Why did we go to war with Japan in WWII?
Discussion
The Allies used up vast amounts of treasure and blood to force Japan's unconditional surrender.
But Japan was not a threat to the UK home countries or to the US mainland. Unlike Germany, it had no intention of invading us. It simply wanted dominion of the western pacific, and access to the raw materials of the far east.
It was a threat to the parts of the British Empire in that region, but did we go to war with Japan to protect Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and India? They all became independent soon after anyway.
They may have taken India and China, but due to the massive populations and different cultures they may not have been able to hold them for long, and they would have been bled dry trying to.
How would it have played out if the allies had just let Japan get on with it anywhere north of Australia and west of Hawaii?
But Japan was not a threat to the UK home countries or to the US mainland. Unlike Germany, it had no intention of invading us. It simply wanted dominion of the western pacific, and access to the raw materials of the far east.
It was a threat to the parts of the British Empire in that region, but did we go to war with Japan to protect Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and India? They all became independent soon after anyway.
They may have taken India and China, but due to the massive populations and different cultures they may not have been able to hold them for long, and they would have been bled dry trying to.
How would it have played out if the allies had just let Japan get on with it anywhere north of Australia and west of Hawaii?
Ayahuasca said:
No threat to the UK.
Apart from the billions we had invested there. That and the fact we were the government of several of those countries, and the armed services of some of them. That and the fact that those countries were part of our war effort against the Germans and had their men fighting for us, etc etc.Ayahuasca said:
It was a threat to the parts of the British Empire in that region, but did we go to war with Japan to protect Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and India? They all became independent soon after anyway.
They may have become independent soon after, but there were plenty of people who didn't want them to. At the time they were still a big part of the British Empire and as a global power we were not prepared to let them go that easily. The aftermath of WW2 probably helped speed up independence for a lot of these places as the war virtually bankrupted Britain and we had enough issues at home to concentrate on.For a long time the allies did sit back and let Japan get on with it, until the British Empire was attacked and then Pearl Harbour brought the US in. Even if Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbour there would have come a point where the US and Japan went to war. If the US had simply sat back Japan would have only grown in power as it took control of more resources and labour, and eventually would have become a threat to the US mainland. As it was the US did have fears early on that Japan might have attacked.
But a threat to our territories over seas - so no different to the Falklands really. The argument is the principals of international law have to be maintained. And they were 'one of us' after all.
They also attacked a country we were DESPERATE to come into the war against Germany on our side, and had spent 2 years (and the rest in the run up) trying to sweet talk into wading in properly. Hitler declared war on the USA principally in hope of that bringing Japan in to open up a second front in the USSR.
To be honest, it is my opinion, that there was no threat to the UK - as in the home islands - from Hitler. At no point (unless outside circumstances* came about) did he do anything especially suprising from a political point of view - Rhineland, Anschluss, moving east through Czechoslovakia and Poland, then the USSR - all there in Mein Kampf, by logical extension of policy (lebensraum and all that caper) if not explicit statement.
Just to expand on the point that there are considerations beyond the sanctity of your immediate borders and peoples, you could make a strong argument that if we hadn't declared war, Hitler could have left the UK alone. His ambitions were towards the East (though France were always in the cross-hairs post Versailles - Clemencau largely credited with the drive towards the harshest possible terms). Pre-war he even talked quite reverently of Britain (I know that's like winning 5th prize in the village beauty pageant - but it does demonstrate his general demeanour to Britain in the mid-late 30s)
Now, after Poland, I am of the opinion that (treaty obligations to one side) Britain and France still had no choice but to declare war. The threat to broader European stability had gotten too great, and the principals of national sovereignty had been butchered once too often (one could argue they were slow off the mark - or alternatively that they had no choice, but we can leave appeasement for another day).
But anyway - direct threat to the 'homeland' is only one of a plethora of considerations in going to war.
They also attacked a country we were DESPERATE to come into the war against Germany on our side, and had spent 2 years (and the rest in the run up) trying to sweet talk into wading in properly. Hitler declared war on the USA principally in hope of that bringing Japan in to open up a second front in the USSR.
To be honest, it is my opinion, that there was no threat to the UK - as in the home islands - from Hitler. At no point (unless outside circumstances* came about) did he do anything especially suprising from a political point of view - Rhineland, Anschluss, moving east through Czechoslovakia and Poland, then the USSR - all there in Mein Kampf, by logical extension of policy (lebensraum and all that caper) if not explicit statement.
Just to expand on the point that there are considerations beyond the sanctity of your immediate borders and peoples, you could make a strong argument that if we hadn't declared war, Hitler could have left the UK alone. His ambitions were towards the East (though France were always in the cross-hairs post Versailles - Clemencau largely credited with the drive towards the harshest possible terms). Pre-war he even talked quite reverently of Britain (I know that's like winning 5th prize in the village beauty pageant - but it does demonstrate his general demeanour to Britain in the mid-late 30s)
Now, after Poland, I am of the opinion that (treaty obligations to one side) Britain and France still had no choice but to declare war. The threat to broader European stability had gotten too great, and the principals of national sovereignty had been butchered once too often (one could argue they were slow off the mark - or alternatively that they had no choice, but we can leave appeasement for another day).
