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It’s hard to imagine a world where the US in 1941 would not use its industrial power to assert hegemony over the Pacific after being attacked. The Japanese stra

It’s hard to imagine a world where the US in 1941 would not use its industrial power to assert hegemony over the Pacific after being attacked. The Japanese strategy was to neutralize the US fast enough to reduce morale for waging a losing war. But US morale remained high throughout, so it too is hard to imagine a world where the strategy would succeed even if the attack on Pearl was executed flawlessly. The anime Zipang brings up a more interesting point: had oil been discovered ten years earlier in Manchuria, would Japan have attacked the US and Dutch at all? Possibly yes: the question of “how do we defeat America?” eclipsed the more important “should we defeat America?” in Imperial Japan.

HarryHirsch 5y ago
Imagine that organometallic chemistry had developed quicker, and decent Ziegler-Natta catalysts had been discovered in 1935 instead of 1955. Would the Japanese have gone to war over the caoutchouc plantations in Southeast Asia instead of relying on synthetic rubber?
scottLobster 5y ago
To be fair, the Japanese strategy also relied on heavily fortifying the territory they took and then daring the Americans to take it back. With another 6-12 months they might have had time to build up much stronger defenses. If every island was as bad as Iwo Jima/Okinawa it's an open question how long the American public would have supported the war. We ended up using nukes for multiple reasons as it was, one of which was doubt that the American public would stomach the cost of an invasion of the Japanese home islands.
- fatbird 5y ago
  At the time, the U.S. Admirals recognized that clearing the occupied islands wasn't necessary and would be ruinously expensive. Their explicit goal was to create airstrips within bomber reach of the Japanese home islands. Even with 6-12 more months to fortify, it's not obvious that the outcome wouldn't be the same, with the U.S. grabbing a few key islands and ignoring the rest.
pas 5y ago
> It’s hard to imagine a world where the US in 1941 would not use its industrial power to assert hegemony over the Pacific after being attacked. The policy of isolationism was very strong in the continental US. It's quite easy to imagine that the US gets bogged down in internal politics for years before stepping up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaKOOqXDnqA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaKOOqXDnqA

HarryHirsch 5y ago

Imagine that organometallic chemistry had developed quicker, and decent Ziegler-Natta catalysts had been discovered in 1935 instead of 1955. Would the Japanese have gone to war over the caoutchouc plantations in Southeast Asia instead of relying on synthetic rubber?

scottLobster 5y ago

To be fair, the Japanese strategy also relied on heavily fortifying the territory they took and then daring the Americans to take it back. With another 6-12 months they might have had time to build up much stronger defenses. If every island was as bad as Iwo Jima/Okinawa it's an open question how long the American public would have supported the war. We ended up using nukes for multiple reasons as it was, one of which was doubt that the American public would stomach the cost of an invasion of the Japanese home islands.

fatbird 5y ago
At the time, the U.S. Admirals recognized that clearing the occupied islands wasn't necessary and would be ruinously expensive. Their explicit goal was to create airstrips within bomber reach of the Japanese home islands. Even with 6-12 more months to fortify, it's not obvious that the outcome wouldn't be the same, with the U.S. grabbing a few key islands and ignoring the rest.

pas 5y ago

> It’s hard to imagine a world where the US in 1941 would not use its industrial power to assert hegemony over the Pacific after being attacked. The policy of isolationism was very strong in the continental US. It's quite easy to imagine that the US gets bogged down in internal politics for years before stepping up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaKOOqXDnqA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaKOOqXDnqA