Panoply of Panay Possibilities

[raharris1973]

This thread is designed to consider a range of alternate outcomes for OTL’s Panay Incident of December 1937, when Japanese aircraft attack and sunk a US patrol boat, the USS Panay on the Yangtze River. In OTL, a partial film of the attack was shown. Some film showing more detail of the attack was censored. The incident was ultimately settled by Japan issuing an apology and paying compensation to the United States, but not diverting from its aggressive China policy and the US not straying from its policy of merely morally criticizing Japan’s war against China and refusing to recognize Japan’s conquests.

The incident has been used as a PoD for what-ifs several times, usually as a way to bring about an earlier US-Japanese war, often as something more like a 1 on 1 fuel.

That is one direction the incident and its aftermath might have played out differently, but not the only alternate path. Perhaps even more likely would have been a very risk-averse US public demanding greater retrenchment from China, or the Far East, to avoid an unwanted war, as contemporary comments by progressive Texas congressman Maury Maverick at the time indicated.

The incident truly offers a range of alternatives, a “panoply of possibilities” from war to retreat, and I’ll explore each in turn.

To increase the public impact and salience of the incident, I will say the PoD is that at a minimum, the unreleased film footage of the attack is not censored, or makes it past censors and ends up widely shown in newsreels.

A potential further twist, and for this idea I have to credit Dale Cozort, is that perhaps during the incident itself, a lucky shot from a shipboard gun hits and downs one of the attacking Japanese aircraft, and this is captured on film, or rumored to be. That makes the film footage so tantalizing to media that it becomes impossible to censor.

Let’s say this twist is added in, now let’s consider the alternative American reactions in turn, from most intensive to least intensive:

I. Pugilistic Path to Primacy

War

Both powers, Japan and the US, have weaker fleets and battle lines as 1937 ends and 1938 dawns than they did in the OTL winter of 1941-1942. They are especially weaker in carriers and carrier aviation.

A US declaring war would need to accept that victory would and could come only in the long haul, and the short-term will see tactical losses.

The Japanese should be able to invade and occupy the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island in the first 6-8 months of fighting. The US would become a cobelligerent of China, offering it credits and weapons, and the US would start industrial mobilization and enlargement of the fleet.

The US Marines in China should retreat upriver to Free Chinese areas.

The US would fight according to war plan Orange, sticking to light raids on the Japanese held western Pacific while building up the fleet, and fleet train, for a trans-Pacific push to recover the Philippines, smash the Japanese fleet, and blockade Japan into surrender.

The Japanese would try to draw out the Americans into early decisive battle on favorable terms, attriting them on their way to the interior of the Japanese held Pacific.


II. Pugnacious Posturing Promoting Political Propositions

Naval demonstrations and diplomatic demands and ultimatums

The next rung down the latter would be the US making naval shows of force and demanding Japanese restraint in China or parts of China, but this one should in most cases be considered in tandem with the war option because any war declared by the US would probably be proceeded by at least a short stage where the US is doing this kind of activity.

There is a slim chance, that an isolated Japan backs down in the face of these demands, though not without bitterness and internal strife, including probable assassination of whatever civilian government leader needs to order the backing down in China. This Japan would also be bitter and keeping its eyes open looking for any more favorable opportunity to emerge to resume its war in China or expansion in the Asian-Pacific in general. For example, biding its time a couple years until for example Germany and Italy make a big commotion in Europe distracting the great powers and making appear Japan may have realistic odds of locking in an early victory.

III. Purposeful Proxy Prop-Up

Aid to China

Here, the US would not be seeking to go to war or to significantly increase its chances of getting into one, but it would seek to “stand up” in a material way to Japanese aggression to counter its affects, by aiding the principal victim of Japanese aggression, China, with credits and arms. The motivations whs ould be moral, and practical (to keep the Japanese unsuccessful and busy)

IV. Petroleum Prohibition

Severe economic sanctions

Another response to Japanese aggression and way to express outrage could be economic, rather than military sanctions, including bans on the exports of key supplies crucial to the Japanese war effort. Above all, this means petroleum and all its derivative products, but also iron ore, scrap and its derivatives. Boycotts of Japanese imports could be enacted as well. These could be devastating to Japan, and Japan could have a thinner cushion against them in the winter of 1937-1938 than it had by OTL 1941. With an all-out offensive to seize all Southeast Asia including the Dutch East Indies less practical in 1938 than 1942 [yes, the 1938 US, UK, French and Dutch navies are likely weaker, but they are unencumbered by another war, and the 1938 Japanese navy is also much weaker] Japan may back down. However, as above, it would be at the cost of internal strife and would leave militarists and novelists keeping their eyes open for external and not just internal revenge when an opportunity emerges.

V. Prudently Pusillanimous Partial Pullback

A pull-out of Marines, Naval flotillas, concession protection from China and a travel at your own risk advisory

Given the isolationist mood of the country, the severity of the neutrality laws recently passed, and the national discussion of the Ludlow Amendment requiring a referendum before declaring war, these remaining, more dovish than OTL approaches, may be more realistic than the more hawkish ones.

