japanese would have been best off if they could assassinate FDR while Garner was still vice president. Their next-best option would have been to assassinate FDR and accept the (wild risks) of a Wallace presidency. They would then pursue the strategy I outlined earlier; and hope that Wallace wasn’t able to turn Japan’s Pacific adventures into a declaration of war.
Of course, all of this depends on being able to assassinate FDR without getting caught. If they got caught, or even if the dead bodies of the assassins were identified as Japanese after the fact, it would be game over.
There was never a peace agreement, only an armistice.
LOLOLOLOLOL
Listen to yourself.
The United States was not willing to take the war to China
The conflict as it were continues
That was an escalation that the U.S. and its UN allies did not want to make
In other words, and IN YOUR OWN WORDS America couldn’t handle the heat, so they got out of the kitchen. You couldn’t “win” so you sued for peace via armistice.
Even in the previous posts you have made, the falliability of WILLFUL American foreign policy is clear
We weren’t ready to fight a World War over Vietnam
there was no way to continue the fight
And THIS comment:
our bloody Civil War showed just how unwilling the nation is to sue for peace until unable to continue militarily
Is a bunch of “hogwash” as you say. Yes, facing significant set-backs, in his opinion, Lee believed it was futile to continue fighting. But there was still a significant amount of fighting that COULD have been done, and still many Southerns who would have continued to fight. They certainly didn’t fight to the last man. THEY SURRENDERED.
In short, your words say it all, not mine. America has it’s -surrender- threshold just like anybody else. They are by no means invincible, and WWII could have been lost.
IL
Although I can agree that this may have been:
That threshold would never be the … Japanese.
It is undeniable that a “ceasefire” is a form of suing for peace:
US negotiated a cease fire.
The US, Negotiated. Thank you for making that VERY clear.
What that means, is that because they couldn’t win militarily, that PEACE WAS SOUGHT AFTER; even though War was still an option, MaCarthur wanted to nuke the chinese as I recall, but the American leadership at the time wouldn’t have any of it.
And Red-Harvest, the “one arm behind your back” theorum regarding Vietnam is also true. I agree with you, but who tied that arm behind your back? YOUR OWN COUNTRY. An America that TURNED ON ITSELF lacking the will to continue the fight. It’s undeniable, and regretable. Nobody lost Vietnam but America :S.
And any notions of the “pay them back” mentality are again deflated by events during the Vietnam war, Where was all the ‘retribution’ for the Tet offensive?
It is undeniable that a “ceasefire” is a form of suing for peace:
No you got it wrong again… Ceasefire means both sides just stop fighting. Nobody admits anything but the bottom line is North Korea tried to invade the South and got pushed back out.
In terms of operational failure, North lost the conflict because they didn’t gain anything.
The Korean War could just restart at anytime, BECAUSE no armistice was signed and it was a no fault no gain action.
Please get your facts right before the typical “hey i’m from Canada, US sucks in every way so i will constantly make inane, ridiculous comments for added troll effect”
The US, Negotiated. Thank you for making that VERY clear.
The parties are still technically at war
The bottom line is just look at North Korea since 1953 and compare it to South Korea and USA. Who won is really the most insane question possible considering how these nations fared since the war and because of it. N Korea turned into basket case of unimaginable deplorable state. They certainly didn’t win anything but starvation. :roll:
Gargantua,
You could give the Iraqi Information Minister a run for his money–in fact with the beret there is a shocking resemblance. There is nothing about the scenarios you’ve suggested that are plausible, so I don’t see why you double down on weak positions. That violates the basic military maxim of reinforcing success and abandoning failure.
You seem to gloss over the most obvious points to emphasize the absurd. First, one can’t equate wars of national survival with those of national interest. WWII was one of survival–until Pearl Harbor the U.S. populace did not see it that way. After Pearl Harbor it did. Any “shock and awe” campaign by Japan would only reinforce that view, making negotiation even less viable.
Second, you don’t appreciate that the objectives of war differ from conflict-to-conflict: The War of 1812, Vietnam and Korea were not “all-in” affairs. They had far more limited scope. (Your definition of surrender would suggest that unless Britain was actually occupied and conquered any treaty or armistice in 1812 would be a “surrender.”) While those promoting the conflicts would couch them as vital to national survival, they were not by-and-large viewed as such. Third, there was no surrender. In two of the three conflicts the basic objectives were met, while key secondary objectives were not. This was true from both sides’ perspective. In the third it was recognized that the conflict was not producing the desired result and continuing would only continue to drain resources/detracting from the larger goals of containing communism. (By the way…economic capitalism has ended up conquering political communism from within in Vietnam, and is headed in the same direction in China, so the decision to withdraw seems to have been a good one.)
