POLL: Better Off Alone?

The Balkans is an interesting chicken-egg situation. The Axis invasion of Yugoslavia was triggered by the anti-facist coup, and I am not versed enough in Yugoslav history to argue how much of that coup was precipitated by Italy's failures against the Greeks. If the coup was bound to happened regardless, then that's that, and Germany and the gang still invade. If not, and the Axis does not invade Yugoslavia, then it's possible the intervention in Greece doesn't happen, or happens at a much smaller scale. A cynic might even argue that, from the German perspective, the stalemate wasn't the worst situation. Additional Commonwealth resources were tied up assisting the Greeks, but there was no realistic scenario where those could seriously threaten the Germans. A drawn-out Greco-Italian struggle would have not only have locked down those Commonwealth forces, but also denied Greek shipping tonnage to the Allies as prior to the fall of Greece, her merchant marine was not in Allied service.

An interesting "what if" with the Pacific scenario is the Netherlands East Indies. The Dutch were already pushed into the Allied camp before the Italians initiated hostilities. If those Commonwealth assets weren't needed for Africa and the Med, would the Dutch at some point prior to December 1941 have been agreeable to an expanded Allied presence in the NEI? At the very least, having Australian, NZ, and Indian divisions close at hand (rather than on the other side of the world) raises interesting possibilities.