raharris1973
Well-known member
This scenario will use a low-ambition ASB to intervene in human affairs to make a politically/strategically unlikely/unwise set of decisions occur and enforce them on human leaders, rather than any more truly impressive display of supernatural powers.
The ASB exerts a mind-control effect on Soviet and Japanese civilian and military leaders during their armed clashes with each other in the summer of 1939 that compels both sides to fight each other as hard as possible without sacrificing short-term security on other fronts (Europe for the Soviets, the China theater and the seas for the Japanese) and reject ending their mutual conflict short of victory or true military, economic, material exhaustion.
This ASB spell of compulsion remains binding upon the Soviet and Japanese leaderships until June 22nd, 1940, coincidentally, the day the French signed an armistice with the Germans. On that day, Soviet and Japanese leaders have their full free will restored, and if they wish, can come to a settlement.
What condition will the armies, navies, and air forces be of both sides by June 1940, after basically 10 to 11 months of escalated and widened Soviet-Japanese conflict? Where will the battle-lines be by this point? Will the Japanese have lost substantial mainland Asian territories to Soviet forces? Will the Soviets have lost substantial portions of the Far East of the RFSR or Outer Mongolia? Will the two belligerents be stalemated at basically the pre-war border? Or will they have exchanged roughly 'even' amounts of territory, merely 'straightening' their mutual border and rendering their zones of control on the Asian mainland more physically compact and defensible?
What kind of shape is the USSR in after this to defend itself from Axis attack in Europe, in the near and medium term, especially compared to OTL?
What kind of shape is Japan in after this to prosecute the war on China, or to attack & seize western outposts in the Pacific, in the near and medium term, especially compared to OTL?
The ASB exerts a mind-control effect on Soviet and Japanese civilian and military leaders during their armed clashes with each other in the summer of 1939 that compels both sides to fight each other as hard as possible without sacrificing short-term security on other fronts (Europe for the Soviets, the China theater and the seas for the Japanese) and reject ending their mutual conflict short of victory or true military, economic, material exhaustion.
This ASB spell of compulsion remains binding upon the Soviet and Japanese leaderships until June 22nd, 1940, coincidentally, the day the French signed an armistice with the Germans. On that day, Soviet and Japanese leaders have their full free will restored, and if they wish, can come to a settlement.
What condition will the armies, navies, and air forces be of both sides by June 1940, after basically 10 to 11 months of escalated and widened Soviet-Japanese conflict? Where will the battle-lines be by this point? Will the Japanese have lost substantial mainland Asian territories to Soviet forces? Will the Soviets have lost substantial portions of the Far East of the RFSR or Outer Mongolia? Will the two belligerents be stalemated at basically the pre-war border? Or will they have exchanged roughly 'even' amounts of territory, merely 'straightening' their mutual border and rendering their zones of control on the Asian mainland more physically compact and defensible?
What kind of shape is the USSR in after this to defend itself from Axis attack in Europe, in the near and medium term, especially compared to OTL?
What kind of shape is Japan in after this to prosecute the war on China, or to attack & seize western outposts in the Pacific, in the near and medium term, especially compared to OTL?