If widespread availability and viewing of the Panay film creates a groundswell of public and congressional opinion that China is a dangerous war zone and certainly not a place of business as usual, the prudent call may be for the withdrawal of US patrol boats and Marines from the country, perhaps back to the Philippines, and a warning to Americans in China that they travel there strictly at their own risk. The US would no longer keep up the legal fiction that the China Incident is not a war, and so would end up applying the neutrality acts against both China and Japan, thus denying both belligerents weapons, credits, and war materiel, and forbidding Americans from traveling on belligerent ships. Commodities as basic as crude oil, scrap iron, standard gasoline and rolled steel probably wouldn’t be excluded from trade under the ‘war materiel’ category.

Under those existing neutrality laws, it would be illegal to compromise neutrality by discriminateing between an aggressor and defending nation and treating them differently, so no financial support for China would be possible. China would have to look elsewhere, like to the Soviet Union and Britain, for aid.

The United States would remain free to protect the Pacific possessions under its own sovereign protection like the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and Hawaii. FDR and the Navy Department and its supporters in Congress would probably have an undercurrent of resentment about having to beat a hasty retreat from China and would try to resist naval cuts and build up the force in the long term, even if isolationism and retreat is carrying the day, the week, the month, and the year.

The global knock-on effects of the abject US retreat from China could be substantial however.

Japan would be emboldened in its course in China and may be encouraged to more broadly stereotype westerners as weak-willed.

Chamberlain would see confirmation of his views of America as unreliable and of the necessity of appeasement.

As 1938, 1939, and 1940 wear on, Japan could easily be tempted to put heavy pressure on British and French concessions and personnel in China in the form of blockades, harassment, and murders if they see that as serving their purpose of weakening western cooperation with Chiang Kai-shek.

These pressures could potentially succeed in forcing an appeasement of Japan policy on Britain and France, their breaking with Chiang, and recognition of Japan’s puppets. Or, alternatively, a retreat from their concessions in China to their Southeast Asian colonies, likely still including Hong Kong.

Japan will likely feel it can flexibly pick on western powers one-by-one, without assuming taking on one means taking on all. So, with America regarded as a weak-willed non-factor, Japan later on is more likely to think it “safe” to try to seize Malaya or the Dutch East Indies (should it ever have the desire or “need”) without feeling attacking the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii are necessary parts of the package.

VI. Para-Pacifistic Panic & Profligate Pan-Asian Pullback

Same withdrawal from China, plus accelerated independence of Philippines without a residual naval base or defense commitment.

This scenario involves the same American retrenchment as described above, with all the same knock-on consequences as described above, but the publicity of graphic Panay footage also leads to a somewhat more comprehensive consideration of American obligations and vulnerabilities in the Asia-Pacific, which widens the discussion from China to the Philippines.

The hearings and discussions by Congressional isolationists which point out the distance of America’s small stakes in China from the US, and difficulty of defending them, show the same thing applies to the Philippines. Discussion with the military on strategy shows that the realistic outer edge of any American defensive perimeter is Alaska-Hawaii-Panama.

Congress had already committed to Philippine independence by 1944 with the Tydings-McDuffie Act.

Focused discussions on the relevant issues lead Congress to vote to accelerate the Filipino independence timetable a few years to 1941 or 1942 and foreswear a post-independence US naval presence. The US emphasis in decolonization also switches to handing over defense responsibility to a Filipino Army.

Essentially, this American abdication in the western Pacific simply accentuates all the knock-on consequences discussed in the previous option about emboldening the Japanese and reinforcing Anglo-French appeasement tendencies.

 

[raharris1973]

OK, I am going to develop my projection out from the most dovish idea on the spectrum first:

To remind y'all, that's:

raharris1973 said:
VI. Para-Pacifistic Panic & Profligate Pan-Asian Pullback

Same withdrawal from China, plus accelerated independence of Philippines without a residual naval base or defense commitment.

In this TL, what happens is that the Panay incident is coupled with the US sailors happening to get a lucky shot, the "golden BB" shooting down one of the attacking Japanese fighters, and this is captured on film. Other than this alteration of the Japanese aircraft being brought down, the events of the day still unfold as in OTL, with higher Japanese command intervening to stop the attack and the Japanese ultimately apologizing and paying reparations. However, the knowledge that there is dramatic, two-sided battle footage makes it impossible to censor all copies of the Panay film, and the wide availability and viewing of the scene in American theaters (and cheers erupting from Chinese and Chinatown theaters) ....

raharris1973 said:
creates a groundswell of public and congressional opinion that China is a dangerous war zone and certainly not a place of business as usual,

...and that the ...

raharris1973 said:
the prudent call may be for the withdrawal of US patrol boats and Marines from the country, perhaps back to the Philippines, and a warning to Americans in China that they travel there strictly at their own risk. The US would no longer keep up the legal fiction that the China Incident is not a war, and so would end up applying the neutrality acts against both China and Japan, thus denying both belligerents weapons, credits, and war materiel, and forbidding Americans from traveling on belligerent ships. Commodities as basic as crude oil, scrap iron, standard gasoline and rolled steel probably wouldn’t be excluded from trade under the ‘war materiel’ category.

Under those existing neutrality laws, it would be illegal to compromise neutrality by discriminateing between an aggressor and defending nation and treating them differently, so no financial support for China would be possible. China would have to look elsewhere, like to the Soviet Union and Britain, for aid.

