Operation Barbarossa - the UK is neutral and Japan attacks Siberia

A big objection to this story :
Japanese oil imports were some 5 million tons in 1940,of which 4 million from the US and 0.6 million from the DEI.

DEI and Borneo produced some 9 million tons.

There are 2 objections to the assumption ":if the US stopped the oil deliveries,these 4 million tons could be replaced by DEI"

1)DEI would have to stop the export of 4 million tons to other clients (or DEI would be obliged to produce 4 million more)

2)Who would transport these 4 million ton to Japan ?
Not Japan:its tanker capacity was some 550000 GRT

Not the US :an oil embargo would also mean that the US merchant fleet could not transport "non American oil" to Japan .

 

The Japanese would supply their armies off of a double track trunk line extension from their Manchurian rail line (see maps linked earlier) that connects to the Trans-Siberian rail line. If the Japanese seize the Soviet Far East and Siberia and there is no oil embargo, then there is no need for conquering China anymore (as stated by the Japanese advocates for the Northern Strategy).

 

But by 1941 the Us % of oil supplied to Japan had dropped to 60%
This was essentially the plan that Japan proposed in 1941 to avoid war, they obviously thought that it was workable.

There was also excess production capacity in the Persian Gulf, that was unused in WWII due to shortage of shipping.
This could be utilized to make up for DEI oil if needed, and the extra demand (due to the loss of US oil) will have the benefit of driving up prices

With a 6 or 7 week turnaround (and some new tanker construction) they should be able to get enough oil per year, as the Navy's need will be much lower without operations against Western Powers

 

The annualized capacity of those tankers running from DEI to Japan is 50,000,000 roughly, although the 550,000 GRT figure includes a dozen or more whaling ships that weren't likely to be used. The Japanese imported 34 million tons of oil in 1940, I'm not so sure that DEI could replace that by itself. The DEI's oil production was a joint Dutch-US (Shell company) also, so I'm guessing the US gets involved over this.

 

Your numbers are way off, Japan didn't even come close to 34 million tons imported in 1940. Did you perhaps mean 34 million barrels?
The US Shell is a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell I believe.

 

As far as China, the Chinese were not going to stop fighting and the Japanese were not going to lose face by stopping their attempts to force a peace. The Japanese were in a no win situation, they didn't have the manpower to pacify the country and no matter how much territory they conquered there was still more.
By the way Kulgan the British would not accept a negotiated peace with out Poland and the Czechs being given their freedom. Of course Poland is the problem, after the seizure of the other half of Czechoslovakia there was no way the British government would ever trust the Germans again.

 

US exported in 1940 38.341000 barrels ,which is something as 5.5 million ton ,Japan imported 5.1 million ton:4 million from the US,0.6 million from the DEI.

 

I don't think Kulgan has been active on this thread for some time. And why are you convinced that the UK wouldn't accept a negotiated peace? (if Churchill was no longer PM)
If there had been far fewer British troops evacuated at Dunkirk for example, a new British government might have been willing to do a deal with Hitler to recover Western Europe, feeling that they had little other choice.

It's a hypothetical of course, and we can debate how likely it would be, but was the basis for the "What If" scenario.

 

Barrels, my bad...

Thanks!

 

Do you have the numbers from 1941?

 

I have the imports(from the US) in $
1940:crude:15,875 million refined:35,303 million total:51,178 million

1941:crude:6,939 million refined 21,113 million total :28,052 million

In the 11 months of 1941,the value of the Japanese oil imports was 59.8 % of those in 1940


If we assume that the oil price was the same in 1940 and in 1941,we could conclude that the Japanese imports of oil from the US, were in 1941 59.8 % of those in 1940.

