Tango01 | 14 Jul 2014 10:23 p.m. PST |
"Let's face it. Imperial Japan stood next to no chance of winning a fight to the finish against the United States. Resolve and resources explain why. So long as Americans kept their dander up, demanding that their leaders press on to complete victory, Washington had a mandate to convert the republic's immense industrial potential into a virtually unstoppable armada of ships, aircraft, and armaments. Such a physical mismatch was simply too much for island state Japan -- with an economy about one-tenth the size of America's -- to surmount. Quantity has a quality all its own. No amount of willpower or martial virtuosity can overcome too lopsided a disparity in numbers. Tokyo stared that plight in the face following Pearl Harbor. So Japan could never have crushed U.S. maritime forces in the Pacific and imposed terms on Washington. That doesn't mean it couldn't have won World War II. Sounds counterintuitive, doesn't it? But the weak sometimes win. As strategic sage Carl von Clausewitz recounts, history furnishes numerous instances when the weak got their way. Indeed, Clausewitz notes that it sometimes makes sense for the lesser contender to start a fight. If its leadership sees force as the only resort, and if the trendlines look unfavorable -- in other words, if right now is as good as it gets -- then why not act?…" Full article here link Amicalement Armand |
(Stolen Name) | 14 Jul 2014 10:29 p.m. PST |
They could have just joined the allies………. |
darthfozzywig | 14 Jul 2014 10:35 p.m. PST |
They did join the allies, but only after all that fire- and atomic bombing. |
deephorse | 15 Jul 2014 3:29 a.m. PST |
Their leadership needed foresight. They didn't have any. Pushing that to one side this is how they could have won ….. Surely with enough foresight they wouldn't have started the whole affair? A flawed article from the very beginning. Belongs on the Utter Drivel Board. |
Rudysnelson | 15 Jul 2014 4:48 a.m. PST |
I agree with deephorse, a flawed article. Once the USA was in the war, they had not only superior quanity but their weapons were superior in quality as well. There was not one area by 1943 that the USA did not have better weapons. |
Dynaman8789 | 15 Jul 2014 4:51 a.m. PST |
I still wonder what would have happened if Japan had attacked Russia instead of the US, keeping their fleet out of it (or going after UK/Dutch/French territory only). If the US intervened it would almost certainly had been a naval disaster – the US fleet doctrine, aircraft, and gunnery was just not up to Japan's in the early war. That first battle would have been without Japan having attacked the US – what would the effect of such a defeat have been on a nation that was staunchly Isolationist have been? |
Skarper | 15 Jul 2014 5:10 a.m. PST |
I skimmed it and gave it a 'meh' – same old whatiffery. Japan had – IMO – little choice to not fight a war in 1941. They had been pushed into it by economic embargoes of key resources. As far as I can tell – the Western powers were unwilling to tolerate a non-white power in Asia as it would unravel their tenuous grip on that hemisphere. The war led to utter disaster for Japan – and in fairness to their leaders they could not have foreseen the terror bombing on such a scale let alone the A-bombs nor the ravages of unrestricted submarine warfare – all clear cut war-crimes BTW. Japan was of course a very evil Empire so they are far from blameless too. Something they need to face up to sooner or later if they are ever to live alongside their former victims. The only way they were ever going to win WW2 was some massive blunders on the part of the Allied leadership – something on a scale that would make Hitler's errors seem minor. |
Jemima Fawr | 15 Jul 2014 5:32 a.m. PST |
'Clear-cut war crimes' my fat, hairy arse. |
nochules | 15 Jul 2014 5:53 a.m. PST |
I always seem to win when I play Japan in Axis and Allies, and that is a highly detailed, accurate simulation of WWII, so maybe they are on to something. :-) |
OSchmidt | 15 Jul 2014 6:11 a.m. PST |
This article is a steaming pile of crap. Of the five ways, the first, "one war at a time" is blitheringly obvious. If they had ended the war in China, there would be no world War Two in the Pacific because that's what the Allies wished them to do! The Americans and British and French began to isolate Japan only after the Marco-Polo Bridge, the Rape of Nanking, and the continued aggression of Japan in China even before, so this is a non-starter. As for the rest, all of the courses of action were tried in WWII and failed. A simple overview of the island campaigns showed one thing. That the Japanese put hundreds of thousands of troops on an island. They dug, and dug deep, mined, etc. Each one was taken with crushing firepower by the allies and most of the 100,000 were killed, where even at worst maybe 7t to 8,000 of the Americans were killed. This is NOT a good strategy when you start out with a severe population disadvantage as Japan did. A highly motivated fanatical military machine like the Japanese soldier dies just as