What if: No oil embargo placed on Japan by China, United States, Britain, and Dutch?

[gjs238]

What might have transpired had the oil embargo on Japan not occurred?

 

[stona]

Why might it not have occurred? A more pertinent question is whether sanctions and embargoes to attempt to punish or curtail aggressive actions by some States actually work. The use of sanctions in the modern world is common place, but those sanctioned have not precipitated a wider conflict...yet.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Shortround6]

Usually they work (or allow the subject state to muddle on for years) without starting a wider conflict because the states they are applied to are minor states compared the states imposing them. South Africa, Middle Eastern states and others had zero hope of attacking the sanction imposing powers and doing anything significant (the heck with winning).
Japan actually had zero chance of winning in the long run. They were betting the Americans would give up.

 

[stona]

Usually they work (or allow the subject state to muddle on for years) without starting a wider conflict because the states they are applied to are minor states compared the states imposing them.

Mmmm, Russia? The Crimea is effectively annexed, fait accompli, so sanctions didn't work there. The Ukraine is on going. Russia is betting that 'the West' has no stomach for an escalation, so, unlike the Japanese, is unlikely to precipitate a larger conflict as long as she gets what she wants...again.

Anyway, the original premise is that Japan was not sanctioned economically for her aggressive expansionism in Asia throughout the 1930s. Without sanctions Japan would have got what she wanted without the need for a wider conflict. I can't imagine an attack on the US in 1941, though ultimately the conflict of interest in the wider Pacific region might have led to a military conflict between the main protagonists.
The US reaction to the appropriation of European colonies in South East Asia by the Japanese might be interesting. There wasn't a fat lot the European powers could do to hang on to most.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Shortround6]

Well, I did say "Usually" but the sentence was a bit muddled. Perhaps it wold have been better as "Usually they imposed without starting a wider conflict because the states they are applied to are minor states compared the states imposing them.)

The phrase "or allow the subject state to muddle on for years" is my impression that they don't work very well or take many years to have an real effect on the sectioned state's behavior.

Japan went to war because it leaders felt they had no choice, or not a choice that was acceptable to them at the time, ie, give up on the " Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" (conquest of south east Asia).

Without the sanctions Japan would have gotten what they wanted (mostly) without the cost of going to war with world powers. Going to war with minor powers, if needed, would probably have been perfectly acceptable to the Japanese.

 

[stona]

Without the sanctions Japan would have gotten what they wanted (mostly) without the cost of going to war with world powers. Going to war with minor powers, if needed, would probably have been perfectly acceptable to the Japanese.

Well, allowing that the European powers were either occupied or in no position to hold onto territories in Asia the sticking point for the US would have been the Philippines. It's difficult to see geographically, let alone politically, economically and militarily, how the Japanese could have left these alone.

Cheers

Steve

 

[wiking85]

Part of the issue was the US freezing of assets of Japan in 1941, which cut them off from the ability to buy oil. So even without an oil embargo the Japanese would run out of money to buy oil and even if the Europeans had no issues with selling they aren't giving it away for free. But too remember that the Japanese had attacked a US ship in 1937, so the embargo on Japan was a soft power response to Japanese outrages without actively engaging in a war the US was not prepared for and a political necessity for Roosevelt to say he was doing something instead of looking weak.

 

[davebender]

Does USA still form USAFFE with plans to base four heavy bomber groups plus more then 30 large submarines in Philippines? If so then oil embargo or lack thereof might not make much difference except that Japan no longer has a reason to invade Dutch East Indies, Malaya or Borneo. The war would involve only USA and Japan, at least until USA Government forces Britain to participate by threatening to cut off economic assistance.

 

[GrauGeist]

Placing sanctions on Japan was an affront and an insult to them, as the U.S. and Japan were allies up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese expansion that had been going on for ten years prior to Pearl Harbor had been getting more and more aggressive and the U.S. and European powers hadn't really done anything more than what's happening to Russia today.

First they condemned the actions and then they strongly condemned the actions. Then they really upped the pressure by issuing trade restrictions accompanied by a strongly worded condemnation. Then came the real punishment: trade sanctions and a harsh letter of condemnation.

So while Putin plays from Hitler/Stalin's playbook of 75 years ago, the EU/US are playing by the same playbook from 75 years ago...

 

[Shortround6]

Imagine all the trouble that could have been saved if only they had used the ultimate deterrent. The Strongly worded, really harsh letter of condemnation. Strongly worded OR harsh alone just won't do, you need the combination.

Even worse than the Fluffy pillow or comfy chair.

 

[GrauGeist]

 

[Koopernic]

Placing sanctions on Japan was an affront and an insult to them, as the U.S. and Japan were allies up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese expansion that had been going on for ten years prior to Pearl Harbor had been getting more and more aggressive and the U.S. and European powers hadn't really done anything more than what's happening to Russia today.

First they condemned the actions and then they strongly condemned the actions. Then they really upped the pressure by issuing trade restrictions accompanied by a strongly worded condemnation. Then came the real punishment: trade sanctions and a harsh letter of condemnation.

So while Putin plays from Hitler/Stalin's playbook of 75 years ago, the EU/US are playing by the same playbook from 75 years ago...

I have been reading M Stanton Evan's masterful biography of Tail Gunner Senator Joe McCarthy "Black Listed by History"

I say have been reading because its 600 pages, fortunately available on Amazon Whispersync for voice.

