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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (6938)	10/23/2001 2:31:17 AM
From: Snowshoe	Respond to of 281500

>>scenarios that he failed to incorporate into his analysis<< Your points are quite valid. If we had lost the carriers, a lot of other things would have had to gp right for the allies to win.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (6938)	10/23/2001 3:40:44 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon; It was not Japan's original intention to try to invade Australia. That would have been stretching themselves too thin. They could imagine raiding Australia, but they didn't include it in their original plans as a place to conquer. They knew that they were weak and that they could not win a total war; what they were hoping for all along was a negotiated settlement legalizing the status quo. Here's a US Army reference: WORLD WAR II: THE WAR AGAINST JAPAN Robert Coakley, American Military History, US Army web site ... Japan's Strategy Japan entered World War II with limited aims and with the intention of fighting a limited war. Its principal objectives were to secure the resources of Southeast Asia and much of China and to establish a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" under Japanese hegemony. In 1895 and in 1905 Japan had gained important objectives without completely defeating China or Russia and in 1941 Japan sought to achieve its hegemony over East Asia in similar fashion. The operational strategy the Japanese adopted to start war, however, doomed their hopes of limiting the conflict. Japan believed it necessary to destroy or neutralize American striking power in the Pacific—the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and the U.S. Far East Air Force in the Philippines—before moving southward and eastward to occupy Malaya, the Netherlands Indies, the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, the Gilbert Islands, Thailand, and Burma. Once in control of these areas, the Japanese intended to establish a defensive perimeter stretching from the Kurile Islands south through Wake, the Marianas, the Carolines, and the Marshalls and Gilberts to Rabaul on New Britain. From Rabaul the perimeter would extend westward to northwestern New Guinea and would encompass the Indies, Malaya, Thailand, and Burma.[Note: Australia was not included.] Japan thought that the Allies would wear themselves out in fruitless frontal assaults against the perimeter and would ultimately settle for a negotiated peace that would leave it in possession of most of its conquests. The Japanese were remarkably successful in the execution of their offensive plan and by early 1942 had reached their intended perimeter. *But they miscalculated the effect of their surprise attack at Pearl Harbor which unified a divided people and aroused the United States to wage a total, not a limited, war.* As a result Japan lost, in the long run, any chance of conducting the war on its own terms. The Allies, responding to their defeats, sought no negotiated peace, but immediately began to seek means to strike back. ... Perceiving their danger, the Japanese in a second phase offensive tried to sever the Allied lines of communications to Australia and to expand their perimeter in the Pacific. In the spring of 1942 they pushed southeast from Rabaul to Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomons, and seized Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians. But they failed in their main effort to take Midway Island, northwest of Hawaii, and in the naval battles of the Coral Sea and Midway in May and June they lost the bulk of their best naval pilots and planes. Midway was the turning point, for it redressed the naval balance in the Pacific and gave the Allies the strategic initiative. The Japanese, with the mobility of their carrier striking forces curtailed, abandoned plans to cut the Allied South Pacific life line and turned instead to strengthening their defensive perimeter, *planning to wage a protracted war of attrition in the hope of securing a negotiated peace.* ... army.mil -- Carl

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (6938)	10/23/2001 3:42:50 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon; Here's another interesting military reference to the island hopping campaign. Again, note the passivity of the Japanese plans. They were not looking for big chunks of territory to have to fight hopeless guerilla warfare in (like Australia or worse, India), they were already over extended in China. What they wanted was a quick win, a good defense, and then a negotiated settlement. More Than Technology Major Judson Cook, Fort Leonard Wood, U.S. Army website ... As the war in the Pacific developed, the United States equipped itself with modern aircraft carriers, bombers, submarines, and destroyers to pursue *a strategy designed to cut off the Japanese from critical resources, devastate the Japanese economy's ability to produce war machines, and demoralize the Japanese population, thereby causing their government to collapse. In 1941, Japan had more naval power available than the United States-they had 63 submarines and 10 carriers, while the U.S. had 56 submarines and two carriers. By 1942, Japan increased its carrier fleet to 11 (with 550 aircraft)3, but by 1943 the U.S. increased its naval presence to 600 warships with 1,941 carrier-based aircraft.4 Although both nations developed technologically advanced fleets, a great naval battle between the opposing fleets did not decide the outcome of the war. ... Because the Pacific is so vast, both countries found it necessary to gain operating and logistical support bases for their great fleets on various islands. ... Because of the distance of these island outposts from Japan (and later due to successful U.S. submarine attacks against Japan's merchant marine), the Japanese land forces were cut off and lacked resources.* ... wood.army.mil -- Carl