quickly when bullets enter the body or the flames from a flamethrower wash around him. You cannot soak up more bullets with fanaticism. The only course that could have HELPED was the Japanese using their submarines as commerce destroyers, as trying to attack the American convoys and merchants bringing aid to th invading forces. However-- that would have produced more American shipping losses, but the Japanese submarine losses would have been just as severe and been attritted at the same rate they were. By that time the Americans learned from the British and were convoying their merchants under heavy escort. As in so many other things, in other lands and times, the whole course of Japan's drift to war was a function of internal politics and ideological delusions. They believed their own bull crap. 1. |
GROSSMAN | 15 Jul 2014 6:12 a.m. PST |
This thread racks disaprin. |
Winston Smith | 15 Jul 2014 6:14 a.m. PST |
Editor's note: Please see out other "5 Ways" articles… That's a fine way to approach a "scholarly" article. Set up a framework and then look for facts. There are three basic ways to win wars according to the great Carl. Breezy writing does not help either. |
Frederick | 15 Jul 2014 6:55 a.m. PST |
There is an interesting book on this very topic – Rising Sun Victorious link That being said, in more than a few of the 10 alternate scenarios presented the Japanese don't actually win! The best option seems to me to act like an actual ally of the Germans and attack the Russians in 1941. An interesting other option is to push the US Navy to actually alter Plan Orange to include supporting the Philippines – and then wearing down the US Navy as it crossed the Pacific |
Some Chicken | 15 Jul 2014 8:13 a.m. PST |
'Clear-cut war crimes' my fat, hairy arse. RMD – I know nothing of the contents of your trousers but wholeheartedly endorse your sentiments. |
Legion 4 | 15 Jul 2014 8:22 a.m. PST |
"Five Ways Japan Could Have Won World War II " … Only in an alternate universe … |
Jemima Fawr | 15 Jul 2014 8:51 a.m. PST |
Thanks Winston; pithy and appropriately inappropriate, I thought. |
Patrick Sexton | 15 Jul 2014 8:56 a.m. PST |
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Petrov | 15 Jul 2014 8:58 a.m. PST |
Japan? You mean that island with practically no natural resources, especially metal and oil? |
thomalley | 15 Jul 2014 9:34 a.m. PST |
Suggest you read a book called, Japan at War: An Oral History. Gives a good look at the homeland and its people during the war. Includes a couple of interviews with Saburo Sakai. But most of the interviews are with common people. |
David Manley | 15 Jul 2014 9:56 a.m. PST |
"'Clear-cut war crimes' my fat, hairy arse." Remember war crimes are only war crimes if you lose :) |
Patrick R | 15 Jul 2014 11:01 a.m. PST |
One of the problems I have with these kind of scenarios is that they tend to imply that if Japan inflicts enough damage in one go, the US will back off in all perpetuity or we'll get this weird magical scenario where the western powers will learn to "share the colonial cake" with the nice Asian people of the Co-Prosperity sphere … That or "The Japanese colonial empire would still be better than our evil colonial empires, because it would be almost like self-rule which would be a better thing no ?" Returning to the point, I'm sure that Japan can score on points and win a victory, how long they keep it is a matter of time and how much more detached from reality the leaders in Tokyo become once they give the US a bloody nose expecting it will just sulk and cry in the corner rather than break out the shotgun and "even the score", the US is very good at "righteous anger" when it is cornered … |
Weasel | 15 Jul 2014 11:14 a.m. PST |
In these discussions, it helps to look up exactly how many ships, tanks and planes the allies were churning out every single month, versus the production rates of the Axis. |
Legion 4 | 15 Jul 2014 1:12 p.m. PST |
Yep … in modern conventional warfare, Logistics is key. For example, during the breakout from Normandy beachheads. The UK faced off with the Germans in a series of ops; Goodwood, Charwood, etc. … In those actions both sides lost around 300 AFVs … Most of the UK's loses were replaced[mostly with M4s] … The German could only replace about a few dozen [at best] of those lost AFVs … |
Bill N | 15 Jul 2014 4:49 p.m. PST |
I am going to run with STAYING OUT OF IT. Japan was the dominant economic power in east Asia. If it had stayed out of the war, it not only would likely have remained so for decades. It also would have profited from dealing with the belligerents in Europe. |
James Wood | 15 Jul 2014 7:05 p.m. PST |
Try my book: Japanese Military Strategy in the Pacific War: Was Defeat Inevitable? (Rowen & Littlefield, paperback) |
thomalley | 15 Jul 2014 8:21 p.m. PST |
When you say stay out of it, when are you starting. They were already in China and I can't see them pulling out. If they stay the Allied embargo would have crushed their economy. The embargo being one of the reason they felt they had to go to war with the rest of the allied powers. |
