Would Japan's position be better if they focused their efforts south on occupying Australia instead of attacking Pearl Harbor?
>>18477337Their position would have been better if they hadn't invaded China and established an alliance with the Japanophilic KMT against communism. If they survived until the death of Nazi Germany and the start of the Cold War, the US would have happily accepted the military rule of the Empire as an effective bulwark against communism and they would still occupy Korea and Taiwan as well.
>>18477337Doubt it.The Anglo-Americans would be even more staunchly motivated to get rid of the Japanese empire if one of their ethnic European Anglosphere peer countries was invaded and occupied directly. The Americans would make it an absolute first priority to start reinforcing Australia's defences heavily with every asset in the Pacific they had almost immediately. Landing on and subduing Australia and the Australian-American forces there would also probably take dozens of fully equipped Japanese divisions or more that would have to march through the northern/Central outback while fighting a largely intact Australian army and RAAF. Unlike almost everywhere else in the Pacific the Japanese conquered, Australia actually had a pretty big domestic military/civilian industrial base, something the Japanese literally never went up against until they started fighting a focused United States in mid-1942. Picture the North Africa theatre and how that eventually wound up for the Afrika Korps, except that the Japanese army generally had nothing close to the mechanized weight and hitting power of the Afrika Korps in large, sweeping wars of maneuver over large concentrated land masses as seen by Khalkyn Gol.They can also kiss any tactical progress in China and Burma/continental Southeast Asia goodbye with that even bigger drain on manpower. Stalin would also probably be convinced even sooner that a big attack on Siberia from the Japanese wasn't coming and divert troops accordingly to the West to make Japan's Axis friends in Europe start losing even faster.TLDR no, the Japanese were screwed no matter what direction they focused in. The biggest what-if concerning Japan's war effort will always be what would have happened if they launched a big offensive into Siberia in 1941 to go along with Barbarossa, but that'll always be a huge if considering the USSR as an entity was no fucking pushover like Nationalist China.
>>18477408Japan is and has always been a fairly lucky country historically, but one of their great tragedies is how the dream of direct rule of the Emperor died and the reformers were purged to make way for military bureaucrat chuddies with all the strategic sense of a mad bull.
>>18477428i mean, if Hirohito was an absolutist monarch, would he have done any better? By all accounts he was a relatively weak, mediocre personality.
>>18477431Yes. He let himself get strung along by the military and didn't actually show any initiative to stop the war until the very end, but he wouldn't have led Japan into it either.
>>18477337Yes they overstimated their power
>>18477408At best they’d be cautiously tolerated like Francoist Spain. Yellow Peril fears about the danger that imperial Japan posed to the American west coast were already rampant by the 20s. Even if they hadn’t started WWII Japan would probably still be widely hated by both the American populace and its major policymakers to the point of ruinous trade wars and Cuban Missile Crisis style military/diplomatic standoffs. Kuomintang China was also become steadily more anti-Japan by the 1920s and Japan would also be sandwiched in between an increasingly powerful nationalist China. It’s hard to see how war could have been possibly avoided.
>>18477337No. Logistics + abo petrol consuming pest.
>>18477603Yellow peril fears were more centered around immigrants into the US than foreign states at large. I don't see the US initiating a war against Japan if they don't join the Axis, especially not during the Cold War where they had no issues with authoritarian regimes in South Korea, Taiwan, and across Latin America for the sake of combating communism nor do I see a Chiang led China having any reasons to engage in hostilities towards Japan if Japan does not initiate them, as Chiang had no personal antagonism and did not even wish to fight Japan when Japan was actively invading. Taiwan could be an issue eventually but it was a bottom of the barrel focus until late WW2 and without Japan demilitarizing, it's highly unlikely that China would risk a war with a dominant naval power over it, at most a condemnation of Japanese occupation without any real action to take it.There could still be issues related to Korean independence movements but in all likelihood, it would be spearheaded by the left and supported by the Soviet Union which would only bring support against it by the US and China. But if it's politically neutral, it could be more of a complicated matter for Japan.All in all, I can't really see a way for Japan to be actively worse off for not joining the Axis and invading China than what had occured IRL, even if there are eventual trade wars and diplomatic tensions with the US and China.
>>18477408>>18477428What about that Japanese soldier who goes restroom break?
>>18477418Theoretically, Japan wouldn't have needed to conquer East Russia, but just strategically fix as many Soviet armies over there as possible. Also use the IJN to interdict American supply.
>>18477760>use the IJN to interdict American supply.They probably shouldn't canceled third wave (target ship repair dock, crude oil reserve, remaining fleet, aircraft on the ground). Also important use submarine to destroy logistic oil supply in California.
>>18477408>occupy Korea and TaiwanThey are legally imperial territory, not temporarily military zone.
>>18477603>Kuomintang China was also become steadily more anti-Japan by the late 1920sWhich irony consider Japan support the KMT during early foundation.>sandwiched in between an increasingly powerful nationalist ChinaChina still warlord hellhole
>>18477603Germany would likely have been in a more favorable position if led by Hans von Seeckt aka The Sphinx, similar to the situation with Francoist/Kemalist-like analogue
>>18477337Why would Japan invade Australia?
>>18478936https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_DarwinNever forget Darwin Harbor
No, they were brutally bogged down in China. Really embarrassing that a few hundred thousand manchu horseniggers shit kicked the Ming dynasty but Japan with millions of men armed to the teeth with everything from fighter planes to carriers couldn’t take the Chinese failed state engaging in a civil war. Just fucking seppuku, embarrassing dispray.
>>18479116Bombing doesn't equate to intention to invade. Japan never planned to invade Australia during the war.
>>18479188Who have to accept hull note (US proposal) or fourteenth message (Japanese proposal)?
>>18479928Japan shouldn't have invaded French Indochina like they promised not to if they didn't want to get embargo.