Furthermore, this strongly felt and argued isolationist push for the US to get out of China, which enjoys plurality or majority support...

raharris1973 said:
also leads to a somewhat more comprehensive consideration of American obligations and vulnerabilities in the Asia-Pacific, which widens the discussion from China to the Philippines.

The hearings and discussions by Congressional isolationists which point out the distance of America’s small stakes in China from the US, and difficulty of defending them, show the same thing applies to the Philippines. Discussion with the military on strategy shows that the realistic outer edge of any American defensive perimeter is Alaska-Hawaii-Panama.

Congress had already committed to Philippine independence by 1944 with the Tydings-McDuffie Act.

Focused discussions on the relevant issues lead Congress to vote to accelerate the Filipino independence timetable a few years to 1941 or 1942 and foreswear a post-independence US naval
presence. The US emphasis in decolonization also switches to handing over defense responsibility to a Filipino Army.

With regard to the now-acknowledged Sino-Japanese War...

raharris1973 said:
Under the existing US neutrality laws, it would be illegal to compromise neutrality by discriminating between an aggressor and defending nation and treating them differently, so no US financial support for China would be possible. China would have to look elsewhere, like to the Soviet Union and Britain, for aid.

The global knock-on effects of the abject US retreat from China could be substantial however.

Japan would be emboldened in its course in China and may be encouraged to more broadly stereotype westerners as weak-willed.

Chamberlain would see confirmation of his views of America as unreliable and of the necessity of appeasement.

As 1938, 1939, and 1940 wear on, Japan could easily be tempted to put heavy pressure on British and French concessions and personnel in China in the form of blockades, harassment, and murders if they see that as serving their purpose of weakening western cooperation with Chiang Kai-shek.

These pressures could potentially succeed in forcing an appeasement of Japan policy on Britain and France, their breaking with Chiang, and recognition of Japan’s puppets. Or, alternatively, a retreat from their concessions in China to their Southeast Asian colonies, likely still including Hong Kong.

Japan will likely feel it can flexibly pick on western powers one-by-one, without assuming taking on one means taking on all. So, with America regarded as a weak-willed non-factor, Japan later on is more likely to think it “safe” to try to seize Malaya or the Dutch East Indies (should it ever have the desire or “need”) without feeling attacking the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii are necessary parts of the attack package.

In Internationalist or hawkish circles, especially Democratic ones, there will definitely be complaints about FDR's timidity, with Democratic believers in that tendency thinking, but probably not publicly saying, "Mr. Roosevelt, I knew Woodrow Wilson, Woodrow Wilson was a friend of mine. Sir, you are no Woodrow Wilson" - and their implication would be perjorative not complementary. Republicans may go through the same mental exercise just substituting, "Franklin Roosevelt, you're no Theodore Roosevelt". But the public will be primarily consumed with domestic issues and believe FDR is making the right call, even as it keeps a permanent residue of hate for Japan.

The Soviet Union I believe for now will stay committed to its course of providing practical support to the Chinese United Front resistance to Japan, being steadfast in sending weapons, aircraft, pilots, and advisors to help the Chinese Nationalist forces even more than the Communists in the 1938 summer-autumn battles over Wuhan and Guangzhou. It will also propagandize for China's cause using the international left.

France will have divided internal counsels, with leftist forces arguing for solidarity with China and Soviet Union, and working to keep Indochina ports and railways open for the supply of munitions to China, while other on the French right will call for ditching China if a rapprochement and non-aggression deal with Japan can be had. This call will come from right-wing "Better Hitler than Blum" types as well as sensible Europe-first centrists and conservatives. The May and September crises over Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, by bringing the specter of war in Europe forward, end up uniting most of the French political spectrum behind a timid posture in China, leading to French withdrawal of non-essential personnel, and its troops and its ships from the concession areas in China, in imitation of the Americans. The difference in the French case is, the French concentrate these assets in their Indochina colony to protect it. The French also decline to traffic arms to either the Chinese or Japanese using Indochinese ports and railways, which over the long-term as South China's ports are occupied, leaves China in a worse position and more dependent on the Soviet Union and its limited logistical capacity.

The Dutch remain studiously neutral and silent of Chinese questions, insisting on keeping commercial and political questions separate, while increasingly nervous about Japanese aggressiveness, and the accelerated US departure.

Chamberlain, seeing the British position in China now more exposed by American and French withdrawals, will explore an appeasement posture toward Japan and the concept of a grand bargain with Japan oriented against the Soviet Union and Chinese Communism while trying to preserve the security of Britain's imperial possessions and its large economic stake in China, especially from the Yangzi valley on south. His people will try overtures along Navy to Navy lines and court circles around Prince Chichibu. But, because of the scale of British stakes in China, for the moment in 1938, Britain will continue and increase financial aid and allow arms sales to Chiang Kai-shek's regime, not pulling back unilaterally.

When Roosevelt makes noises trying to dissuade Chamberlain from any deals with Japan, threatening to make separate arrangements between the US and the Dominions, Chamberlain acidly writes off the threat as empty, the Americans having no credibility with any of the Dominions, much less Australia and New Zealand, after signaling their broad retreat from the western Pacific.

The British feelings of insecurity in the Far East become far more acute with the Japanese campaign to seize Guangzhou from Oct-Dec 1938. And that will be spoiling Chamberlain's post-Munich high.