Skarper | 15 Jul 2014 8:49 p.m. PST |
The militaristic inter-war regimes in Germany and Japan need a war at some point or their raison d'etre disappears. They'd have to change course by 1930 to stay out of WW2. Japan had within the living memory of its leaders fought a short, bloody but victorious war with Russia and got to keep the spoils long term – The USA in the 30s was pretty weak militarily – only the Navy was a significant force. It looks utterly stupid in hindsight but you can see how they thought they had a chance and by 1940 they really had no choice. It's an interesting topic but not a very good article. Bad articles are better for promoting discussion than good articles where everyone basically says – 'yeah that's right.' |
OSchmidt | 16 Jul 2014 5:49 a.m. PST |
Rational calculation would have dictated that after absorbing Bohemia and setting up satellite states of the rest of Czechoslovakia, that Hitler should have "picked up his chips and gone home. Rational Calculation would have dictated that by August 1941 the Japanese had failed in their mission to subdue China and that submission to the demands of the West that they essentially "cease and desist" in China, and pull back to Manchuria was an excellent means of face-saving which would have lifted the embargoes. But what does rational calculation have to do with a people who think that they are superior by blood or spirit. But people do not think rationally-- ever-- and there is always a tremendous urge to sacrifice long term certainties for present mirages. People don't want to succeed. They want to feel good. |
Skarper | 16 Jul 2014 6:45 a.m. PST |
That's an excellent point OSchmidt. People – least of all our leaders then and now – do not think rationally. We tend to elect big risk gamblers and egomaniacs who 'know' they are right…and the rest of us underlings pay the price in blood and treasure. |
Murvihill | 16 Jul 2014 9:51 a.m. PST |
"It looks utterly stupid in hindsight but you can see how they thought they had a chance and by 1940 they really had no choice." The only people who don't have a choice are those that get hit by the first shot. The Japanese could have avoided the whole thing right up to dawn of Dec 7, 1941 by simply not dropping the first bomb. |
Ottoathome | 16 Jul 2014 5:49 p.m. PST |
Dear Skarper Yes precisely, but would that it were as benign as you say, that it was that we elect risk takers who don't really have to live with the consequences of the risks. The problem is that once you are elected, or promoted to CEO or anything like that you are immediately surrounded by people who flatter and cater to your ego, who tell you what you want to hear, wwho convince you that you are only alittle less than a God, who are afraid that now, from your exalted position of power they might blast you with a thunderbolt- and live seems all so easy. It is a rare man indeed who can resist the corruption of power. I do not mean venal or monetary corruption, I mean the corruption of the very senses of the individual that blind him to the realities. The person in power has all the keys to the toys, control over all the spigots of power and patronage and reward, and the real tragedy is NOT that the people telling these leaders that they are Gods in the certainty of huge reward, but people who tell them what they want to hear for nothing just to keep their jobs or continue sitting at the cool table in the cafeteria. These are by far more insidious because they seem to ask for NOTHING and seem to be so loyal and supportive-- and disintersted00 and sincere. The proudest day of my life in Industrial Management was one day when my assistant, Matt, was working on a production problem. I came out and was in something of a panic-fury over what was going wrong. What it was was not important. It wasn't my doing nor Matt's nor any of our department but we absolutely positively HAD to ship. Matt was applying a solution that would take time. I told him I wanted to do it a different way which would be faster. Matt said to me after he heard me out, "Otto, that's not only the dumbest idea I've ever heard you come up with, it's the dumbest thing I've heard in my life period. My boss and his boss above him, the CEO heard this and were shocked. I thought for a second, a long second and realized Matt was absolutely correct. I said "Right- very well, bash on." My Boss and the CEO, shocked that I would accept such blatant insubordination in front of witness, and people on the line asked what I was going to do about Matt. "Promote him! I said. That man has courage!" He was entirely right and I was entirely wrong. I explained to him that he actually had paid me the greatest compliment anyone could ever have given me. He proved that my management style of collegiality and truth first was the right one. If I had come down on him, I would have ruined him and been like every other boss. The point is not to brag about myself. The point is that if you do not insist on being told the unvarnished, plain, hard to hear truth, you will soon live in a never-never-land