Your assessment of the ACW is bizarre. I’m no supporter/defender of the CSA, but the CSA had no power left to make war in the field. The primary field army was surrounded and facing destruction within 24 hours or so with zero chance of victory or escape (only some cavalry had the means of escape and used it.) The industrial and agricultural heartland of of the CSA had been laid waste, the capitol gone. The secondary army was still in the field, but seriously outgunned and unable to stop Union advances (and it’s predecessor armies had been successfully sieged and paroled twice already by Grant, rebuilt, and chased away again by Sherman and then another Union general, before being rebuilt a final time.) The Trans-Mississippi army had mostly disintegrated the previous fall after a last gasp offensive had been halted and sent into full scale retreat with pursuit.
By the end the South couldn’t feed a field army. It couldn’t clothe one. It couldn’t re-arm it or even supply it with powder and percussion caps. There were no significant ports left open. The supply of horses had been exhausted. The South had exhausted its manpower and it was overrun. The CSA no longer existed as a nation and it never surrendered as such. And your conclusion is that they lacked willpower? That makes no more sense than saying Japan or Germany lacked willpower.
If you want a “surrender threshhold” for the U.S. the capitulation of the CSA is the closest example we have to go on. No plausible scenario for the Japanese vs. U.S. alone comes even close to tripping that. It would take elimination of U.S. allies by German and Japan to make the threat possible. Pearl Harbor jarred the nation into recognizing that if the allies failed, it’s own fate would be in jeopardy.
@Imperious:
Please get your facts right before the typical “hey i’m from Canada, US sucks in every way so i will constantly make inane, ridiculous comments for added troll effect”
I’d prefer not to have this kind of thing described as typically Canadian. I’m Canadian, but I don’t have the attitudes or the behaviour patterns you describe, nor do I think that a preponderance of my compatriots do.
@Red:
Gargantua,
You could give the Iraqi Information Minister a run for his money–in fact with the beret there is a shocking resemblance. There is nothing about the scenarios you’ve suggested that are plausible, so I don’t see why you double down on weak positions. That violates the basic military maxim of reinforcing success and abandoning failure.
You seem to gloss over the most obvious points to emphasize the absurd. First, one can’t equate wars of national survival with those of national interest. WWII was one of survival–until Pearl Harbor the U.S. populace did not see it that way. After Pearl Harbor it did. Any “shock and awe” campaign by Japan would only reinforce that view, making negotiation even less viable.
Second, you don’t appreciate that the objectives of war differ from conflict-to-conflict: The War of 1812, Vietnam and Korea were not “all-in” affairs. They had far more limited scope. (Your definition of surrender would suggest that unless Britain was actually occupied and conquered any treaty or armistice in 1812 would be a “surrender.”) While those promoting the conflicts would couch them as vital to national survival, they were not by-and-large viewed as such. Third, there was no surrender. In two of the three conflicts the basic objectives were met, while key secondary objectives were not. This was true from both sides’ perspective. In the third it was recognized that the conflict was not producing the desired result and continuing would only continue to drain resources/detracting from the larger goals of containing communism. (By the way…economic capitalism has ended up conquering political communism from within in Vietnam, and is headed in the same direction in China, so the decision to withdraw seems to have been a good one.)
Your assessment of the ACW is bizarre. I’m no supporter/defender of the CSA, but the CSA had no power left to make war in the field. The primary field army was surrounded and facing destruction within 24 hours or so with zero chance of victory or escape (only some cavalry had the means of escape and used it.) The industrial and agricultural heartland of of the CSA had been laid waste, the capitol gone. The secondary army was still in the field, but seriously outgunned and unable to stop Union advances (and it’s predecessor armies had been successfully sieged and paroled twice already by Grant, rebuilt, and chased away again by Sherman and then another Union general, before being rebuilt a final time.) The Trans-Mississippi army had mostly disintegrated the previous fall after a last gasp offensive had been halted and sent into full scale retreat with pursuit.
By the end the South couldn’t feed a field army. It couldn’t clothe one. It couldn’t re-arm it or even supply it with powder and percussion caps. There were no significant ports left open. The supply of horses had been exhausted. The South had exhausted its manpower and it was overrun. The CSA no longer existed as a nation and it never surrendered as such. And your conclusion is that they lacked willpower? That makes no more sense than saying Japan or Germany lacked willpower.
