What would have happened if Japan decided not to attack the USA?

they starve due to the inability to import rice from china.

They had no choice. If they didn't attack us, they couldn't get oil. If they couldn't get oil, the war was over for them.

So, Japan loses to China, probably a white peace though the Chinese will be pissed as hell and looking to put Japan on their To-Do list once their own civil war is concluded.

That is not true, they were planning to invade the dutch east indies which had oil. They were just worried that the US would declare war on them if they did so, so they struck first.

They try to invade Russia
This happens one way or another

They would have bomb their own ships and claim it was the japanese who did it.

Would be good to see FDR following the family tradition

frenchfag spotted

we wouldn't have this amazing kino

This. Japan should have left the US alone, and put heavy pressure on the Dutch government in exile to come over onto their side. If that had worked, Japan might still be presiding over their Co-prosperity sphere yet today.

The US would've had to go through the trouble of getting a reason to attack the Japs

They won't run out of gas and not be able to keep their Holdings in China

Disaster for Japan, just a little earlier.

They've got no choice but to invade the Dutch East Indies for their oil resources, Embargos be damned. And within that region are enough US installations that nailing at least one of them is a total certainty. Inevitably, an atrocity albeit on a smaller scale will develop. The US won't have to 'manufacture' a fabricated reason to attack Japan.

And with Pearl Harbor never hit the US Naval Forces don't need time to re-fit and repair battle damage before charging in.

About the only thing that would change is the whole operation going at a smaller and slower pace, as Germany will do as it did in real life and will take greater priority.

You historylets might not realize this but the only reason Japan could not straight up buy Dutch and British oil was because the US pressured them to join in the embargo. Getting Dutch oil without US interference was not an option for Japan of this time-line.

The Americans could put all of the pressure they wanted, but short of war, which the Japanese had the ability to prosecute obviously, the Americans couldn't not stop them from pressuring anybody. The US population was not interested in war, at all. It was only the Japanese attack on the US that changed opinion. That was the mistake the Japs made.

Anime wouldn't have existed that's for sure, damn them for attacking.

>If they didn't attack us, they couldn't get oil. If they couldn't get oil, the war was over for them.
Untrue. Japan could still keep operating on the oil reserves they had. They had two years worth stockpiled, and although the US blockade cut heavily into their supply they weren't entirely cut off. The Dutch East Indies did in fact offer to supply them with oil (after a request by the Japanese delivered under the heavy implication that the Japanese would attack if they didn't), but the amount offered was only about half of what Japan originally asked for. If Japan had kept going as they were, they might have had to limit offensive operations in China but they could still have held what they had, and still have been able to deal with the disorganised and poorly armed Chinese forces remaining. Especially if they'd taken the Dutch East Indies' lower offer, they would still have been a reasonable position to secure their gains in China for the foreseeable future.

What the Japanese couldn't do if they'd left things any longer was launch a major offensive with the most oil-hungry part of their armed forces, the Imperial Japanese Navy. If they had opted not to attack the US and the US later decided to intervene more directly, the Japanese wouldn't have been able to wage a naval war in the pacific. Pearl Harbour happened when it did not because of a specific move by the US that pushed the Japanese over the edge, but because of the closing window of opportunity for the IJN to fight that kind of war.

It was a question of the immediate push for all-out glory, or following a more conservative course that would limit Japan's overall ambitions. Take the whole of East Asia and establish Japan as one of the greatest empires on Earth, or limit the Japanese Empire to Manchuria and parts of northern and coastal China and forever be a second-rate power.

>And with Pearl Harbor never hit the US Naval Forces don't need time to re-fit and repair battle damage before charging in.
They didn't need time to refit and repair in any event, including Pearl Harbor. Within 2 months, they were attacking Japanese bases. Within 4 months they bombed mainland Japan. Within 5 months they'd stopped the Japanese advance in New Guinea at Coral Sea. Within 6 months they destroyed most of the Japanese aviation arm at Midway. Within 8 months they'd gone on the offensive permanently in the Solomons.