of fantasy that your subordinates will dutifully paper you into. I have seen this all my life in business, industry, academia, and government and you all see the consequences of it each and every day in each and every way. Only occasionally do we find a leader like Lincoln or Washington who seems immune to it. The fault of the Japanese was not that these men were monsters, but that they BECAME monsters, but they had a lot of people greasing the skids below them. In a famous incident, a week after September 1 1939 when Britain and France finally declared war on Germany in response to Hitler's invasion of Poland, Hitler was sitting in his office at the Reichs chancery glaring at Ribbentrop and demanding to know "How this happened!!!!!" There it is. But look around you. How many beautiful, hard working lovely women take up with men who are perfect crud and who beat, abuse and cheat on them and honestly believe that "They will change him with their love." How many men marry women who they are sure will never change, but they do?" Top to bottom people don't think rationally-- ever. Oh yes, you and I can sit here and sip port and puff pipes and discuss cabages and kngs and the grand themes of history, and see everthing with a clarity that is truly Olympian. But let it touch us or ours, and logic goes out the door. I really feel for the people like the Duc De Choiseul. In one of my jobs If I wanted to get anything out of the big boss of the company I had to get to him before 9:30 am. That's because at 9:30 his secretary Kathy came in and all he wanted to do was talk about how good Kathy's ass looked that day. I can see the venerable Duke trying to talk sense to Louis XV. "Sir, you must sign these edicts so we can mount an expedition to aid the Marquise De Montcalm in Canada, send him supplies, troops weapons… Here are the letter, if you could sing…" Louis says "Have you seen Madame Pompadour's ass today! It is stunning. I tell you…" "Yes Yes, your majesty-- very fine, but the Marquise de Montcalm" "I tell you, it looks SOOOO goood!…" Yes yes your majesty, but… Canada…." And that's the way things happen. Or don't happen. |
Lion in the Stars | 16 Jul 2014 6:58 p.m. PST |
Remember war crimes are only war crimes if you lose :) They did *try* Donitz for Unrestricted Submarine Warfare as a war crime. Donitz had two Americans step up and say, "If you are going to say that Unrestricted Submarine Warfare is a War Crime, then you need to charge us, the Admiral in charge of the Submarine Fleet in the Pacific, and his boss, the Admiral in charge of the entire US Pacific Fleet with those same crimes." All of a sudden, people were not so keen to consider Unrestricted Submarine Warfare as a War Crime. Not when they'd have to charge the two winning Admirals in the Pacific, along with pretty much the entire US Submarine force. |
Kleist13 | 16 Jul 2014 8:32 p.m. PST |
Regarding: 'The militaristic inter-war regimes in Germany and Japan need a war at some point or their raison d'etre disappears.' This is for sure not true for Germany – Hitler didn't need a war at all. He was popular enough due to the improved economic situation and the relative social peace, plus of course any opposition would find themselves in prison quickly – or worse. From his point of view, however, war was unavoidable, so he had no problem pushing for it. Most of the German military was actually anti-war (more because they thought they'd lose it than for any humanitarian reasons). I think it is possible that Japan could have avoided drawing the US into their wars or could have made sure that the public was unwilling to pay in blood and money for a prolonged war by staying out of the US' way as much as possible – Pearl Harbour was a propaganda present from heaven. just think about it – how much engagement would the US have shown for French-Indochina? Enough for a full scale war with imperial Japan? |
Skarper | 16 Jul 2014 9:21 p.m. PST |
"The Japanese could have avoided the whole thing right up to dawn of Dec 7, 1941 by simply not dropping the first bomb." – Murvihill. This seems plausible – but by the same token you can say the US could have not dropped the atom bombs right up to the last minute. But I think they were on the train and could not get off. Same with the Japanese in 1941. Turning back had to be done earlier – before getting involved in China or perhaps a little after. By the time of the embargoes given their mindset and their lack of resources they had very little choice. It's still their fault of course – but something they had no control over by that stage. As for Germany not needing a war Hitler's position meant he was only one that mattered. He'd built the military up and was sure as heck going to use it. That was the point of it all – to avenge Versailles and then to win for Germany its proper place in the world. Turkeys don't vote for Xmas and Poles don't vote for genocide – which was the plan for after the Jews.. Without a war and conquest the German economy would have collapsed quite quickly as it was a giant PONZI scheme. I agree Ottoathome. We can witness the same bullying and irrational behavior in any school, business or similar grouping of people with a power structure. Even in something as trivial as a wargames club you have elements of what you describe. I don't really have a simple solution to the problem but pointing it out is better than pretending it's all roses in the garden. |