If you want a “surrender threshhold” for the U.S. the capitulation of the CSA is the closest example we have to go on. No plausible scenario for the Japanese vs. U.S. alone comes even close to tripping that. It would take elimination of U.S. allies by German and Japan to make the threat possible. Pearl Harbor jarred the nation into recognizing that if the allies failed, it’s own fate would be in jeopardy.
The bolded statement above is a commonly held belief, and is a good segue into a discussion of what might have happened had the U.S. stayed neutral.
After Poland fell in 1939, Hitler offered peace treaties to Britain and France. Both nations refused. After France fell in 1940, Hitler offered Britain a peace treaty. The British refused. One reason for that refusal was the fact that by this point, the United States was sending the British large quantities of military aircraft. Plans were being made and implemented to greatly increase those quantities over the coming years. The British looked at the numbers and realized that Anglo-American aircraft production would greatly exceed German aircraft production over the coming years.
Had the U.S. stayed neutral–truly neutral, not just pretend-neutral–the British would not have received those aircraft; and might well have agreed to peace. Hitler would then have been free to devote all Germany’s military resources to a war against the Soviet Union, without having to worry about his western front. Also, peace with Britain would mean the end of the British food blockade. Hitler would then have been able to feed all the people within Germany’s borders.
Had the British not agreed to peace in 1940, Hitler would still have done what he did (go to war against the Soviet Union). Without American Lend-Lease Aid flowing to either the British or the Soviets, the German invasion would have had an increased likelihood of success. “Success” in this case would mean the conquest of all the Soviet Union west of the Urals; with (presumably) a peace treaty with whatever nation existed east of the Urals.
After this German victory, the British would then (presumably) have no choice but to agree to peace. The British alone would not have been strong enough to crush Germany–especially not a Germany in control of nearly all of Europe. With the threat of the Red Army destroyed, and with American industrial strength absent from the conflict, Britain would not have had a viable path to victory.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the U.S. became increasingly aggressive in its stance toward Japan. Part of that was the oil embargo. FDR knew that this would force the Japanese to obtain their needed oil from somewhere, and that the Soviet Union was not a good candidate for this. He also did his best to send signals that if the Japanese were to conquer the oil-rich Dutch East Indies, the U.S. would go to war against Japan. One of those signals was the significant fortification of the U.S. military base in the Philippines. Part of that included the addition of long-range strategic bombers, intended for use against Japanese targets in that general area. He also relocated the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s base of operations from California to Hawaii. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was an effort to solve the problems that FDR’s policies had caused.
Suppose the U.S. had been neutral in the Pacific. (No oil embargo, no long-range bombers in the Philippines, the U.S. Pacific Fleet would remain based in California, etc.) The Japanese would have had to choose between a war against the Soviet Union on the one hand, and a war against China and Britain on the other. Suppose they chose the latter option, and suppose it had achieved its intended goals. The Japanese would have ended up with control of most Pacific islands, southeast Asia, and China. (But not India, which was never considered a realistic goal.) Presumably, the Japanese would then have offered the British a peace treaty. Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that the British had accepted it.
In this scenario, the world would then be at peace. The four strongest postwar nations would be Germany, the U.S., Britain, and Japan. It is not obvious that Germany and Japan would ally with each other in this postwar era; any more than communist China and the Soviet Union allied with each other during the Cold War. Germany would have been no stronger in this hypothetical postwar era than the Soviet Union had been in the postwar era which had actually occurred. On the contrary: Germany’s army would have been a lot weaker than the postwar Red Army, both because the Germans started the war with a much smaller manpower base than the Soviets, and because they would have lost so many men defeating the Soviet Union. Similarly, Japan would have had a much weaker army than the one eventually obtained by communist China; because there are many fewer Japanese than Chinese.
The (comparative) weakness of the postwar German and Japanese armies means that neither Germany nor Japan would necessarily have been all that eager to bring the U.S. out of its neutral state by invading it. Nor would they have had the naval transport capacity to launch such an invasion even if they had wanted to. Nor would there have been any real reason for either nation to want to invade, or much chance of success if the invasion had occurred. The historical postwar Soviet Union–led by leaders whose ideology required long-term global conquest–represented a far more serious threat to the U.S. than a victorious Germany and Japan would have.