Attacking the US was the dumbest thing the Japanese ever did. ANY move would have been smarter than that. Praying to Martian gods to intervene would have been smarter. Pressuring the Dutch was easily the smarter move.

You single handedly have just debunked and destroyed all of alternate history.

What if they had attacked the Dutch East Indies and not attacked the US? If they secured a good supply of oil then they would have been in more or less the same position they were after Pearl Harbour, except there would have been no guarantee of war with America. Even the idea of a pre-emptive strike in case America intervened on the side of the Dutch seems to make little sense. Either they attack America, temporarily cripple their pacific fleet before getting rekt, or they don’t attack America and then may or may not get rekt. In other words it seems they didn’t need to attack the US, as any possible gains made by striking first wouldn’t matter in the long run. Not attacking them however could have avoided war entirely.

>the Japanese wouldn't have been able to wage a naval war in the pacific.
They weren't capable of that in any event. They were set up to fight an all out battle in the Philippines, and that's it. The Americans didn't have to offer that decisive battle, and didn't. They defeated them in detail.

They chose badly. The only battle they were capable of fighting never came to them, because it didn't have to be fought to defeat Japan. They couldn't exploit the resources they'd seized, including crude oil, so their decision to confront the US bore them no fruits in any event.

Just strategic foolishness. They should have left the US alone and worked patiently to get what they wanted. Going to war with the US could never have obtained what they desired.

The assumption the Japanese government were operating under was that, given America's interference over China and the clear intent to cut off Japan's oil supplies, the Americans would declare all-out war if they attacked one of the European colonies in Asia, especially if it was the one with all the oil. The irony of the whole thing is that the US had no such intention, but of course the Japanese had no way of knowing that.

>Either they attack America, temporarily cripple their pacific fleet before getting rekt
You're not looking at things from a Japanese perspective.

The Japanese plan was to wipe out the Pacific Fleet entirely, which would then have given them several months to fortify their side of the pacific before the Americans could muster a sizeable force. At which point, America would have had to operate thousands of miles from any American bases into the face of well-entrenched Japanese forces. The Japanese assumption was that America, when faced with such a costly war, would simply find it cheaper to sue for peace - and even if they did decide to fight they would be at a huge disadvantage, giving the Japanese at least a fair chance of winning a war. The Japanese were relying on the sheer size of the Pacific and the perceived weakness of American society.

So from the Japanese point of view the choice was: if we execute this perfectly the Americans won't be able to touch us, whereas if we do nothing we will be leaving our future entirely in America's hands. In order not to go with the attack on Pearl Harbour, the Japanese would have had to recognise that there was a decent chance Japan's navy would fail to achieve it's objectives, and calmly waited to see what America did next. Given the psychology of the Japanese government at the time, admitting the possibility of military failure and conceding Japan's future to foreigners were just about the two things that they were least capable of doing.

DEI was the bait US set out, so that would've played perfectly into FDR's trap.

>The irony of the whole thing is that the US had no such intention,
The irony is that you are 100% wrong and US had a not-so-secret defensive pact with the Dutch and the Brits against Japanese aggression.

So if the attack on Pearl Harbour had succeeded in wiping out the pacific fleet, or at least the carriers, what do you think would have changed? I don’t know the mentality of the American people of the time, but the seemed pretty determined to take the fight till the end, in which case they would have won, it just would have taken longer. The real question in that scenario appears to be the determination of the American people and government.

>The Japanese plan was to wipe out the Pacific Fleet entirely,
Japanese plan was to hit carriers and battleships, then attack any cruisers or smaller ships if opportunity presented. Genda was not nearly as retarded as you were and had the benefit of actual intelligence and knowledge.