Meanwhile, for the Japanese, while apologizing and paying reparations to the Americans certainly doesn't feel glorious, the completion of withdrawal of US Marines and partrol boats from Chinese waters and minimization of diplomatic staff, complete by the summer, are positive developments. By October 1938, with the victory in Wuhan in hand, Chamberlain looking eager to bargain, the Americans out of China, and the Americans speeding their timetable for Filipino independence, and the French beginning to follow suit, the Japanese can look back on the first 15 months of the China War, and even the fallout of the Panay Incident, with a degree of satisfaction that things are going Japan's way.

In fact, to the Japanese, western potential opponents, like Americans, French, and British seem weaker willed than eastern ones, like Chinese, or Soviets.

As fighting approaches the southern end of the China coast and the borders of Hong Kong in late 1938, the Japanese become more convinced that pressure on western interests is a useful path for deterring and removing support for China.

Behind the headlines, for the US, in 1938, US military, especially naval, spending, is still actually increased. Indeed, more resources than OTL go for arming up the forces of the Philippine Commonwealth, and for improving the defenses of Hawaii, and moves to enhance to permanent ship-basing capabilities at Pearl Harbor are improved. Pro-naval spenders are able to make pro-jobs and industry arguments in favor of their bills, and among each other, and the right kind of audiences, they are energized by and can subtly appeal to a sense of wiping away humiliation stemming from the US withdrawal from China in the face of local Japanese superiority and national will for conflict/aggression. This counter-trend continues with greater strength in 1939 and 1940.

From December 1938, the Japanese begin a series of intermittent blockades of the landward approaches to the British concession areas in China, notably at Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. The stated objectives of the Japanese are to secure full cooperation of concessionary police and troops, mainly controlled by Britain, with the Japanese military and Chinese collaborators against agents of the Chinese Nationalists and Communists, the handover of Chinese silver reserves located in vaults in Tianjin, establishing direct relations and acknowledgement between the concessionary powers and Japan's puppet Chinese authorities, and an end to arms for Nationalist China and anti-Japanese publications within the concessions.

The British threaten and impose some unilateral economic sanctions in retaliation, and the US gives six months notice of intent to terminate the US-Japanese trade treaty, but does not immediately impose trade restrictions - so Chamberlain barely notices. The Dutch remain studiously neutral and do not apply any sanctions. The French hesitate to act out of fear of causing conflict or endangering Indochina.

Ultimately in February 1939, Chamberlain reaches a "small bargain" with Japan - a neutrality treaty, a 'de facto' recognition and agreement for concession authorities to deal with whatever adjacent Chinese administration exists next to British concession areas in China, an agreement to maintain the separation of political and commercial questions, to not supply arms to a power Japan is at war with on the mainland of Asia and for Japan not to supply arms to a power Britain is at war with on the mainland of Europe, and protection of British lives, property, and freedom to trade in areas under Japanese control.

This "Far Eastern Munich" is great blow to Chinese prestige and morale, and is denounced by Chiang, Mao, and the Soviet Union, and criticized by many quarters in the American, French, Commonwealth, and even British press.

Then events in Europe intrude, with Hitler's sudden occupation of Prague in March 1939. Britain extends security guarantees to Poland, Romania, Greece, and Turkey in response, drawing a line against Hitler. But, with the Japanese committing no similar new outrage or breach of an agreement, just their ongoing atrocious war with China, there is no parallel reversal of policy in the Far East for Britain.

Japan tries to exploit weakened Chinese morale with attacks on Changsha, and then Guangxi province in later 1939, but like in OTL, these do not succeed.

Japanese forces also clash with the Soviets and Mongolians on the Manchukuo-Mongolia border over the summer, and the Soviets attain local superiority and smash them there.

By late summer 1939, pent up irritation in the US over the democracies' retreats in the face of bullying dictatorships is supporting defense spending slightly above OTL levels, and has permitted delivery of arms to belligerents, if they can be done on a cash and carry basis. The US, now free from the Japanese-American trade treaty, can now implement an embargo on aviation fuel and high-octane gasoline.

In the last week of August, 1939, the announcement of the Nazi-Soviet pact shocks the world.

On September 1, Germany attacks Poland, and WWII begins, with Britain and France declaring war on Germany.

....to be continued...

 

[lordhen]

The Dutch remain studiously neutral and do not apply any sanctions. The French hesitate to act out of fear of causing conflict or endangering Indochina.

....to be continued...

Will the Dutch be bullied by the Japanese into allowing Japanese troops into the NEI like French Indochina after 1940.

 

[raharris1973]

The signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact, simultaneous with the Soviet victory on the Manchukuo frontier, leads to the fall of the Army supported cabinet Japan, and instantly deflates the clamor in Japan for an all-around alliance with Germany that would have deepened the Anti-Comintern Pact into a true anti-Soviet alliance and made it into an anti-British and anti-French instrument as well.

The new Japanese Cabinet takes a more diplomat approach towards the western powers while achieving an armistice with the Soviets, and keeping the Kwangtung Army firebrands who are looking for early revenge on the Soviets, in check.

The Japanese still press on with their merciless bombing and occupation and blockade of China however, especially its capital city of Chongqing. Asernoted earlier their autumn offensive in Changsha, to seize the South China Hunan "rice bowl" region fails although Japanese forces loot and live off the land. Their invasion from Hainan island into western Guangdong province's peninsula and Guangxi province also has mixed and indecisive results over the winter, opposed by tough local generals in tough terrain with good local administration and popular support.