Please get your facts right before the typical “hey i’m from Canada, US sucks in every way so i will constantly make inane, ridiculous comments for added troll effect”
It was only in response to the typical “America is invincible, and world champions of sports we only play in our country” mantra.
Ridiculous comments for added troll effect.
A nuclear blast in NY, and DC, with the threat of more, had the Germans invented the bomb first, would have been a surrender threshold that the US as a nation would have succumbed to.
Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful things didn’t end this way, but the illusion of an invicible America is a dangerous assumption.
As for another planet hitting this one, (Planet X) it would not be enough for me to surrender, or the average american IMO. A natural cosmic disaster, unless it kills all of us, isn’t going to cut it.
I’d prefer not to have this kind of thing described as typically Canadian. I’m Canadian, but I don’t have the attitudes or the behavior patterns you describe, nor do I think that a preponderance of my compatriots do.
The comment was directed to Gar not Canada. It is typical for him to make insane anti-US comments as a measure to build up his own impression of where he lives.
It was only in response to the typical “America is invincible, and world champions of sports we only play in our country” mantra.
NO you got it wrong again… Nobody even made any comment regarding US, except to make the obvious point that US would not be surrendering to Japan under any scenario and to make that comment is just a statement of truth, not freeking sports teams ( insert whatever nonsense off tangent commentary that does not apply).
The bolded statement above is a commonly held belief, and is a good segue into a discussion of what might have happened had the U.S. stayed neutral.
It is reality. There is frequently a considerable difference between the stance of leadership in the U.S. and the sentiment of the people. FDR’s options were limited until Pearl Harbor. Isolation was not viable.
The idea of a happy content Germany/Japan/Britain/US division of the world is not plausible. Under authoritarian regimes neither Germany nor Japan could be expected to become satiated with what had already been achieved. And success at achieving military/political goals only tends to promote new larger goals among nations. (Ask the Native Americans about that.)
The most likely scenario is that acceptance of German and Japanese expansion would have worked out about as well for the allies as the USSR’s division of Poland (and other states) with Germany. With the U.S. remaining pacifist in the proposed scenario it would lack the standing military and military tech pipeline to stop Germany from taking Britain and bringing the war to U.S. shores.
EDIT: I sure wish they would disable the “someone else posted while you were typing this” as it screws up the formatting of posts leaving those stupid boxes (shown as A’s with hats in the editor.) Preview is unusable on this forum because of the character insertions it does.
@Red:
The bolded statement above is a commonly held belief, and is a good segue into a discussion of what might have happened had the U.S. stayed neutral.
It is reality. There is frequently a considerable difference between the stance of leadership in the U.S. and the sentiment of the people. FDR’s options were limited until Pearl Harbor. Isolation was not viable.
The idea of a happy content Germany/Japan/Britain/US division of the world is not plausible. Under authoritarian regimes neither Germany nor Japan could be expected to become satiated with what had already been achieved. And success at achieving military/political goals only tends to promote new larger goals among nations. (Ask the Native Americans about that.)
The most likely scenario is that acceptance of German and Japanese expansion would have worked out about as well for the allies as the USSR’s division of Poland (and other states) with Germany. With the U.S. remaining pacifist in the proposed scenario it would lack the standing military and military tech pipeline to stop Germany from taking Britain and bringing the war to U.S. shores.
EDIT: I sure wish they would disable the “someone else posted while you were typing this” as it screws up the formatting of posts leaving those stupid boxes (shown as A’s with hats in the editor.) Preview is unusable on this forum because of the character insertions it does.
I see two separate questions here:
In the war between fascism and communism, should the U.S. have fought on the side of communism, on the side of fascism, or should it have remained neutral?
Should the U.S. have built itself up militarily, industrially, and technologically, or should it have maintained peacetime levels of military allocations?
The answer to question 2 is fairly obvious. Regardless of whether the communists beat the fascists, or vice versa, the U.S. would be far less likely to be selected as the next victim if it was strong rather than weak. The more interesting of the two questions is whether a victorious Germany and Japan would have either been more willing or more able than a victorious Soviet Union to pursue war against the U.S.
You have suggested that, having secured victory over the Soviet Union, Germany would pursue victory over Britain also; rather than allowing the British a peace treaty with no further territorial changes. This would have represented a radical change of course for German diplomacy. Back in 1938, Hitler would strongly have welcomed an Anglo-German alliance directed against the Soviet Union. Unfortunately for Hitler, the Soviet Union had signed defensive alliances with France and Czechoslovakia; both of whom were allies of Britain. In 1939, the French falsely promised Poland that, if Germany attacked, France would retaliate with a full-scale invasion of Germany; and would do so within 15 days of mobilization. Actual French military plans did not include a major offensive against Germany–a fact which neither the French nor the British saw fit to share with the Polish.
