OT: Alternate History, US Attacks Japan First

[S.R. Krol]

It seems most alternative history focuses on what would happen if the "bad" guys had better luck, as opposed to possible deviations in the timeline by "good" guys. Finding works on if the Third Reich was victorious is easy, finding ones on if FDR had lived is hard.

Except for a rather silly bit in the film CSA, I can't say I've ever seen anything on the idea of the United States taking the fight to the Japanese, instead of how it actually played out. While the scenario is pretty implausible I think the best chance of it occurring would have been if say, when the USN had ships in the Atlantic to protect convoys while neutral and the Germans mistakenly sink one or two. The US declares war on Germany in mid 1941, and by default also declares it on Imperial Japan.

So how would it play out? The Americans would have the advantage of not having to slug it out one island at a time across the Pacific. They would still have the Phillipines, and the British would have their Southeast Asia territories.

To their disadvantage would be inferior weapon platforms and an inexperienced group of officers and sailors. The USN of 1941 is a far cry from the USN of 1944. The Japanese though would be at their peak.

Would such a scenario see the US thrown from their possessions, with Japan expanding, and then the US needing to reconquer? Basically how it actually played out, except for the beginning. Or would the US be able to quickly strangle Japan, cut off their forces in China, and then move onto the mainland? Would the American people in 1941 support such an invasion?

Thoughts?

[Staggerwing]

Interesting idea. One also wonder how things would have played
out in the Dutch East Indies. I suspect that Japan would have
placed even greater emphasis on securing the 'Southern Resource Area'
before it would be forced into a shooting war with the USA.
It is worth contemplating that an invasion of Northern Australia
would have been even more likely also. IIRC a big part of the
Japanese long term strategy was to grab as much territory as it could and
then engage the USN in a series of naval battles
that favored the IJN so as to demoralize the USA into settling for an armistice
that would see Japan keeping most (if not all) of what
it had taken control of. Faced with a USN that was mobilizing before
the IJN was ready there might have been a greater attempt at land grab
while there was still time.