However, in part as a result of lesser total arms supplies and diplomatic setbacks, including British appeasement of Japan on Chinese matters, unlike OTL, Chiang Kai-shek does not rally his forces for an intended nationwide offensive in winter 1939-1940. Nor do the Communists launch their somewhat parallel 1940 "Hundred Regiments" campaign. These are symptoms of lower morale, but not war enders, since neither of those offensives were successful in OTL either. However, their absence puts the Japanese under less pressure and allows the collaborationist regime of Wang Jingwei and the Japanese occupation to get somewhat better ensconced in occupied areas through 1940.

......

Meanwhile, back in Europe, Poland is crushed by the Nazis in a six-week "blitzkrieg" campaign, with the western allies, pretty much an entirely French force, only responding with a desultory offensive into the Saar that doesn't get very far and is abandoned as German troops from the victorious Polish campaign begin to reinforce the western defenses of Germany. As for Poland, per the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact, the Soviet Union advances to occupy eastern Poland starting September 17th.

Thereafter, Europe settles into a "phony war" except at sea, where the Allies implement a tight blockade of Germany, and the Germans score some lethal submarine sinkings in the North Sea and eastern Atlantic. Both sides show restraint in the air war, only "bombing" each other's cities and troop front lines with propaganda leaflets,, not actual bombs.

The Soviet Union soon compels the Baltic States to make defense treaties with the USSR and lease military bases to her, also in line with the M-R Pact secret protocol. The compliant Germans begin the evacuation of German minorities from those three countries.

By late October the Soviet Union has started making similar demands of Finland, as well as demands for territorial cessions and exchanges, ostensibly to improve there defenses of Leningrad. But the Finns refuse. By the end of the month Stalin has run out of patience and the USSR has declared war on Finland, and the world sympathizes the Finns who miraculously hold out week after week. The Finnish War becomes the more exciting show to watch in Europe than the rather static war between German and the Franco-British alliance, and even in Eurasia writ large, since the Sino-Japanese war has, at least compared to its early years, settled into a smaller scale, rather grim routine.

....

Back in Asia, the Chinese are frustrated, and discouraged that they see no near or medium term opportunity to drive the Japanese invaders out, that the west has abandoned them, and that they can depend on only one external ally, the two-faced Soviet Union. The only hope for a foreseeable expulsion of the Japanese would be a major Soviet invasion. The Chinese Communists would have no problem with that, but it would be a double-edged sword for Chiang Kai-shek. In any case, this ends up not being a problem. Soviet aid begins a steady drop from the moment there is a common Nazi-Soviet border in Europe and the Soviet's attention is increasingly focused on European security. Even with all the frustration, Chiang has no reason to quit yet, and indeed it would be political suicide, although some of his colleagues and Cabinet members begin to make suggestions about peace negotiations in private with Japan.

In Japan, the Emperor is dissatisfied with the prognostications of the hawks, who suggested China would never turn into a full war, and then that it would be over and capitulation would be around the corner. He was disappointed in the results on Nomonhan. He was disappointed in Army and limited diplomatic circles who put their faith in Germany. But nobody in Japan could advocate for just backing down from the Holy War in China, not even him. One relative bright spot is that the western powers, America, France, and Britain, while certainly not friendly, have not been too much trouble, and do not appear interested in war. A second relative bright spot, though more fleeting, is while the other powers are untrustworthy, most them are keeping themselves busy - the British and French in a stand-off with the Germans, the Soviets now embroiling themselves in Scandinavia at the other side of their empire.

Pressure to bring about conclusive and satisfactory results abroad, ends up causing intensified interservice rivalry at home. The Army claims first call on resources as the service doing the heavy lifting in China and facing off with the Soviets, asking what good all the Navy's expensive ships are doing to finish the war, and how many tanks and artillery tubes and aircraft could be built with the steel instead. The Navy retorts citing the contributions of its ships to the blockade, its Special Naval Landing Force (SNLF) to coastal campaigns, and its aircraft to the China War. It also chides the Army for being unable to finish the China incident, while attributing the American and French retreats from China and Britain's appeasing posture to the IJN's strength. The Army retorts back that only it can equip the country to deal with challenges of today (China) and tomorrow (Russia), and the Navy was built against the fading challenges of yesterday, like America and Britain. The Navy cites America's continued Naval build-up but the Army tells the Navy guys they can't have it both ways, if they already scared off the Americans, the IJN is becoming less relevant, they may be building ships to help their capitalists, but they are still on track to release the Philippines, so they don't seem to have the will to use them. The Navy cites America's limited sanctions on strategic goods as a sign of hostility, but the Army calls that an example of American cowardice and lack of will and asks what the Navy is going to do about it anyway.

Interservice rivalry, plus geopolitical opportunity, stoke a great desire in the IJN to steal a march on the IJA and prove its relevancy. Naval planning had remained overwhelmingly focused on war with the United States from 1906 through the 1930s, but after the cancellation of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, there had been a minor second line of planning focused against the Royal Navy and Singapore. After the withdrawal of the US from China during 1938, the anti-US planning focus remaining, but anti-British planning against British positions in the China Seas, so in Chinese waters, Hong Kong, Malaya, Borneo, the Gilberts, the Bismarcks, the Solomons, gained relatively more prominence. These studies continued, albeit with less urgency, after the "small bargain" with Britain in early 1939.