McCarthy and his source was correct about the deep penetration of the US State Department by communists agents. The US Army's decoding work was quite impressive and its Vennona decrypts prove that McCarthy was correct, they were only released in 1996 but the codes had been cracked since 1946. The penetration of the state department began via intelligence analysis's, language translators from outside service organisations. Only the FBI wasn't penetrated, probably because the career path was via plodding police work and a promotion structure however the FBI did not have benefit of the US Armies work, they did have their own Hoover directed wire taps. The legal system was seemingly penetrated, Hoover watched boggled as case after case of red handed evidence collapsed.

What needs to be understood is that communists are 'true believers' and intrinsically specialists at understanding and destroying political and social structures, that's what they do, study and they are good at it.

They were just in the state department but influential academic journals, correspondents. They were able to plant, under directions from Moscow, misleading information that would sour US Japan relations so as to prevent a US Japan peace treaty, something which was showing signs of developing.

Moscow's aim was to prevent a US Japan peace treaty so that Japan would be occupied fighting against the USA, thereby freeing up Moscow's resources for Europe. Stalin's entire career, and that of many communists, was getting other folks to fight and then to walk in and clean up.

The communist network ran deep and it ran into Japan as well as it did in Britain. Two IPR assistance in the USA Ozaki and Saionji had deep connections to the Japanese power structure and helped plant false information into japan also to sour US relations.

The planting of false information was also used to induce the US state department to advise that it was Chinese Communists rather than Nationalists who were fighting the Japanese and to direct aid away from the Nationalists. The Nationalists were also blackened with false accusations of corruption etc. In fact the opposite was true, ChiCom strategy was to have the Nationalists fight the Japanese and then to occupy the land the Nationalists had liberated.

They were not just spying, that was the least of it. They were creating influential networks, practicing psychological warfare, planting false information. Japan was Russia's enemy both as a nation and politically.

McCarthy was a farm boy, he ran a chicken farming business, paid for his own education as a lawyer, worked as a judge where he was known for his fairness to divorced women, he then volunteered for the USMC (he was exempt from the draft) where he worked in intelligence, debriefing aviators after a mission. He flew 13 missions. Some in the tail gun position where he could use a camera for strike analysis. I like him.

 

[GrauGeist]

Unfortunately, the truth is, that McCarthy was a tool and created witch-hunts that caused alot of innocent people a great deal of misery and hardship. Fortunately, some people like Ronald Reagan, survived his idiotic pogroms.

In the U.S., for the longest time, when people were found out to be falsely accusing someone for personal gain, to be committing "McCarthyism"

 

[Shinpachi]

What might have transpired had the oil embargo on Japan not occurred?

This is a trivia.

No oil embargo, No land subsidence in downtown of Tokyo.
There is still a huge natural gas field in the eastern area from Tokyo to Chiba Prefecture known since the 18th century.
As the gas is contained in the groundwater called brackish water, they hesitated to produce positively because it brought the ground sink till the embargo imposed.

 

[Koopernic]

Unfortunately, the truth is, that McCarthy was a tool and created witch-hunts that caused alot of innocent people a great deal of misery and hardship. Fortunately, some people like Ronald Reagan, survived his idiotic pogroms.

In the U.S., for the longest time, when people were found out to be falsely accusing someone for personal gain, to be committing "McCarthyism"

You are saying Reagan survived a McCarthy Witch hunt. Pull the other one?

McCarthy said the state department had been deeply penetrated. He had nothing to do with interrogating Hollywood script writers etc.

No, they were not Witch hunts. That's simply not true. If it was a which hunt it was because they were, in a way, real Witches. They were real spys, traitors, turncoats, idealists, communists, call them what you like, they were all or a combination. They were people either on the Soviet Payroll, doing favours for such or working naively for front organisations controlled or created by such people. A front organisation is one which is given a title such as "the American committee for international cooperation and peace" but is in reality ideologically working for another cause.

McCarthy never cut a person off, he let them talk themselves out. If folks are doing those sorts of things, undermining their nation without revealing their true affiliations and agenda don't you think they deserved to have their actions exposed to the American Public and government. These folks were not being put in jail, they were being asked to leave their job in government, the state department and or their work simply being revealed. Some came forward voluntarily, recanting what they had become involved out of idealism. No harm came to them, much as some might think they deserve it.

McCarthy was a Senator. Yet he gets confused with the Congressional House Committee of un-American activities of years earlier when McCarthy was a marine. This is absurd since anyone who understands the US bicameral system knows a senator can't head a house committee. (That committee did Stirling work, but years earlier, its work was muted by the fact that the Soviet Union was a sort of allie)

Almost nothing said about Joseph McCarthy is true. He's become entirely a bogey man myth and the only truth about him was that he was a Senator and his name was McCarthy.

He is relevant here, as he flew combat missions in a bomber tail gun position.

 

[soulezoo]

I have read the McCarthy book that Koopernic is describing.

It posits a very different view of things. Without offering an opinion, I think it a really good source with which to compare commonly accepted views. This is a very well researched book containing all appropriate acknowledgements and references.

Much of the information contained is confirmed by the old Soviet documents released in '96... or are the Soviet documents not to be trusted? Let the reader decide. I will opine that if that book is only half-true, one would start to rethink much of the decisions leading up to and during WWII. Nice references to how the US supported Tito in Yugoslavia after the war. How Stalin warned Kim about MacArthur's planned landing at Inchon that Kim ignored... another "what if?"... what if Kim was prepared for Inchon? How would Korean War go after that?

Sorry for the derail... back to Japan.

Ultimately, I think we would have ended up where we did even if by a different path (no Pearl Harbor). Japan's thirst for conquest was simply too great. Like Hitler who didn't stop at Poland or the Sudetenland, I don't think Japan stops either pulling us in eventually.

 

[GrauGeist]

Then I strongly suggest reading about McCarthy...even go to wiki for a brief over-view. He was an ass.