Jutland, Jellico, Beatty and Castles of Steel

[Neil]

And lets not even get started on Japan and WW2. They make Tirpitz look like a genius in their level of just straight out dumb. But it's interesting how far you can go down an untenable path once you

1. Take the first step, and
2. Refuse to ever re-evaluate whether that first step was such a great idea.

The interesting thing about Japan is that there's an argument to be made that nobody was actually 'in charge' after the death of Yamagata Aritomo in 1922.  Because the Japanese political system relied so heavily on the genro, and Yamagata in particular had the military, and especially the Army (which he had created) under his influence, it really couldn't survive past them.  Like many powerful groups, the genro gave little thought to building up successors.  However, Yamagata in particular was steadfastly opposed to any kind of political parties and any kind of parliamentary responsibility for ministers.  The entire structure that the council had built up around themselves effectively ceased to function after Yamagata died, as the remaining genro member who lived until 1940 was a late addition who didn't have the power and prestige of the other members who had built the Japanese government from scratch.  So you had a parliament that had been neutered as an act of policy, and which was steadfastly opposed by many powerful groups in the country.  You had an imperial institution that had been deliberately constructed in such a way that its enormous power was constrained by constitutional custom, and which spent crucial years filled by a near invalid.  You had a military who had traditionally maintained loyalty to the emperor, but through a self-serving interpretation that prioritized him as supreme commander and ignored any ministerial authority, saving only the elder statesmen that had created them.  And because of how Japan had secured its place in Asia, militant nationalism had been required to be sown deeply. 

Japan was already a political powder keg.  Then you throw it into fifteen years of economic ruin, where the postwar recession was followed up by the Great Kanto Quake, whose financial repercussions were nothing short of devastating.  And that's when the young officers, born in the countryside, indoctrinated into the most brutal of nationalist cults and with absolutely no prospects if they couldn't win glory with the army, started killing politicians who didn't agree with them.  At one point, it seemed like Hirohito might put his hands on the reins, but when his uncustomary display of power in crushing an attempted coup was rebuked by the ritual suicide of a man who he consider near to a father figure, he began to toe the line, especially when it was suggested to him that he might become a target for assassination so that he could be succeeded by his brother (a darling of the ultranationalist set). 

And that's why a bunch of field-grade officers in Manchuria were able to effectively set national policy.

[Neil]

Another Jutland myth is that the British battlecruisers that blew up did so because they were not as well-armored as their battleship sisters.  As it turns out, none of the fatal hits would have been resisted by a battleship, either, as they were turret hits.  The problem was that measures taken by Beatty to improve the BCF's rate of fire involved removing features that kept the flash from a turret hit out of the magazines.   Lion was almost sunk via the same means, but the mortally wounded Q turret commander got the magazine flooded in time.

Powder formulation played a role in this as well.  German powder was generally more stable than British cordite, less prone to flash.  This was the product of years of deliberate effort by the excellent German chemical industry.  The British chemical industry, which had been one of the major victims of the Long Depression, hadn't been able to keep up, and used far more dangerous solvents that would be more likely to flash at the drop of a hat, as opposed to the more complex, slower-burning German powders.  The Germans had better powder and better procedures, so when Derfflinger took the kind of hit that blew up Invincible, you just had a bad fire.  There were cases on German ships where silk powder bags would be singed, but survive.

[Sheilbh]

Successful warmongers balance their militarism with diplomacy and understanding of practical limits.  Japan could have gotten away with a lot in China if had it been willing to compromise some of its goals.  By eliminating the political space for diplomacy to operate the Japanese militarists boxed themselves into inevitable conflict with the USA.  But it could have gone differently in theory.

I'm not sure. I don't think there was space for China - or any of the Chinese factions to significant compromise. I don't think there's a route out for Japan that doesn't involve total victory in China and I'm not sure that was ever possible.

Though I've only read books that are more from the Chinese perspective/about China.

[Neil]

Successful warmongers balance their militarism with diplomacy and understanding of practical limits.  Japan could have gotten away with a lot in China if had it been willing to compromise some of its goals.  By eliminating the political space for diplomacy to operate the Japanese militarists boxed themselves into inevitable conflict with the USA.  But it could have gone differently in theory.

I'm not sure. I don't think there was space for China - or any of the Chinese factions to significant compromise. I don't think there's a route out for Japan that doesn't involve total victory in China and I'm not sure that was ever possible.

Though I've only read books that are more from the Chinese perspective/about China.