However, many of the operational concepts of this earlier planning for southerly advance ended up recycled in plans directed against the IJN's new obsession starting in November 1939, the Dutch East Indies.

The IJN's rationale for moving on the DEI is to attain secure sovereign control over oil and additional food resources in an increasingly warlike world where these resources are in greater demand and scarcer. US "economic warfare" its moral embargo on aviation gasoline is taken as proof that Washington could cut off other raw material supplies, so Japanese physical control is essential. A bilateral move against the colony of the Netherlands, a stubbornly neutral country, is seen as geopolitically low risk at this time in particular. The Dutch are a small, weak country to begin with. Because they sit next to warring powers in Europe, they can spare little more force to send to the Indies. Other powers, having retreated from China and disengaging from the Philippines, have not demonstrated past behaviors indicating they would militarily/navally intervene. And they are nearly all pre-occupied. Britain (and France) are formally at war with Germany. The USSR is at war in Finland, and getting heavily criticized in the western democracies and Italy. The Americans, while having a small Asiatic fleet based in the Philippines, and access to ports and airfields, and a growing Filipino force and growing Pacific fleet, have so far shrunk from actual military conflicts and avoided multilateral alliances. They also face intense and public lobbying from the Filipino Commonwealth government to avoid tensions with Japan.

So geopolitically, a move on the DEI in the winter of 1939-1940 could be a viable fait accompli for Japan. In operational terms, it would be bold and innovative, involving the use of carriers and support of initial landings beyond the range of land-based Japanese air power. But it is doable, especially with starting bases in the Mandates (the Palaus and Carolines) to support ops against eastern DEI, and bases in Hainan to support ops against Dutch Borneo-Kalimantan. Once the Japanese SNLF seizes the initial islands, ports, and airfields, these become stepping stones for rapid sequential advance to quickly overrun the remain isles of the Dutch East Indies. Against this one opponent, the IJN's SNLF provides a more than adequate infantry force.

Japan's D-Day for the assault on the DEI is January 10th, 1940. The Japanese conquest progresses rapidly through January and February. Britain is greatly disturbed by this development and considers declaring war and ordering its limited Far Eastern forces into action against the the Japanese, alongside the Dutch. A few British and French, with Europe on their mind even more than Southeast Asia, advocate an intervention in DEI to establish co-belligerency with Netherlands they hope to extend to Europe, and then use that to pressure Belgium into cooperation. But the Dutch are wary of any such Europe-focused suggestions or implications.

The Americans are also bothered and initiate an oil embargo on Japan - a case of closing the barn door after the horse ran out. Ultimately the British and Americans discuss intervention, but do not agree to take action. The British do not want to make a definite anti-Japanese move without the Americans also committing, but the American President, FDR, does not feel he can ask Congress or the public to moved beyond economic measures and go to war over the Dutch colony.

The fall of the DEI to Japan is a great coup for the Japanese Navy.

It is also a great cause of consternation to Australia and New Zealand. They are shocked and appalled at Britain's inaction in the face of Japan's audacious advance into their own neighborhood.

As a result of this increased sense of fear and isolation, Prime Minister Robert Menzies of Australia rules out sending Australian armed forces for services outside of Australia and its immediate neighborhood of New Guinea and nearby archipelagos. No Aussies will be released for service in Palestine, or Africa or Europe.

...Meanwhile in the United States, defense spending had been boosted throughout 1939, and arms were being sold to the British and French since the summer on a "cash and carry" basis. US aircraft and armored vehicle and shipbuilding is getting somewhat ahead of OTL's schedule by Jan 1940. From the beginning of the war in September 1939, President Roosevelt has also declared a "Pan-American Security Belt" including the Western Hemisphere countries and Hawaii. While advocates of entering wars in Europe are few, Roosevelt's hemispheric defense policy is generally well-regarded.

...Back in Europe, the Soviets finally force territorial concessions on the Finns. Then, in April, the phony war abruptly ends as the Nazis invade Denmark and Norway. They follow this up with invasion of the Low Countries and France in May.

The Norway debacle sees Neville Chamberlain ushered out of office and replaced with Winston Churchill.

With superior doctrine, tactics, and use of radio, the Nazis defeat the Allies and compel French capitulation by the end of June 1940.

American aircraft ordered by the French that unfortunate did not arrive in time to stiffen French resistance nevertheless help add to RAF reserves during the Battle of Britain.

The Fall of France shocks the United States into the Two Ocean Navy Act, enlargement of the Army, additional major defense spending, and eventual movement toward conscription. It also convinces FDR to publicly announce his intent to run for election to unprecedented third term.

....to be continued...

 

[raharris1973]

....continued...

[ @stevep - this starts off looking like something you've seen, but doesn't end up there]

Shortly after his re-election, FDR wins approval for his Lend-Lease policy of subsidized aid to Britain.