As I’d mentioned earlier, Hitler offered a peace treaty to Britain and France after Poland fell; and to Britain after France fell. Hitler did not see a need for Germany to conquer the British Empire; in large part because he believed that places like Africa and India were not well-suited for white settlement. Hitler wanted significantly expanded living space for Germans, and he could find that in Europe. The German government had drawn up plans to relocate between 30 - 50 million Poles eastward, with their lands resettled by Germans. Had Germany won its war against the Soviet Union, it’s likely that some of the western areas of the Soviet Union would also have been repopulated by Germans.
But Germany had a prewar population of only 70 million. Hitler thought of those 70 million people as a sort of organic whole, and did what he felt would best promote the long-term future of that organic whole. To him, it was a choice between a small Germany vulnerable to British food blockades, Versailles Treaties, and communist invasions, and a large Germany which would have the strength and population base necessary to resist such things. Victory over the Soviet Union was both necessary and sufficient to achieve Greater Germany as Hitler envisioned it.
Had Hitler achieved that goal, it’s difficult to see why he would want further war. More war would just bleed off German strength–strength which, if measured by the number of men available for military service, was never that much to begin with. The vast majority of people under German rule would have been non-Germans, which means that significant occupying forces would have been tied down to prevent rebellions. Also, the German military would have needed to fight an ongoing war against communist partisans in Russia and France.
But for the sake of argument let’s suppose that after the conquest of the Soviet Union, the British had asked for peace, and Hitler had rejected their offer. At that point, the United States could have exerted diplomatic pressure. Germany would be told that unless it accepted the British offer, the U.S. would begin sending large numbers of military aircraft to Britain for use against Germany. The prospect of fighting a prolonged air and sea war not just against British industrial capacity alone, but against that of both the U.S. and Britain, would almost certainly have brought Hitler to the negotiating table. If it did not, Hitler would have found himself in a prolonged, painful, pointless war; a war in which all of Germany’s industrial capacity and cities were vulnerable to enemy bombers; with only a modest portion of the Anglo-American population and industrial base vulnerable to German bombers. This war against cities and against civilians would have been antithetical to Hitler’s long-term goal of growing the German population base. Hitler understood this, which is one of the reasons why he’d attempted on multiple occasions to obtain peace with the British.
Hitler’s trust of the Japanese was far from complete. One of his reasons for not being more eager to take out Britain was his thought that the dismemberment of the British empire would do far more to help Japan than it would to help Germany. Germany did not make significant technology transfers to Japan until very late in the war. People have sometimes mentioned that Japan’s aircraft were top-of-the-line by the standards of '41, but had become obsolete by late '43, and were hopelessly outdated in '44. Germany had excellent late-war piston-driven aircraft, such as later variants of the Fw 190. The fact that the Japanese were not also building Fw 190s in '43 or '44 demonstrates the limitations of Hitler’s trust in Japan.
If Germany went to war against the U.S., it would have been an opportunity for Japan to ally itself with the U.S. in order to gain land at German expense. Germany’s army would have been off in North America fighting the U.S.; whereas Japan’s army would have been available in Asia, ready to push west. Similarly, if Japan had elected to go to war against the U.S., the German army would have been present in western Asia, ready to push east against Japan.
Suppose both Germany and Japan went to war against the U.S. at once. Whichever of the two sent the larger force to the U.S., and which sacrificed more on the battlefield in an effort to conquer, would have weakened itself in relation to the other. That fact is one of several reasons why a German or Japanese invasion of American would not have happened.
#1 seems rather simple. Russia had to be kept in the war in order to beat both Germany and Japan. It’s a twofer. Actually it’s a threefer because if Russia goes, most likely Great Britain does as well. And that doesn’t include the many European nations already lost that would not be coming back if Germany prevailed.
Let’s not forget, without the USSR’s deal with Hitler, he would have posed less of a threat to Europe. So it’s hard to make a strong case that Germany would have been less of a threat with Russia completely out of the picture.
@Red:
#1 seems rather simple. Russia had to be kept in the war in order to beat both Germany and Japan. It’s a twofer. Actually it’s a threefer because if Russia goes, most likely Great Britain does as well. And that doesn’t include the many European nations already lost that would not be coming back if Germany prevailed.