Assuming that the US for some reason doesn't intervene and maintains trade with Japan, then a Japanese victory of sorts is possible.  They could destroy the Nationalist military, just as they did in 1944, which would give them the ability to move freely around the country.  But China was huge, and the Japanese occupation involved maintaining strong nodes of troops in large centres and applying the threat of force against a countryside that was able to do as it pleased when there weren't Japanese troops present.  They were never able to control the countryside, and the Nationalist-Communist truce had allowed the Communists to focus on getting their agents spread more widely across China (they were always focused more on preparing to resume the fight against the Nationalists more than the Japanese).  Even a Japanese victory likely results in years of guerilla fighting, which the Japanese would respond to with savage reprisals that would shock the world. 

[Tamas]

Threads like this remind me why I ended up being a regular here.

[grumbler]

Japan, to "win" in China, just needed a credible puppet around which to build an operable puppet state.  Rather like Napoleonic France in Spain.  The Japanese ruined their chances of having such a puppet, however, with their wanton brutality and open racism.  Japan's army could march wherever it wanted to, but logistics would keep it from staying anywhere not on a rail line or within a few hundred miles of the coast.  With a puppet in place, the Japanese could reduce their own commitment.

The nationalists and Communists were willing to wait for outside powers to actually defeat Japan.  They both knew that they couldn't be anything but an annoyance to the IJN (barring some heroic efforts like those during the first three Changsha campaigns).  But they could make Japan pay for staying in China, and it was this cost that ultimately convinced Japan to widen the war in order to end it.

[Tamas]

I guess that's the same with the Germans in the Soviet Union. I am sure they had to put some real effort into cruelty to become the worse choice for the (especially non-Russian) population than Stalin's regime.

[The Minsky Moment]

I'm not sure. I don't think there was space for China - or any of the Chinese factions to significant compromise. I don't think there's a route out for Japan that doesn't involve total victory in China and I'm not sure that was ever possible.

Though I've only read books that are more from the Chinese perspective/about China.

Japan could have survived a sustained level of conflict and insurgency in China as long as trade in essential materials was not cut off.

[Sheilbh]

Japan, to "win" in China, just needed a credible puppet around which to build an operable puppet state.  Rather like Napoleonic France in Spain.  The Japanese ruined their chances of having such a puppet, however, with their wanton brutality and open racism.  Japan's army could march wherever it wanted to, but logistics would keep it from staying anywhere not on a rail line or within a few hundred miles of the coast.  With a puppet in place, the Japanese could reduce their own commitment.

The nationalists and Communists were willing to wait for outside powers to actually defeat Japan.  They both knew that they couldn't be anything but an annoyance to the IJN (barring some heroic efforts like those during the first three Changsha campaigns).  But they could make Japan pay for staying in China, and it was this cost that ultimately convinced Japan to widen the war in order to end it.

Yeah. They tried with the Wang Jinwei regime and Wang is a genuinely impressive figure - especially in terms of his revolutionary and republican credentials. It is difficult to think of a better figure to build a legitimate collaborationist regime around - the only one I can think of is possibly Petain.

But as you say it required Japan to take enough of a step back for that regime to legitimise itself and establish some credibility which they were never willing or able to do. And, as Tamas says, it could not cohere as a project for anything beyond minimal collaboration and control. There is a route to a credible Wang Jinwei regime around anti-western colonialism and Japan as sort of an older brother nation supporting China free itself from the shackles of western colonialism, communism and Chiang's corruption; but the Japanese are never interested in that option. Like the German occupation of the USSR their sole purpose for a Chinese state and China's role economically was as a slave population.

I think that's why it's impossible to see a compromise that could ever be acceptable to any of the fighting Chinese factions which is why short of total victory there was no option for Japan. And the Chinese states' shift to more of a guerilla conflict that would make the Japanese pay (and their resources for doing so even despite incredible civilian costs) after they realise that however heroically they fought they couldn't beat Japan on their terms reinforces that. There was no route out and there was enough in the Chinese states to keep their fight going - that they survived 1937-38 is extraordinary but once they move to destroying dams and levees and operating guerilla across China and they've moved to Chongqing it's possible to see a route to the defeat of Chiang's regime, or Mao, but I think it's impossible to see a route to a Japanese "victory".

[OttoVonBismarck]

Japan likely could have avoided war with the United States, but it was still in an unsustainable situation. Until Japan seized the southern half of French Indochina, the U.S. didn't implement an oil embargo. Even after that seizure, while FDR imposed an oil embargo that was devastating to Japan, he still did not have the political capital to declare war. Had Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies after that, and had not attacked Pearl, I actually think it is unlikely FDR is able to get political capital sufficient to declare war against Japan over some Dutch colonies. In the real timeline of course Japan basically attacked the Dutch East Indies concurrent with attack Pearl.