The US also explores a policy of aiding China as well, but does not announce any changes in policy because there is no apparent route to supply aid to China. Britain, remember, is still formally barred, based on a legacy Chamberlain policy, from aiding Chiang Kai-shek’s China and so the Burma Road is quite underdeveloped compared to OTL. Of course, Britain and Australia actually reestablished informal contacts and top secret covert aid program for the Chiang regime in the aftermath of the Japanese invasion of the DEI, which made them decide appeasing the Japanese is fruitless, and that supporting the Chinese is a useful to tool divide Japanese efforts and prevent them from concentrating against Australia and other British possessions like Malaya, Borneo, Singapore, Burma or India. The bottom-line for the Americans too on China is they begin a covert aid program also, and its physical delivery path is a much more rudimentary than OTL version of the Burma Road.

With Lend-Lease, the US serves as the Arsenal of Democracy (and Communism too, after Germany invades the Soviet Union) with the ever expanding Lend-Lease program to the UK. During 1941 the US gets into an undeclared naval war with the Germans in the Atlantic as it extends its hemispheric defense zone where ‘shoot on sight’ orders against Axis submarine apply. This, and the aid program, increasingly frustrate Hitler.

He is irritated by that ‘rank hypocrite Rosenfeld’ in particular when FDR orders US Marines to occupy Iceland in July 1941 saying he’d ‘try to put Hamburg under the Monroe Doctrine’ if you turned your back on him.

But Hitler restrains himself, keeping submarine rules of engagement tight, limiting his submarine areas of operation to waters east of Iceland and the Americas, to avoid provoking an outright American declaration of war, at least until one of two conditions are met, the collapse of Soviet resistance, or the engagement of the Japanese Navy against the American Navy.

The Japanese, although they have some advocates of war against the Anglo-Americans about, because of anger over severed economic ties and a sense of 'inevitability' or 'now is better than later', are in the main happy to observe from WWII in Europe, and the quasi-war in the Atlantic from a distance. Japan’s scavenging policy has allowed it to occupy the Dutch East Indies, mitigating the oil embargo, without war. It has also permitted peaceful occupation of French Indochina in the year since metropolitan France fell to Germany. Would Singapore, Malaya, Burma, the Philippines, India, Guam be nice to possess - certainly. But the Philippines is nearing independence and Japan is appearing to find its politicians ready to take bribes to not cooperate with America or obstruct Japan’s plans in Asia, just as Japan is finding in Thailand. Guam is a minor speck in a Japanese sea. The fate of Singapore will be decided in the Atlantic by Germany as much as by anything Japan does.

Plus, with Chinese forces decaying under blockade and China facing inflation, and a new major IJA campaign planned against the Hunan Rice Bowl and city of Changsha, there is unfinished business in China.

This all adds up to a formidable set of arguments for ‘letting the persimmons ripen’ in the South Seas while ‘cutting down ripe permissons’ in China.

Japan’s Changsha offensive, initiated in September, finally takes the city in November 1941 from Chinese forces weakened by two years of comparative underfunding and isolation compared to OTL. Success at Changsha encourages the Japanese to continue their offensive.

It continues over the winter, taking the rail junction of Hengyang, from there forces continue to march south to meet with another prong go Japanese forces attacking north from Guangzhou in February 1942, giving Japan secure control of the whole Beijing-Wuhan-Guangzhou railway line for the first time in the war, and cutting off Chinese forces to the east. By April 1942, Japanese columns take Guilin in Guangxi province and reach the Indochinese border, providing a continuous zone of Japanese occupation in mainland Asia from the Amur river to the Mekong River Delta, from Harbin to Saigon.

Much as it disgusts Hitler to leave American aid convoys to Britain as far as Iceland large undisturbed, as 1942 rolls on, Hitler suffers the insult. Better to be facing a small naval war in the Atlantic with only part of the US Navy playing cat and mouse games of hide, seek and kill, than to also have American soldiers, and American piloted airplanes come to reinforce the British in Africa, the Middle East, and skies of Europe.

US Lend-Lease volume support to Britain and the USSR continues to steadily grow, and the U-Boats are slowly, but steadily, losing the attritional war against shipping tonnage. More US and British tonnage with Lend-Lease supplies is also making it through the more exotic, longer routes, like around the Cape of Africa and up the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to support the British in Egypt, and up to the Persian Gulf to Iran to help the USSR, and to India and Burma to help China, as well as the Murmansk run and Vladivostok runs to support the USSR.

Lend-Lease volume, increased Allied production and skill, and Axis overreach catches up with Germans and Italians as 1942 turns to 1943. The Soviets encircle the Germans in Stalingrad, the British make an irreversible conquest of Libya after Rommel and the Italians shoot their last bolt in North Africa at El-Alamein in 1942. 1943 sees the Germans pushed back further in Ukraine, their Zitadelle offensive failing miserably, with the front line at years end ending up along the Dnepr and Lake Peipus. The first half of 1943 also sees the British advance from Libya into Tunisia, chasing down Axis stragglers, as Vichy French forces gradually turn colors to Free French.

The growing demonstrated Lend-Lease capacity of the US, and its larger fleet and forces, through 1943, only reinforces Hitler and Japan's caution towards the United States. The Japanese, to the surprise of many, actually end up respecting the neutrality of the newly independent Philippines out of respect for the mighty US fleet over the horizon.

Support for the Allied war efforts and enlargement of the US military has pulled the US mostly out of its Depression and greatly reduced unemployment, while still leaving most fathers in their communities.