59.8 % of 38.34 million = 22.93 barrels

In 1939,the oil imports from the US were 27.2 million barrels


Other point : the consumption,which was considerable lower than the import,the difference being the stocks

In 1940 the total consumption was :25.92 million barrels


Aviation gasoil: military : 1.2 million barrels,civilians : 80000

motor gasoil: military : 1.5 civilians: 6.3

diesel: military 0.94 million civilians: 9.2 million

fuel: :military: 5.3 million civilians : 1.4 million

Total military : 8.94 million barrels

Total civilians; 16.98 million barrels

I also have found consumption figures for 1942 and later,but,they are not very reliable

 

Had it? According to:
http://books.google.com/books?id=9iHfPEcCR6AC&pg=PA106&lpg=PA106&dq=1940+japan+oil+imports+monthly&source=bl&ots=-WonYIkDWx&sig=X-RoOCHvI63HTjgq7qZR7M1ZFWA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fxZjUfDuLIn29gTVhoGYAQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=1940%20japan%20oil%20imports%20monthly&f=false
The US was supplying 90% of Japan's oil imports in 1939 and over the period from 1937 to 1940 only 12% of Japan's oil imports came from the East Indies. Furthermore the Dutch actually cut their exports to Japan in 1940. Now I can see it dropping to 60% in 1941 as the embargo went into effect. Indeed if you look at:
http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/O/i/Oil.htm
It shows that as far as crude oil goes Japan imported about 60% of what it recieved in 1941 but of course used a lot more than it recieved. NOte that:
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB905.pdf
on page 8 satest:

and on page 15

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA425684 makes a similara statement about 80%.

 

In 1939 the Japanese attacked Russia in app undeclared war. They attacked several years after gaining their foothold in Manchuria which occurred in 1931. This forgotten war resulted in at least 30,000-50,000 deaths. It was a disaster for the Japanese who not long after signed a treaty with Russia ending hostilities at the time. If Japan decided to invade Russia again, I think it might end up resulting in a similar outcome as in 1939. They would probably have little effect on the main German invasion. Regarding the British being neutral it would have been a possible option considering the state they were in with the German Luftwaffe continuing to pummel the British from the air as well as what happened the previous year.

 

In discussing Japanese intentions I think many posters on this thread have overlooked the context in which Japanese decision making occured. Both the Navy and the army reported directly to the emperor. The emperor however was somewhat aloof in the policy making process. Moreover, according to Eri Hotta in "Japan 1941" much of the decision making in terms of military action occurred through "Gekokujō" or leading from below. Junior level military officers would undertake actions, such as instigating the Nonomhan incident or the Marco Polo incident. The junior officers were often driven by nationalism, the desire for riches or "hot headedness." If things went well initially, as in the Marco Polo incident senior commanders and the Japanese government might follow along and adopt the policy. If things did not go well as in the case at Nomonhan the junior officers would be reigned in. From what I have read Japan's strategic aims were a position of pre-eminence in China, economic autarky and the elimination or at least blunting the communist threat emanating from the Soviet Union.

The decision to turn southward as opposed to northward seems to have been driven, in part, by the Navy wanting to play a bigger role in the war and fearing they would continue to be overshadowed by the army if the Northern option were taken and senior officers in the Japanese military approving attacking the US for fear of appearing cowardly and "losing face". At least this is the argument Hotta makes in "Japan 1941."

Given this context, a Japanese invasion of Siberia is easy to envision. Officers in the Kwantung army stage an "incident." With the Soviets focused on stopping Barbarossa and perhaps the Japanese learning a few lessons from their earlier defeats at the hands of the Soviets, perhaps the initial battles are more favorable for the Japanese. Since the army was lukewarm on the Southern approach anyway, the incident could have metasized into a full scale war against the Soviets much the way the Marco Polo incident did in China.

It is true Japan would still need oil. But the need for oli is due in large part to the US embargo. The US embargo is driven in large part by Japan's war against China. Japan was already in control of some of the most desirable parts of China. Japan could have perhaps withdrew to the coasts and negotiated a truce with the Nationalists. Maybe the US would have eased the embargo a bit.

Finally, taking on the Soviets while their backs were against the wall seems more logical than taking on the world's greatest industrial power (the US). THere is no way Japan could defeat the US, which the Japanese themselves knew. They just hoped the US wouldn't think it worth the bother to defeat Japan. It's possible that a full scale Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 could have tipped the scales.

So the premise of the alternative scenario, Japan invading the USSR, is not as far fetched as some of the earlier posters have claimed.