Part of what drove the decision to attack Pearl was the widely held belief that an attack on the DEI would draw the United States into war, so Japan wanted to hit its fleet hard before it attacked the DEI. The DEI of course had some decent oil production, which is why Japan needed/wanted it. I think the Japanese significantly misunderstood FDR's political position though, and didn't realize he was significantly constrained by isolationist sentiment in his own Congress. I think it is highly unlikely FDR can get a Declaration of War out of Congress in response to the DEI being attacked.

Now the problem is while the DEI helps Japan's oil problems taking those oil fields certainly does not solve them. To alt-history fan wank imagine Japan tries to just "solidify" its holdings at that point, no more aggressive wars and it tries to let things cool off with the United States. There had even been a deal discussed in Japan where in exchange for an end to the trade war, Japan would cede various territories already conquered. That actually wouldn't be a terrible deal for Japan since a number of the territories it had conquered actually served little purpose for Japan, so would not really hurt to give up. Even still, given how things were going, Japan would be in a rough place where too much of its overseas Empire is taking up too much resources to keep occupied/controlled.

To some degree every great empire in history did what grumbler suggested--implement some level of local control with leaders who speak the language and are part of the culture of the locals. Japan's behaviors made such an option non-viable. Even shorter lived Empires like the USSR somewhat followed this model, not just with how it let the Warsaw Pact countries mostly govern themselves, but even the SSRs were structured around some level of local control to keep nationalist sentiment more limited.

Japan was in a silly situation where it needed to keep expanding to seize more resources to maintain its Empire, which just lead to it needing to keep expanding to seize more resources to maintain its Empire. The obvious underlying problem is its method of Empire building was too resource intensive and unsustainable, it all would likely have collapsed in a fairly short timeline even without a war with the United States. Some of its holdings it probably could have held on to for many decades, but many would have had to be abandoned.

[grumbler]

Isolationism in the US in Dec 1941 has generally been way overstated in casual histories and on the 'net.  In Nov 1941, Americans preferred to focus on the defeat of Germany over remaining out of the war by 68-28%  https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/us-public-opinion-world-war-II-1939-1941

Regarding Japan, something like 60% of the US populace in July 1941 thought it worth risking war to prevent Japan from becoming more powerful, and that number increased to more than two-thirds after Japan seized southern Indochina. (can't lay my hands on the exact numbers right now, but they are referenced here: https://news.gallup.com/vault/199049/gallup-vault-country-unified-pearl-harbor.aspx

The ironic thing about Roosevelt's actions that pushed Japan into attacking was that he believed (and the US public believed) that he was doing the opposite:  pushing Japan away from the warlike path.  This, again, shows how important groupthink is and how data that refutes the premise can be interpreted as supporting it.  Japan's efforts to disguise their decision to go to war behind a diplomatic façade worked because the Roosevelt administration saw in them what it wanted to see.

[Neil]

Japan ceding their least valuable conquests?  Talking like that would be a good way to get yourself assassinated by a pack of junior army officers.  It would have been politically impossible, as the nationalists had turned the old Triple Intervention into a horror story of how Japan's enemies would hold it back, equal in disgrace to the unequal treaties.  A politician or senior officer talking about such a surrender would be setting himself up for a meeting with a bunch of sword-wielding hicks from the sticks. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

Isolationism in the US in Dec 1941 has generally been way overstated in casual histories and on the 'net.  In Nov 1941, Americans preferred to focus on the defeat of Germany over remaining out of the war by 68-28%  https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/us-public-opinion-world-war-II-1939-1941

Regarding Japan, something like 60% of the US populace in July 1941 thought it worth risking war to prevent Japan from becoming more powerful, and that number increased to more than two-thirds after Japan seized southern Indochina. (can't lay my hands on the exact numbers right now, but they are referenced here: https://news.gallup.com/vault/199049/gallup-vault-country-unified-pearl-harbor.aspx

The ironic thing about Roosevelt's actions that pushed Japan into attacking was that he believed (and the US public believed) that he was doing the opposite:  pushing Japan away from the warlike path.  This, again, shows how important groupthink is and how data that refutes the premise can be interpreted as supporting it.  Japan's efforts to disguise their decision to go to war behind a diplomatic façade worked because the Roosevelt administration saw in them what it wanted to see.

I'm skeptical, first opinion polling on general ideas isn't the same as an actual decision or vote to go to war. The actual 1940 Presidential election featured Roosevelt making a campaign promise to stay out of the war, with Willkie campaigning on Roosevelt being duplicitous on that topic. Both candidates did promise to make the U.S. prepared for war, which is a little paradoxical, but not really given the base illogic of the voting public at any given point in history.