Let’s not forget, without the USSR’s deal with Hitler, he would have posed less of a threat to Europe. So it’s hard to make a strong case that Germany would have been less of a threat with Russia completely out of the picture.
I would make the opposite case: that if the U.S. was going to enter the war at all, it should have entered it to fight communism and the Soviet Union. A victorious Soviet Union represented a far greater existential threat to the U.S.'s long-term existence than a victorious Germany would have.
The first Soviet leader who did not articulate the long-term goal of world conquest and global communist revolution was Gorbachev. That previous Soviet leaders had this as their goal is, if not an unofficial declaration of war, at very least a declaration of an intention to wage such war in the future. This strongly contrasts with Germany, whose long-term goals were limited to Europe.
There were two methods by which communist conquest could be achieved. The first was revolution. During the 20th century, communists gained Russia, China, Cuba, and other places primarily through this method. The second was military conquest–conquest which added Poland, eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, eastern Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and North Korea to the communist sphere. Having had success with both methods, communists were perfectly willing to use either method against the Western democracies.
In the years after WWII, America allowed its conventional military forces to be surpassed by those of the Iron Curtain. The Truman administration knew that, if the Soviets invaded West Germany, NATO’s conventional forces would not be able to stem the tide. To deal with this problem, the plan was to use nuclear weapons on the Red Army as it advanced through West Germany. West Germany–which would have been the U.S.'s main ally in this scenario–was less than thrilled by a plan which would have involved the deaths of hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions, of German civilians due to collateral nuclear damage.
During WWII, the U.S. had focused on building very large numbers of good, sound military aircraft. Once the U.S.'s production was ramped up, it produced twice as many military aircraft in any given year as any other participant in the war. During the early postwar years, the mindset which led it to focus on large quantities of reasonably good weapons was abandoned in favor of a focus on building smaller numbers of the best possible weapons. The F-86 Sabre was the best plane of the Korean War. But the MiG was almost as good, and the Soviets had many more MiGs than the U.S. had Sabres. The MiG’s main intended role was to shoot down American strategic bombers. It proved very effective in that role during the Korean War.
It has been said that Stalin allowed the Korean War to go forward in the first place as a test of American military readiness. If the U.S. failed this test, he would move forward with his plans to invade Western Europe. The U.S. did not begin deploying ICBMs until the early '60s. During the '50s, it could deliver nuclear payloads only via strategic bombers. The MiG program was intended specifically to prevent such deliveries from occurring.
To the extent that the Korean War was a test of American military readiness, the U.S. failed that test. Stalin appears to have made the decision to go forward with his plans to invade Western Europe. However, he died in 1953, before putting those plans into effect.
His successors proved more cautious men. They did not abandon the goal of conquering the Western democracies. But they chose to pursue this goal through revolution, rather than risking an outright war.
In the czarist Russia of the early 1900s, the social order had been weak, and ripe for overthrow. All that was necessary was for the communists to achieve a reasonably strong organization, and push. In the Western democracies, the social order was strong. Revolution in the latter case entailed a two-part process. 1) Communists would work to weaken the existing social order, until it was no stronger than that of early twentieth century Russia. 2) Once the social order was weak enough, communists would work to achieve a Russia-style revolution.
Acting on orders from Moscow, communist parties in Western nations promoted the following agenda:
Of communists’ two goals for Western democracies (greatly weakening the existing social order and promoting communist revolution) the former is probably far more achievable than the latter.
For the above-described reasons, a victorious Soviet Union represented a dual threat to the United States. If the Soviets were unwilling or unable to use the military option to achieve conquest of the U.S., they were more than happy to use attacks from within instead. I would argue that the U.S. is far better able to deal with military threats than it is with long-term efforts to weaken its existing social order.
Acting on orders from Moscow, communist parties in Western nations promoted the following agenda:
- Attacks on “traditional morality,” on “dead white males,” and on “Eurocentric cultures.”
- Attacks on the concept of Western civilization itself
- Radical feminism, attacks on males, and attacks on mothers and the role of motherhood
- High levels of immigration into Western nations from non-Western nations
- Attacks on patriotism
- Attacks on religion in general and Christianity in particular
- Attacks on the traditional family
- Promotion of the common criminal, who was supposedly a hero for resisting the evil of the existing social order.
The following may be off topic.
I have heard and read the following many times from a myriad of different sources. It really does make one wonder how much of our “social progress” was originally begun as efforts to undermine Western civilization.
