el cid again
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The best information on this subject re the USA is in the recorded concerns of Gen Marshall and FDR re casualties. It is clear that, had things continued to go as they did pre-Midway, at some point this would have mattered. IMHO Guadalcanal was a mistake - and it was a violation of US doctrine as it later evolved - insofar as
(A) a major landing was done outside of range of land based air support
(B) a major ground combat force was committed to battle which had not trained above the battalion level at all.
It is easy to imagine how this battle might have gone much worse than it did. The worst defeat in actual battle in USN history was at Savo Island.
[Pearl Harbor involved worse USN losses, but it was a US ARMY battle - because the Army was responsible for fleet defense in port.] Without the reverses at Midway, it is easy to imagine either we don't attempt Guadalcanal - or we get creamed.
The biggest problem with a Japanese victory scenario is that, unlike the Russo-Japanese war, Japan had no exit strategy. But it nearly had one - that is planners had been working on a possible one in dealing with Hawaii (since 1910). IF it had been adopted and successfully executed,
Japan might have offered a neutral Hawaii as one term of peace. Its fall back position could be return of Hawaii to the USA (provided by then you could sell that in Hawaii - about which there is some doubt - but at least agree to a plebicite).
The greatest strategic issues are not under Japanese control. These involve the defeat of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Japan never tried, and it might have done. A coordinated campaign (long considered) in 1942 might have worked (coordinated with Germany and other USSR foes, including Finland, Turkey and Romania - the first and last of these pissed by not long past Soviet invasions). IF the USSR breaks up, Germany and Japan have a strategic line of communications and they have no shortage of raw materials. Add to that they can buy things from the gigantic manufacturing base in the USSR (it made at least 9 times more than was given to it under lend lease, for example). Such a situation might permit Japan a much stronger position in the PTO - at least if its plans to "cork the bottle" at Chita were implemented. [A small force there - a class A army with mechanized formations and an air brigade in support - might be hard to displace - freeing up many troops and planes. A similar force would be needed in Amur Province, and yet another in Manchuria.]
Another dimension is that, according to historians, the basic plan (an autarky) was economically viable, and properly managed, politically possible. Anti-colonial sentiment was very high, and the moral position of even the USA weak - because it had its own colonial interests (in the Philippines) and quasi-colonial interests (in China) - in spite of its better than others policy. Had the Foreign Ministry been in charge (instead of semi-independent - and semi-piratical - elements of IJA), it could have been different.
The real reason Japan was doomed to defeat is the same as with most losers in most wars: it defeated itself. It failed to mobilize fully and seriously, and to adopt uniform standards, until mid-war. It failed to bring renegade military officers to heel, and indeed it may be said they dictated critical early-war policy as well as caused many political problems in many sort of occupied areas (Japan never used a true occupation system in most places, Borneo excepted). It made gross operational errors (two raiders went down with hundreds of torpedoes - something that IJN never recovered from - as a tiny example which matters - and there are worse cases - Morison says Japan managed to violate ALL the principles of war at Midway!) If you could reform all these things at once - I can propose who could have done so (though not how to keep them alive in the nightmare politics of Japan) - while Japan might have had a shot at winning - it might also not have gone to war at all.
It really turns on the policy of FDR - about which I am quite skeptical - but IF you think FDR was negotiable - I think he was before about November 1941 - MAYBE there was a way out of the fight. That might amount to an Allied defeat - it happened before - more than once - in respect to China - and it has happened many times since. It is said US politicians can squander almost any victory by US troops! Wether or no, many, many times US troops are not allowed to fight. [I remember the USN went to war in the Pueblo Incident - but it didn't turn out to matter - because the President failed to allow us to act.]
< Message edited by el cid again -- 4/10/2006 11:47:17 PM >
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