At 12:47 AM 3/28/2002 -0500, you wrote: >Had Germany and Japan ever coordinated they could have linked up in >Afghanistan via Burma and Northern India (Japanese) and southern Russia or >the Middle East (Germany). But they didn't, which made Hitler's declaration >of war on the US after Pearl Harbour an even sillier move in retrospect. As >I read it, Hitler would have been reasonably comfortable with Japan >controlling the Pacific and Asia, Britain controlling its Empire and the US >controlling all of the Americas, so long as Hitler had Europe/Russia to >himself. At least, to begin with... > >Brett > >This is a really interesting question. There's certainly a lot of evidence >to support that - including Hitler's own statements (to the extent that >those are evidence one way or the other, of course). OTOH, there's also >some evidence that one of the reasons for the invasion of Normandy was that >Hitler viewed it as a jumping-off point for an eventual invasion of the US, >so it could go the other way, of course. But I don't think they could have >linked up in Afghanistan via Burma and India, because the Japanese were >stopped cold at Imphal-Kohima. Nor, in fact, was such a linkage really >necessary. > >Of course in the larger frame there's the serious question of what the >Japanese could possibly have been thinking in fighting a war with the United >States anyways. It was fundamentally a misreading of the American >character. One of my profs argues that they _knew_ that they would lose the >war, but thought that the US would limit itself to a small campaign and then >concede dominance in Asia to Japan. This was, of course, a rather >catastrophic misinterpretation of the American character. Of course, they >weren't the last people to make that same mistake... > >Gautam
I agree with you that the Japanese misread the American character. The militants in the Japanese government basically felt that the US was a decadent society, and did not have the warrior qualities that the Japanese possessed. To their everlasting regret. I disagree with your prof that the Japanese knew they would lose the war, but that the US would, after waging a small campaign, concede to Japan. The Japanese knew they could not wage a protracted war with the US. Their strategy was to knock out the Pacific Fleet, thereby gaining time to construct a formidable defense line in the Pacific. They believed that they could make the cost of retaking the Philippines and the Japanese held islands in the Central Pacific so high, that the US would negotiate a peace settlement that would acknowledge Japan's supremacy in Asia. This may not have been so far off the mark, but the Japanese miscalculated the US response to the attack at Pearl Harbor, which came at a time when US and Japanese diplomats were attempting to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the ongoing crisis in Asia. Their tactic (which they had employed successfully in the Russo-Japanese War) of pretending to negotiate while planning to attack, infuriated not only the Roosevelt administration, but the vast majority of the American people. After Pearl Harbor, the only negotiating the Americans would do with Japan would be at the surrender table. The attack at Pearl Harbor, their treatment of military and civilian prisoners, and the atrocities at Nanking and the Bataan Death March, made for a war in which there was virtually no quarter asked or given on either side, and any President who called for a negotiated peace that left the Japanese dominant in Asia would have been impeached. Of course, their greatest miscalculation was in deciding for war in the first place. john
