Whom Do You Root For: Russo-Japanese War

[Admiral Yi]

Another one where it's not abundantly clear IMO who the Good Guy and the Bad Guy are.

[Eddie Teach]

In hindsight, Russia.

[Tonitrus]

Japan.  If only because more of East Asia doesn't need to be under Soviet domination later on.

[mongers]

Neither, instead British North Sea fishing fleet with timmayesque holographic laser fishing nets. 

[Phillip V]

President Theodore Roosevelt was no fan of the Russians: “No human beings, black, yellow or white, could be quite as untruthful, as insincere, as arrogant — in short, as untrustworthy in every way — as the Russians,” he wrote in August 1905, near the end of the Russo-Japanese War. The Japanese, on the other hand, were “a wonderful and civilized people,” Roosevelt wrote, “entitled to stand on an absolute equality with all the other peoples of the civilized world.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06bradley.html

[Eddie Teach]

Japan.  If only because more of East Asia doesn't need to be under Soviet domination later on.

But it weakened the Tsar and strengthened Japan's imperial aims. Perhaps if Japan had been crushed there'd have been no Pacific War later on.

[Kleves]

Russia is never the good guy.

[The Brain]

I hate it when the thread question and the poll question are different.

[Tonitrus]

Japan.  If only because more of East Asia doesn't need to be under Soviet domination later on.

But it weakened the Tsar and strengthened Japan's imperial aims. Perhaps if Japan had been crushed there'd have been no Pacific War later on.

Arguably, it was already too late for the Tsar.  But granted, Japan's victory emboldened them for later on.  However, I don't think there was any real chance of Japan being "crushed".  At worst, less favorable peace terms (though Japan was already somewhat disappointed wit h the  "victorious" terms)...probably leading to a Pacific theater in WWII anyway.  Though in this case,  a post-WWII Soviet Union would have much more control of the Far East due to their pre-war claims.

[Eddie Teach]

As to the poll question, while whom is grammatically correct, leaving the for dangling at the end is not. But who cares?

[Camerus]

The Japs.  For one, they didn't already control 1/6th of the world's land surface.  Secondly, and maybe I'm just speaking in terms of what *did* happen rather than what might have happened, but I think Japan was the society that would be much easier to integrate into a peaceful world system than Russia could ever be.

[DGuller]

When did Japanese start committing atrocities?  Was it a WWII thing, or just the SOP for them at the time?

[Phillip V]

When did Japanese start committing atrocities?  Was it a WWII thing, or just the SOP for them at the time?

IIRC, they were committing atrocities since they conquered Korea and Taiwan in 1910 and 1895 respectively. It was perhaps part of their new militant culture.

[Razgovory]

Russia is never the good guy.

Goddamn Nazi sympathizer.

[Razgovory]

Japan.  If the Japan had lost that war, it might not have had attacked the US in 1941, and thus wouldn't have been destroyed by the US.