Germany, Soviets, and Japan vs. western powers?

[Paul Spring]

How plausible would it be to have an alternate World War II with Germany, the Soviet Union, and Japan united against the western powers? Suppose that instead of Hitler, an ultranationalist gains power in Germany whose main concern is revenge against Britain and France, rather than expanding eastward. This leader continues Germany's (relatively) friendly relations with the Soviet Union, and ends up making an agreement similar to the Nazi-Soviet pact of OTL, except that he doesn't intend to actually invade the Soviet Union. The German-Soviet alliance also agrees to support Japan's claims in China and let them seize France and Britain's and the Netherlands' east Asian colonies.

If France gets knocked out of the war relatively quickly as in OTL, I do not believe that the British Empire could have successfully fought all 3 powers at once. Even with the USA joining the war, it would be an uphill battle for the democratic powers.

What do people think - does this scenario sound plausible?

 

[sciscisciortino]

Maybe for a few years, but it ain't gonna last, because the Nazis are still Nazis. Barring that, yeah, in theory it's kind of an unstoppable juggernaut.

 

[Zheng He]

I can buy the no Hitler so maybe things can work between the Germans and the Soviets but I have a harder time buying the Japan angle. I see bad blood between the Japanese and Russians and Japan still having a hungry eye on the Soviet Far East.

What about Germany and the Soviet Union are friendly in Europe and fully support Chiang against the Japanese (not a big departure, Stalin did send help to the Nationalists) so now you have a Germany, Soviet Union, and China thing going on - talk about dominance of Mackinder's Heartland.

Japan is now in a very difficult position facing the Soviet Union and the Chinese in East Asia. Imperial Japan is almost forced to figure out how to make nice with the US, UK, and the Dutch.

Another wild card is where does the anti-communist Mussolini fall into this? Does Italy now swing in the other direction. Maybe not a game changer but it sure makes the Med a secure place for the British.

Is the ultimate result a confrontation between the Heartland powers of Germany, the Soviet Union, China against the peripheral powers of the US, Japan, the UK, France, and Italy?

 

[Paul Spring]

I can buy the no Hitler so maybe things can work between the Germans and the Soviets but I have a harder time buying the Japan angle. I see bad blood between the Japanese and Russians and Japan still having a hungry eye on the Soviet Far East.

What about Germany and the Soviet Union are friendly in Europe and fully support Chiang against the Japanese (not a big departure, Stalin did send help to the Nationalists) so now you have a Germany, Soviet Union, and China thing going on - talk about dominance of Mackinder's Heartland.

Japan is now in a very difficult position facing the Soviet Union and the Chinese in East Asia. Imperial Japan is almost forced to figure out how to make nice with the US, UK, and the Dutch.

Another wild card is where does the anti-communist Mussolini fall into this? Does Italy now swing in the other direction. Maybe not a game changer but it sure makes the Med a secure place for the British.

Is the ultimate result a confrontation between the Heartland powers of Germany, the Soviet Union, China against the peripheral powers of the US, Japan, the UK, France, and Italy?

I was thinking more of the idea "what if all of the major dictatorships (except maybe Nationalist China) were on the same side, and the democracies on the other?", but your idea is interesting as well - sort of having all of the great naval powers against all of the great land powers.

You're right that getting the Soviets and Japanese to ally might be particularly difficult in this scenario - I was thinking about a deal where they essentially partitioned China, which would then be almost cut off from outside aid, but that might not work.

Italy is an interesting question - I can easily see it being allied with Britain and France (and possibly later the USA) against the German-Soviet-possibly Japanese alliance.

 

[BBadolato]

You could have Churchill's attack on the USSR somehow happen, unless he wasn't the one calling for it? If this unholy alliance is created, the tricky question is getting Japan involved, I don't Chang Kai Shek would be keen on joining the allies.

 

[Zheng He]

I have been thinking about this more and consider this.

Start earlier - late 1920s to early 1930s Germany and the Soviet Union are moving forward with what is clearly a very positive strategic relationship. That sets alarm bells ringing throughout Europe and the Far East:

1. The French are flipping out because their main enemy is no longer threatened by a two front war.

2. The Japanese are flipping out because now Moscow can oppose them in China and threaten their northern islands and reclaim Port Arthur.

3. The British are flipping out because they feel threatened by both Germany and the Soviet Union (in India and the Middle East).

I think very quickly you will see a London-Paris-Tokyo Pact to balance the Berlin-Moscow Pact.

Now where do the lesser powers align? I see Italy, the Netherlands, and even Turkey siding with London-Paris-Tokyo. Spain is a wildcard and the various European parties are going to have figure out which side they support - this could be interesting.

The USA is another wild card. There is a strong China lobby in the US, the US military (particularly the USN) has been thinking about Japan as its primary enemy for sometime and how do the navalists in the US feel about an alliance between the UK and Japan? Remember, there was a small minority in the UK in the 1920s that viewed Japan as a natural ally and the US as the future maritime threat to the UK's naval dominance and there were plenty of Anglophobes in the US Navy (Ernie King anyone).

Who to support will be a bloody debate in America. Obviously a strong faction will want to remain neutral and look after US interests in the Western Hemisphere. An odd faction (remember, politics makes for strange bedfellows) composed of navalists, communists, and the China Lobby may favor siding with Berlin and Moscow while another faction, we'll call it the Roosevelt Faction because it is composed of TR Republicans and FDR Democrats will want to side with London-Paris-Tokyo.

 

[BBadolato]

I don't think the soviets would be in any position to challenge Japan in the 20's after going through a World War Civil War collectivization's and state terror, I also think the soviets wouldn't really have their sights set in the east at least as far as taking Japanese territory goes, they would be wary though.