The communists theories are sound and they have had the desired effect on the Western world it has just taken longer than they originally envisioned, had the USSR institued the same reforms as the PRC in the late 1980’s instead of going for both economic and political reform we could very well have a scenario on our hands in which the communists win the Cold war.
The Vietnam war embodies the weapon that social change was for the communists, if they could make a war bloody enough and endless enough eventually the United States would capitulate, no longer were the Americans the people who fought until the bitter end at battles like Bastogne and Guadalcanal. It didnt matter if the armed forces were ready to fight on, the tide of public opinion was more important.
I can imagine the Soviet leadership watching the coverage of those brave American Vietnam vets getting spit on as they come home from the war often badly wounded and thinking how could they lose this Cold war.
I voted for Japan to enlarge it’s pilot training program (which was really run more like a pogrom with its treatment of pilots) but in reality I doubt it would have one them the war but made it a closer contest for longer.
I have seen 2 believeable scenarios in which Japan “won” WW2 and only one of those involved fighting the Americans.
The Scenario with the US involved a Japanese victory at the battle of Leyte gulf. The Japanese completely sink the transport fleet sitting in the harbor after Halsey fails to leave TF38 (I think) to guard the San Burnedino strait and then also fails to sink Ozawa’s carriers in the ensuing fiascio. The US agrees to a negotiated settelment with Japan in which they must abandon all of the territory the took after dec 1941. It leaves Japan in control of Manchuria and Korea as well as Indochina, and while Japan is forced to pull forces out of China the book alludes that the fight continues with Japan supporting their Nanjing puppets against Chiangs KMT, which the US has become extreamly annoyed with during the course of the war because of his corruptness and inept handling of the war.
The other scenario involved Japan joining Germany for a joint strike against the USSR in which Japan pulls out of Indochina and even pulls forces out of China, which it parades as “good will” towards the west but in reality is just a build-up against the Soviets. In the end Japan commits about 80% of its armed forces against the USSR and using a intel-coup (Richard Sorge is captured and convinced to send false reports to Moscow saying that Japans real intention is to strike south) gets the Soviets to pull away those crack siberian divisions early, losing them in the Kiev encirclement, and sever the trans-siberian railway, siege vladivostock and take Karborvosk which was the military HQ at the time. It proves to be too much for the Soviets and the political leadership collapses, Stalin is abandonded at a railway station by his guards  while fleeing Moscow(later to be found by roaming gulag inmates) and Germany and Japan are victorious. In the end the US sponsers a peace settelment between Japan and the REF (Russian Eur-asian federation) and the treaty of manila is signed in which Japan is allowed to occupy French Indochina and occupy parts of the DEI and to freely import rubber and tin from Malaya in exchange for a neutrality and non-agression treay with Britian and the US allwoing the 2 powers to concentrate of Germany in Europe.
I could give more details on either scenario if any body is intrested.
I voted other, because They need all of that and alot more to beat the us in a war.
Why:
US had way more money than them.
US had more war materials than them!
US men had a battle harden heart because of Pearl harbor.
@Red:
#1 seems rather simple. Russia had to be kept in the war in order to beat both Germany and Japan. It’s a twofer. Actually it’s a threefer because if Russia goes, most likely Great Britain does as well. And that doesn’t include the many European nations already lost that would not be coming back if Germany prevailed.Â
Let’s not forget, without the USSR’s deal with Hitler, he would have posed less of a threat to Europe. So it’s hard to make a strong case that Germany would have been less of a threat with Russia completely out of the picture.
I would make the opposite case: that if the U.S. was going to enter the war at all, it should have entered it to fight communism and the Soviet Union. A victorious Soviet Union represented a far greater existential threat to the U.S.'s long-term existence than a victorious Germany would have.
I disagree. Fascism is not the answer to communism and never has been. (Although today’s conservatives often consider and propose it as such, a rather disturbing notion.) Some choice, Hitler (with Imperial Japan and Mussolini thrown in) or Stalin. Neither is in any way appealing. Both were mad men bent on world domination and elimination of others.
And the proof of the strategic soundness of the decision that was made is that both Japan and Germany were defeated, Western Europe was liberated, and the threat from the USSR was contained. The most likely result of the other scenario is the U.S. alone standing. It’s a far worse position to start from even if the U.K. somehow survived.
There were two methods by which communist conquest could be achieved. The first was revolution. During the 20th century, communists gained Russia, China, Cuba, and other places primarily through this method.