But anyway - direct threat to the 'homeland' is only one of a plethora of considerations in going to war.
Hitler's biggest error before 1941 was believing that the British would not go to War against Germany on the basis that we had more in common with them than the rest.
It was not a totally wild opinion to hold, but took no account of our British way of life appearing to be similar, but actually being very different and nuanced.
As such Hitlers Western ambitions would have been sated if we had gone neutral or joined him. He only wished to crush the French, and was quite happy for his mate Frankie to sort out the Spanish.
It was not a totally wild opinion to hold, but took no account of our British way of life appearing to be similar, but actually being very different and nuanced.
As such Hitlers Western ambitions would have been sated if we had gone neutral or joined him. He only wished to crush the French, and was quite happy for his mate Frankie to sort out the Spanish.
Ayahuasca said:
If we had pulled back our military resources from the Far East and deployed them against Hitler, would it have made any difference to the European war?
We hadn't ended up with all those territories by being nice and giving things to people, we had done the country equivalent of going out somewhere sunny, wearing a football top, chanting and then starting a fight. We were never going to back down pre-WW2.Both the old Colonial European powers and the US had a vested interest in reigning in Japan's colonial and imperial ambitions at the time, also there was resentment on both sides that had been brewing since the early 30's when the US economy especially was in no state to try to use it's trade and financial clout to hold back Japan's ambitions to regain Manchuria as a single complete nation state. All in all it's probably a good job too, obviously it's impossible to say what would have happened had Japan built a single Manchurian nation but what's certain is that the world would be a very different place now and there's a good chance both the USSR and Mao's China would have never had emerged but whilst it wasn't all beer and skittles things may have been a lot worse with Imperial Japan as a dominant world super power.
Ayahuasca said:
If we had pulled back our military resources from the Far East and deployed them against Hitler, would it have made any difference to the European war?
No great difference. They were called the forgotten army for a good reason. Under-strength, under-equiped and under-trained at the start of the war.DMN said:
Ayahuasca said:
If we had pulled back our military resources from the Far East and deployed them against Hitler, would it have made any difference to the European war?
No great difference. They were called the forgotten army for a good reason. Under-strength, under-equiped and under-trained at the start of the war.Ayahuasca said:
But Japan was not a threat to the UK home countries or to the US mainland. Unlike Germany, it had no intention of invading us. It simply wanted dominion of the western pacific, and access to the raw materials of the far east.
It was a threat to the parts of the British Empire in that region, but did we go to war with Japan to protect Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and India? They all became independent soon after anyway.
I'll leave it to The Iron Lady to answer that! It was a threat to the parts of the British Empire in that region, but did we go to war with Japan to protect Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and India? They all became independent soon after anyway.
https://youtu.be/pAqJTumYakE?t=2m9s
skyrover said:
My grandfather was captured by the Japanese in Java after the island was overrun and shipped back to nagasaki as slave labor.
Yes British interests were at stake... The Japanese declared war on us, not the other way around.
My father-in-law was aircrew, a gunner on Boulton and Paul Defiants. He belonged to a university air squadron. He landed at an airfield near Singapore in a transport aircraft and after a few days they were told to evacuate. They could not take everyone and my fil was one of those left behind. He doesn't think any of the crew that left survived the war. He was taken with a group of those that remained and put to work on a road. None of the squadron he went with survived the war except him. Yes British interests were at stake... The Japanese declared war on us, not the other way around.
When he was liberated he did not know his name, nor did he have any memories of his unit. He was emaciated and infested with open wounds that refused to heal.
He was put in a hospital and after some time - unknown amount - he realised who he was. He cadged a lift from an American flight, landed in the USA and was shipped to the UK where he turned up on his own doorstep unannounced. They thought him dead.
He had an interesting take on the events in the far east. He was of the opinion that the Japanese were going to attack Australia and perhaps colonise it for its mineral resources. It would also be able to block any ship or indeed aircraft from going from east to west and vice versa.
He was ambivalent towards the Japanese but hated Koreans, who were his guards. The connivance of Koreans in the torture of British PoWs was hidden after the war, according to him, in order to smooth cooperation.
We tended to look to our interests in the far east; the main one being India. Other than that, it was really just trade. We gave the French back Indo-China, one of the things de Gaulle never forgave us for, and didn't that go well.
Did Japan want to invade India? Historians vary on this, as they would of course, but had the Japanese been able to consolidate their hold on the lands they invaded, including vast tracks of China, then I think they would have controlled India in some way or other.
In the end we fought for a country we must have known we'd cede to the inhabitants in any case. The Indian manpower contribution to the war was considerable. My father was friends with an ex Chindit and the bloke gave me Wingate's book when I was a kid. Well worth a read, as is any history of the unit, although avoid historians sqabbling over its effectiveness.
Would we have gone to India's aid if we hadn't declared war on Japan through the war with Germany? Interesting question.
Smollet said:
Ayahuasca said:
No threat to the UK.
They were a threat to our interests or should we just have rolled over and let them have them?If you don't stop these people they will be at your doorstep one day.
Had they been left unhindered would their territorial ambitions not have turned south to Australia?
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