>(d) Even if Japan were not initially to enter the war on the side of the Axis powers, it would still be necessary for the Associated Powers to deploy their forces in a manner to guard against eventual Japanese intervention. If Japan does enter the war, the Military strategy in the Far East will be defensive. The United States does not intend to add to its present Military strength in the Far East but will employ the United States Pacific Fleet offensively in the manner

[5]

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Secret
U.S. Serial 011512-12(R)
B.U.S.(J)(41)30
Short Title ABC-1
March 27, 1941
best calculated to weaken Japanese economic power, and to support the defense of the Malay barrier by diverting Japanese strength away from Malaysia. The United States intends so to augment its forces in the Atlantic and Mediterranean areas that the British Commonwealth will be in a position to release the necessary forces for the Far East.

>Land and Air Forces

36. Tasks

Far East Area

(a) Defend Hong Kong, the Philippines, the Netherlands East Indies and such other territories and islands as it may be decided from time to time to occupy as bases.

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Secret
U.S. Serial 011512-12(R-A3)
B.U.S.(J)(41)30
Short Title ABC-1 Annex 3
March 27, 1941
(b) Hold Malaya, Singapore, and Java against Japanese attack.

(c) Support the naval forces.

Australia and New Zealand Area

(d) In conjunction with naval and air forces, protect British territory and prevent the extension of enemy Military power in this area.

(e) Support the naval forces in the protection of the sea communications of the Associated Powers.

>US had a not-so-secret defensive pact with the Dutch and the Brits against Japanese aggression.
No, no such treaty existed, sorry. There were coordination plans discussed, but the US couldn't go to war unless Congress declared it.

Every actual evidence is on my side, while all you have is retarded post-war myth of American isolationism.

>what do you think would have changed?
nothing. I never said the Japanese were right. The Americans would never have sued for peace, and given the huge economic disparity America still probably would have steamrolled through the Japanese forces, even if it would have taken longer had they lost their carriers at Pearl Harbour. /Maybe/, just maybe, if the Japanese military had performed perfectly, with the extra time to bunker up they would actually have been able to make it so difficult for the Americans to cross the pacific that America would have had to suspend operations in order not to waste resources needed for the war in Europe. But that's a real long-shot.

The Japanese strategy was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of American psychology. They thought the Americans were a primarily a commerce oriented people, and so would view war against the Japanese as too expensive. They also thought American luxuries would make America's soldiers weak. I'm not exaggerating - Japan was still a very closed, insular society, and the understanding the Japanese higher ups had of America really was this simplistic. Except of course for those few like admiral Yamamoto who had lived in America, who desperately tried to warn Japanese high command about what a huge mistake they were making.

everything I've read suggests that the US had no intention of going to war to protect a European colonial outpost. Politically it just didn't play well given the strong isolationist sentiment in the country at the time.

>everything I've read suggests
So, Veeky Forums threads and youtube comments?

>US had no intention of going to war to protect a European colonial outpost.
Let me guess I bet you think the US enacted sanctions against Japan to protest its war against China.

>implying America actually honors its treaties

If you have evidence of a treaty as you claim, lad, please provide.

I can save you some time, and inform you that none such existed. Now you know.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

>Richardson asked the President if the United States was going to war. Roosevelt's view was:
>At least as early as October 8, 1940, ...affairs had reached such a state that the United States would become involved in a war with Japan. ... 'that if the Japanese attacked Thailand, or the Kra Peninsula, or the Dutch East Indies we would not enter the war, that if they even attacked the Philippines he doubted whether we would enter the war, but that they (the Japanese) could not always avoid making mistakes and that as the war continued and that area of operations expanded sooner or later they would make a mistake and we would enter the war.' ... .

please, explain to us o wise one - why did the US enact sanctions against Japan?

>why did the US enact sanctions against Japan?
...the nips weren't sharing anime broadly enough, selfish bastards.

>The Japanese strategy was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of American psychology. They thought the Americans were a primarily a commerce oriented people, and so would view war against the Japanese as too expensive.
Most of that comes from the Panay Incident from my understanding.

The army would have won the discourse between the imperial navy and imperial army. Japan and Germany would have launched a joint offensive on the USSR, as the Japanese planned to do. With some luck they could have fixed their oil problem if 1 : They won 2 : Hitler shared the soviet oil fields.