And why did these nations turn communist? Because of the excesses that encourage communism. Corrupt self-serving strongmen and/or feudal type systems swing hard in the direction of communism whenever the opportunity arises. Propping up bad/autocratic regimes that are allies has short term appeal, but has major negative long term consequences.
The second was military conquest–conquest which added Poland, eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, eastern Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and North Korea to the communist sphere. Having had success with both methods, communists were perfectly willing to use either method against the Western democracies.
All of of these were under the brutal control of Nazis, the Japanese or USSR anyway early in the war, so there is no loss shown from the path taken!
Stalin appears to have made the decision to go forward with his plans to invade Western Europe. However, he died in 1953, before putting those plans into effect.
His successors proved more cautious men. They did not abandon the goal of conquering the Western democracies. But they chose to pursue this goal through revolution, rather than risking an outright war.
This illustrates the problem once again, Hitler was no less ambitious or ruthless than Stalin.
And the thing about communism is that it is run by committee, and that puts limits on what it can accomplish. As long as all out war posed a likely existential threat, it was unwilling to risk it.
How do you kill communism? Contain it and let time take its course. You out compete it economically. (Why do you think China is doing so well today? They are converting to capitalism…a managed form of capitalism reminiscent of Singapore.)
I would argue that the U.S. is far better able to deal with military threats than it is with long-term efforts to weaken its existing social order.
I would agree, but with the opposite conclusion as to what constitutes the worst threat. I don’t fear the idea of workers getting living wages and health care as much as I’m concerned by the strategic ineptitude of the oligarchy, the 0.1% that own and control nearly everything and operate above, beyond, and outside the law with near term greed as the only motivator. We’ve had two depressions in the last century as the result of unfettered canabalistic capitalism and are setting up for a worse one to come because we’ve done nothing to address the problems of the most recent one–unlike in FDR’s time. Regulated free markets work, unregulated ones fail…spectacularly. Even Greenspan had to admit that his operative economic theory (the same one still espoused by the majority of economists) doesn’t work.
p.s. Before anyone starts theorizing about my nomme de guerre it has nothing to do with politics. It was a play on the “grim reaper” theme that I adopted for ACW gaming back in the 90’s. I’ve had Soviet supporters accuse me of being anti-Russian using the name as “evidence”, and Right wingers accuse me of being communist for the same reason.
Hm -
enjoying, for the most part
I voted for Japan to enlarge it’s pilot training program (which was really run more like a pogrom with its treatment of pilots) but in reality I doubt it would have one them the war but made it a closer contest for longer.
I agree with this. I see it as more of an extension than a win. However, extending the war creates opportunity for a win by other means (collapse of the USSR, failure of U.S. invasions in Africa, Italy, etc.) Carriers would work to Japan’s advantage except for the shortage of pilots (as the 2nd half of the war showed.)
The severity of the IJN pilot training program was not a problem in peacetime, the failure was in not relaxing it in preparation for war–failure to adapt. (For comparison, a university will recognize that when many graduates in a given field are needed it is time to relax standards compared to when few are needed–something I’ve witnessed first hand in highly cyclical industries. Early “flunk out classes” become normal prereqs during times of increased demand.)
The Japanese preparation for war is impressive on many levels. The % of GDP they committed to the effort in the years leading up to war is staggering by western standards. I’m an amateur astronomer who appreciates night vision adaptation, so I also am impressed by their extensive preparation for naval night fighting. They were so far ahead of the U.S. that it is embarrassing how ignorant U.S. commanders were of the basic principles. As a visual astronomy buff, I find the pre-war/early war ignorance of basic night vision bewildering. It is second nature to me and I’ve given some basic instructions about it to modern soldiers.
@Red:
Carriers would work to Japan’s advantage except for the shortage of pilots (as the 2nd half of the war showed.)
Yes indeed. By late 1944, the shortage of planes and of trained pilots had reduced Japanese naval aviation to such an extent that, at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Japanese Navy used its remaining carriers as a decoy force. And it was widely regarded as a mistake for Halsey to take the bait and pursue the decoy force (which left the American task force at Leyte open to attack by a Japanese battleship force). In mid-1942, at Midway, sinking four Japanese fleet carriers was rightly considered a turning point of the war. In late 1944, sinking four Japanese carriers (including a fleet carrier) didn’t have the same importance because those carriers were essentially like guns without bullets (which is one reason why the Japanese were willing to expend them on a decoy action).