As of 1943, FDR has great reason to feel satisfaction that his Lend Lease policies and Preparedness policies have both turned the tide against Hitler, and prevented any surprise attack by Germany or Japan across the oceans.

What these policies have not done however, is brought about a full commitment of all American forces, ground, air, and sea, and the American nation, to war to the finish with Germany, Italy or Japan or changing their regimes.

By late 1943, and into 1944, is where FDR and the most committed interventionists start to feel like victims of their own success. Their success in containing Hitler, and rolling him back to the Mediterranean and edges of the Soviet Union, is great, but it reduces any urgency or sense of immediate danger that would justify far greater bloody sacrifices to destroy and bury the Nazi and Fascist regimes.

Over the course of 1944, Soviet forces will succeed in lifting the siege of Leningrad, will liberate the Baltics, will drive Finland to make peace or even conquer it, they will push the Nazis back from a diagonal line running from East Prussia to the Dniester river frontier of Romania, but further progress will get harder.

In late 43 and 44, the British forces will intensify bombing over Germany and Italy, and seize multiple islands in the Mediterranean, but will lack the manpower and confidence to land any force on the mainland of southern or western or Northern Europe. British, Canadian, and Imperial manpower alone, unassisted by the Australians - focused on home defense, and unassisted by the Americans, cannot take its chances against the Germans and Italians and their minor allies ability to counter-mass superior forces against any landing on the mainland, where it is in Greece, Italy, France, or Norway.

So by late 1943 and 1944, even more than FDR and American interventionists, Soviets, British, and Chinese are feeling like victims of US "success" at containing the Axis, because final decisive victory is not in sight.

For the Soviets and especially the British, a perpetual stalemate looks most likely. For China, it appear even more bleak.

Since Japan seized contiguous north-south rail corridors through China in April 1942, things have been grim for Nationalist China. Inflation soared, various provinces have suffered from famine, and military action became lethargic. This was despite a rising trickle of western aid offsetting the cancellation of Soviet aid as the Soviets became absorbed in their own defense. By summer 1942 Chinese Nationalists and Japan were in secret talks and in a de facto truce with both concentrating more on anti-communist anti-guerrilla operations. This further weakened Chiang’s prestige and Nationalist morale. The Japanese, with their puppet regimes, occupy all the most economically important parts of the eastern half of the country. The free zone of China suffers from lethargy, low morale, division, and high inflation. But neither Chiang nor the Communists formally surrendered, and Japan’s long slog to get to this point took way longer than expected. The Japanese could never quite offer Chiang suitable terms for capitulation however, so sinking into a phony war with side deals and collusion is all the Sino Japanese war degrades to by 1943. By 1944 however, Chiang may be ready to sign off on a peace deal making concessions to Japan and aligning against the communists.

Peacemaking for the Soviet Union in 1945, give or take a year, on the basis of the 1941 border, slightly adjusted for battlefield realities, is a relatively simple matter for that regime, no matter how painful it is.

For Britain there is more drama and discussion. There may be a cross-Atlantic ultimatum along the way, with the British saying, "either Uncle Sam gets in with both feet and all hands today, or we quit".

Britain faces immediate postwar issues of economic exhaustion, and explosive demands for Indian independence undermining the imperial structure east of Suez upon conclusion of any peace, especially any unsatisfying, unvictorious one.

....and there we have it..

 

[stevep]

Well that's an interesting and dark end stage to the conflict. It would leave Germany in control of most of continental Europe, which is going to be bad for the subjected nations, probably including France after the desertion of their colonies. Japan is similarly slaughtering its way across much of China and has also colonized a good chunk of SE Asia. Stalin has 'regained' Soviet territories and probably a bit more but with Hitler's Germany to his west both with retain massive levels of armaments as neither will trust the other.

I can't see the US being willing to join the war so Britain would be forced to make peace. Hopefully in return for handing back the Italian islands, which I think Hitler would insist on it could keep control of all of Africa, although the status of the assorted French colonies under Free French/British control would be awkward.

On the plus side it might not get that bad. Even if Hitler is consistently non-Hitler like and avoid clashing with the US the allies could be too powerful for the European Axis.

For Britain there is a need to provide some cover against Japan, especially with the latter having the DEI but its probably less overall than the costs of OTL losses in 1941/42 to them in terms of both manpower and resources while also the butterflies from no Greek campaign will also free up men and resources. Furthermore without the US joining the war the neutrality zone stays in place so the massive shipping losses of the 1st half of 1942 would be avoided. As such there would be more men and equipment available for a possible land campaign, most likely in south Italy, or Greece. The former, especially with the islands in British hands would enable air superiority to be used against the German forces in S Italy while the latter, if Crete could be liberated 1st would have the advantage that German reinforcements would be more difficult given the limited logistics.

That in itself wouldn't be decisive but if it kept the Soviets fighting as well and with more use of imperial as well as Britain/Canadian forces you could see the Axis worn down, although its going to be very bloody for all involved and going to take even longer. Plus the Soviets, although their likely to be more worn down are going to end up with more of Europe. Mind you that fear could prompt the German military to coup Hitler and the Nazis and end up doing a deal with Britain which could still leave much of eastern Europe between the two terrors but result in some deal that frees up the western democracies?

Of course the extra British resources could be exhausted on something stupid like an even larger strategic bombing campaign.