By 1941 the public was very concerned about Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and there are opinion polls out there saying it was "worth it to go to war" if they got too strong. But the overwhelming majority of reporting at the time was focused on Europe, Britain, and Germany. I think it would be a hard sell for FDR to declare a pre-emptive war against Japan over what would be seen in the public as "some Dutch islands in the far Pacific." Opinion polling has found many things the public favors in modern times that never get effected into policy--the mechanics of political action aren't the same as vague opinions, and when something is an active matter of decision before the government reporting on it and opinions on the particulars frequently shift around various battle lines that aren't obvious from simple opinion polls.

In any case an attack on Pearl Harbor brought with it the certainty of total war and guarantee of major U.S. military response. An attack on the DEI alone does not do either, and it was a defect in Japanese reasoning that they didn't understand that.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Japan ceding their least valuable conquests?  Talking like that would be a good way to get yourself assassinated by a pack of junior army officers.  It would have been politically impossible, as the nationalists had turned the old Triple Intervention into a horror story of how Japan's enemies would hold it back, equal in disgrace to the unequal treaties.  A politician or senior officer talking about such a surrender would be setting himself up for a meeting with a bunch of sword-wielding hicks from the sticks.

I mean it was the Japanese who actually sketched out that plan for what it's worth, that's not alt-history. I don't believe anyone got assassinated over it. Japanese ambassador to the United States Kichisaburō Nomura held several meetings with Cordell Hull to attempt to negotiate a settlement aimed at ending animosity and economic warfare. The final offer Nomura made was a withdrawal from southern Indochina, an agreement in principle to negotiate an end to the Sino-Japanese war, and a promise to not wage offensive warfare against any further targets in Southeast Asia. In exchange the Japanese asked for quite a bit--an end to American support for the Nationalists/Kuomintang in China, and end to all economic sanctions against Japan, a "quota system" of guaranteed oil supply to be sold to Japan at market rates fulfilled by the U.S. and other Western oil producers, and Japanese "economic access" to specific commodities and goods extracted from the Dutch East Indies.

I don't think there was ever a real chance FDR accepted a deal like that, but as a basis for alt-history wanking it's sufficient enough that the Japanese in real life did cook up the idea, even if it was part of a bad-faith negotiating process. The salient point is even if FDR inexplicably accepted the deal and Japan actually honored it, it's unlikely they could have just easily worked out a peace in China, and the endless Chinese war was going to be a major drain on Japanese resources, which would like cause either economic issues and decay, or would in short order lead them going back to invade other countries for more resources. Or maybe in a world where the U.S. is helping fuel Japan, they try to go back to the negotiating people to extract more treasure in exchange for "not attacking" people.

[grumbler]

I'm skeptical, first opinion polling on general ideas isn't the same as an actual decision or vote to go to war. The actual 1940 Presidential election featured Roosevelt making a campaign promise to stay out of the war, with Willkie campaigning on Roosevelt being duplicitous on that topic. Both candidates did promise to make the U.S. prepared for war, which is a little paradoxical, but not really given the base illogic of the voting public at any given point in history.

One should always be skeptical of evidence and the interpretation of it, but should be even more skeptical about interpretations that ignore or go counter to the evidence.

By 1941 the public was very concerned about Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and there are opinion polls out there saying it was "worth it to go to war" if they got too strong. But the overwhelming majority of reporting at the time was focused on Europe, Britain, and Germany. I think it would be a hard sell for FDR to declare a pre-emptive war against Japan over what would be seen in the public as "some Dutch islands in the far Pacific." Opinion polling has found many things the public favors in modern times that never get effected into policy--the mechanics of political action aren't the same as vague opinions, and when something is an active matter of decision before the government reporting on it and opinions on the particulars frequently shift around various battle lines that aren't obvious from simple opinion polls.

I don't think that it would be at all hard to Roosevelt to sell helping the British against the Japanese.  The US public believed at the time that the Japanese were just doing what Hitler wanted, so going to war against them would be an indirect attack on Hitler.

Not that the Japanese would ever ignore the Philippines while going after the DEI; the PI was a dagger across Japan's throat, and the Japanese couldn't allow the Americans to choose when to start slicing.

In any case an attack on Pearl Harbor brought with it the certainty of total war and guarantee of major U.S. military response. An attack on the DEI alone does not do either, and it was a defect in Japanese reasoning that they didn't understand that.

An attack on the DEI alone means that Japan's enemies have all the choices to make, and Japan's (and thus the Emperor's) future would be outside the hands of the Japanese leadership.  They would have found that idea intolerable.  They would go big or go home.