Patrick R | 17 Jul 2014 3:58 a.m. PST |
The Japanese high command was as delusional as they come. They had defeated the big heavyweight Russia, they had defeated the Germans at Tsingtao, the West did a lot of whistling Dixie while they trampled all over China … Defeats like Khalkin Gol were merely flukes. In their eyes the West was weak and Japan was guided by Divine Providence. They picked the right time to attack in 1941, given that the Netherlands, France, Russia and Britain were busy elsewhere and they figured the US would be like Russia in 1904, big and full of bluster, but essentially weak-willed and a few good Tsuhimas and Pearl Harbors would quickly rob them of their will to fight. |
Murvihill | 17 Jul 2014 10:01 a.m. PST |
"This seems plausible – but by the same token you can say the US could have not dropped the atom bombs right up to the last minute." Not sure what you're saying here, the atomic bombs were war-ending weapons not war-starting weapons. If the Japanese high command or whoever was in charge had changed their goals to match their resources without going to war with the Allies, or had attacked only one European nation (one with oil, like Netherlands) it would have put the major European powers in a pickle where they would have to choose to start a second front a zillion miles away or worry about Germany on their doorstep, and the US probably wouldn't have gone to war over it. Regardless, this is a moot argument because the Axis forces thought they were supermen who could take what they wanted. You could make the argument that emotionally they were driven to the attack on Pearl Harbor based on predominate racial theories and authoritarian governance… |
Skarper | 17 Jul 2014 10:53 p.m. PST |
My point is that events develop a momentum of their own which is hard to turn around. There was no rational 'need' to drop the A bombs on Japan to end the war – and from the evidence it seems to have little impact on the Japanese decision to surrender [the Soviet invasion of Manchuria seems to have been the final nail]. The decision to build and use the A-bombs had been made years and months earlier. It would have taken a much greater statesmen than Truman to do anything other than follow the path set out for him. I think even Roosevelt had he lived would have gone ahead with it. The same goes for the Japanese. They've built the ships and planes, made the plans, set their sights on an Asian Empire – to turn back means an ignominious 3rd rate status. They would fight even if they had no chance of winning. |
Murvihill | 18 Jul 2014 10:09 a.m. PST |
I still don't see the parallel between the Japanese starting the war and the US' use of the A Bomb. After observing the amount of damage firebombs did the A bomb was simply a more efficient way to inflict damage on the enemy. It wasn't until the Cold War and MAD that the A bomb developed the moral baggage that it carries with it now. As far as starting the war was inevitable I can't see that either. the Sovs built a war machine far more powerful than Japan ever had and then didn't use it to start the "Big One" for 40 years in spite of having a stated goal of global dominance. War is inevitable only when people start getting shot. |
OSchmidt | 18 Jul 2014 1:18 p.m. PST |
Dear Murvihill I remember once doing some student teaching and one girl in the class saying that she thought Japan was entirely justified in attacking Pearl Harbor [sic] Nagasaki. That is the sort of ignorance that causes wars. War is inevitable only when one side thinks they'll have it all their own way and are completely in control of the situation. Like 100 years ago in August 1914. I don't think that in the whole Cold War there was ever a point where either side thought they were going to hurt the other guy far far more than when they were going to get hurt themselves. |
Skarper | 19 Jul 2014 3:14 a.m. PST |
I agree the distinction between being burnt to death or suffocated in a firestorm and instantly vaporized by an atomic explosion is moot. A-bombs did have horrific after effects in radiation poisoning – ignored by those making the decisions in 1945 and hidden from public knowledge in Japan and elsewhere for a long time after the war. Even today I've heard it claimed the A-bombs didn't cause extra cancers when the research was meticulously carried out, classified and not published for decades afterwards. I take your point about the Soviets but since they had enormous resources already under their control they lacked the need for conquest unlike Japan or even Germany. It doesn't excuse Japan to say they were 'on the train' by 1940 and unable to get off – same for the US with the A-bombs. Didn't ought to have done it maybe but I can see why they did. |