 

The Japanese were aware that they didn't have enough oil for a long war. The US started the embargo process with an embargo on av gas. Indeed the May of 39 announcement that the US was going to withdraw from the trade treaty meant that such sanctions would be "legal" 6 months after that date. From that point on a US oil embargo was a threat and one Japan had to take seriously. It wasn't just an oil embargo by the way metals were also a serious issue. Furthermore the "moral embargo" predated this and also pointed to what future US actions were likely to be. The avgas and strategic metal embargo was initiated in 1940 by the way so before an attack on the USSR would have been by any means locked into place. From:
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/WorldWar2/japan.htm

This is hardly something Japan could ignore and if the US cut off all oil as it did historically the only option in the area was the Dutch possessions in the SW Pacfic and ignoreing the US was hardly an option.

 

So the scenario would be that the Japanese give up their war in China, which for whatever reason they were committed to historically, negotiate a settlement with the United States that removes the embargos, and then these same hot-headed army officers who were made to back down over China are allowed to drag the nation into a war with the USSR.

And the Roosevelt administration, which had been committed to stopping Japanese aggression in China and Southeast Asia, would accept Japanese aggression against Russia.

A Japanese strike at Russia was a strike at the one thing FDR cared more about than stopping Japanese aggression - stopping Hitler's aggression, for which Russia was vital. I see the embargo going right back on. Japan is right back where they were historically - needed to secure oil and other vital resources while fighting a major land war on the Asian continent.

 

Well if they give up their war in China soon enough there won't even be an embargo. Although once they attack the Soviets that could change as you suggest.

On one side of the coin there wasn't a whole lot of support for the USSR aside from a certain element in the US. On the other hand once they joined the Nazis in attacking the Soviets a lot of support of the latter would likely surface. Give the US 6 months more peace and the Japanese are in for a world of hurt when the US does enter the war and in the mean time the US can be even more open handed with lend lease.

 

I didn't speculate on how the US might react to a Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union. Quite possibly the embargo would have ensued after such an invasion. Many people in the upper echelons of the Japanese military and government did want to bring the China war to a close. As I stated previously, invasion and conquest of China was not a strategic aim of Japan. They did want China to be a sphere of influence. But Japan did not have grandiose plans for "living space" in China or enslaving millions of Chinese akin to Hitler's plans for the Soviet Union. Remember, the war was started after and an incident instigated by mid-level Japanese officers mestatisized into a full blown war. Japan mostly wanted the opportunity to develop China's resources, preferential trading rights and special treatment for Japanese nationals in China. It is not unfathomable that they might have tried to put this quest aside temporarily to deal with the Soviet Union. Thus, Japan withdrawing from the war with China or negotiating a temporary peace is not that far fetched, at least not to me.

 

Well since neither side officially declared war on the other it could have been conducted in a way that would potentially "save face". The US might have even been willing to sweeten the pot to some extent depending on when the resolution occured. One problem for the Japanese though is would China stay out of the battle once they attacked the Soviets? Could Japan really aford to fight both at the same time? Especially if the US is likely to enter at some point.

 

Oil was big problem for the Japanese. But in many ways the Japanese decision making defined common sense. One of the big reasons Japan needed oil was for a long war. The main reason they did not have access to oil was because they were engaged in a long war. So to solve the problem what do they do, start another long and ultimately unwinnable war.

I want to emphasize that the Japanese policymaking apparatus was not what some posters seem think was the case. The invasion of Manchuria, the Marco Polo incident that started the war with China, Nomomhan and even the initial idea to attack the US (In "Japan 1941" the author argues mid-level officers developed the idea to attack the US, Yamamoto developed the operational Plan) were a result of Gekokujo or mid-level officers taking initiatives that were not coming from above. In this case of Manchuria and the Marco Polo bridge the initial skirmishes went favorably and the Japanese government went along and adopted the policy. In the case of Nomonhan things did not go well and the junior officers were reigned in. In the case of attacking the US, it appears no one wanted to appear cowardly or to lack belief in Japanese invincibility and thus a full scale plan for attacking Pearl Harbor was developed.

Given the way Japan found itself at war with China, the US and the incident with the SOviet Union, the scenario I am describing seems plausible.
Mollifying the US by withdrawing from China, while still maintaing a strong economic position there which was there ultimate aim, trading with the West to get the oil they needed, and attempting to knock out the Soviet Union quickly while the Germans were knocking at the gates of Moscow sounds at least as plausible as what the Japanese ultimately did.