 

[Genmotty]

How plausible would it be to have an alternate World War II with Germany, the Soviet Union, and Japan united against the western powers?

...

What do people think - does this scenario sound plausible?

Almsot totally ASB.

Firstly Russia and Japan have bad blood going back to before the first world war. There is practically no way that you are ever going to get the Japanese and Russians on the same side in all early 20thC timelines.

Second you would have to drastically change Hitlers mindset and/or rhetoric to prevent the Nazis from declaring war on the Soviet Union.

Thirdly, you've got to change Stalins mind from being a paranoid isolationist, to actually siding with an ideology that is anathama and declared enemy of all Soviets. While we can say that in our timeline Stalin was convinced enough for the Nazi-Soviet friendship agreements, this was well short of allience. This was a sphere of influence agreement for the most part.



That said, it is not beyond the realms of possibility for this state of affairs to have continued in a senario where Hitler decides to finish off Britain...But that's another timeline entirely.

 

[Paul Spring]

To be clearer, the actual POD that I'm suggesting is that there is no Hitler or Nazi party, and that the Nazis' place is taken by a different right-wing nationalist movement that is officially anti-Communist but whose leader is not interested in going to war with the Soviet Union, but rather in defeating France and Britain (and ultimately perhaps the USA).

 

[Paul Spring]

I have been thinking about this more and consider this.

...


The USA is another wild card. There is a strong China lobby in the US, the US military (particularly the USN) has been thinking about Japan as its primary enemy for sometime and how do the navalists in the US feel about an alliance between the UK and Japan? Remember, there was a small minority in the UK in the 1920s that viewed Japan as a natural ally and the US as the future maritime threat to the UK's naval dominance and there were plenty of Anglophobes in the US Navy (Ernie King anyone).

Who to support will be a bloody debate in America. Obviously a strong faction will want to remain neutral and look after US interests in the Western Hemisphere. An odd faction (remember, politics makes for strange bedfellows) composed of navalists, communists, and the China Lobby may favor siding with Berlin and Moscow while another faction, we'll call it the Roosevelt Faction because it is composed of TR Republicans and FDR Democrats will want to side with London-Paris-Tokyo.

This would be a very interesting scenario - different from what I was originally thinking, but very interesting nonetheless.

 

[Dorozhand]

Jeez, just when ideas start to spitball around and things get interesting, somebody marches in with the ASB Hammer and smashes the discussion.

 

[Superman]

Maybe, if the Western Allies declare war on the Soviet Union after both the USSR and Germany invade Poland, that might be enough to force the USSR and Germany to ally.

 

[Falecius]

An easier way would be a Communist Germany (say a scenario where the Nazi are not there/are irrelevant and the Communists manage to take over after the political crises of Weimar Republic in the early thirties, though I believe an earlier POD may be required).
It would be damn hard to get Japan on board with this, though, China would be the obvious East Asian partner.

 

[Paul Spring]

Jeez, just when ideas start to spitball around and things get interesting, somebody marches in with the ASB Hammer and smashes the discussion.

Which post do you consider ASB?

 

[Dorozhand]

Which post do you consider ASB?

I was talking about how somebody always comes onto a developing thread and says "Absolute, complete, sea lion, super-ultra Twilight Zone ASB ASB ASB!". After this the discussion will often become a tit-for-tat "Fuck no!-Hell Yeah!-Fuck No! etc.". It starts to get on my nerves sometimes. This thread isn't the best example, but one of the above posts reminded me.

 

[BeardedHoplite]

Jeez, just when ideas start to spitball around and things get interesting, somebody marches in with the ASB Hammer and smashes the discussion.

Alternate History forum in a nutshell.

Back to topic, I could definitely see a right wing, but not eastern looking Germany and Bolshevik Russia coming together against the West, especially if France gets more of what she wants at Versailles, and if the West campaigns harder during the civil war. Japan is a stretch, though, especially if she goes along with a harder campaigning west to strangle the bolos in the crib

 

[eliphas8]

Honestly it could work in a totally different scenario (all three powers going Communist for various reasons, I hesitate to say all of them going fascist would work given the German Nationalist distaste for Slavs) but as is it really doesn't. The soviets have far more to gain fighting against the Germans than with them and if they stay neutral in the beginning only to stab the Germans in the back later then they have all the power to do so.

 

[Somua2]

Glad someone said it.

I was talking about how somebody always comes onto a developing thread and says "Absolute, complete, sea lion, super-ultra Twilight Zone ASB ASB ASB!". After this the discussion will often become a tit-for-tat "Fuck no!-Hell Yeah!-Fuck No! etc.". It starts to get on my nerves sometimes. This thread isn't the best example, but one of the above posts reminded me.

Amen. A counterproductive and ironic reflex in an alternate history site.

 

[ryackov]

I have been thinking about this more and consider this.

Start earlier - late 1920s to early 1930s Germany and the Soviet Union are moving forward with what is clearly a very positive strategic relationship. That sets alarm bells ringing throughout Europe and the Far East:

The German army trained in the Soviet Union during the thirties.


Interestingly, I don't see Italy mentioned in the title.

I guess Italy opposes the annexation of Austria as well?


The US had a plan for a thirteen million man military in case Britain and the Soviet Union fell.
The US might be able to win, but at horrendous cost.

 

[Craig_Truglia]

If a left wing nationalist government took over Germany during the 1930s, it is possible. Just because Japan and Russia have bad blood, that doesn't mean they will necessarily attack each other, because they didn't. The USSR attacked Japan as part of an agreement with the United States. Until Japan is being defeated by someone (likely the United States), Japan and the USSR may not be allies, but they will not necessarily be at each other's necks.

So, some additional P.O.D. would be necessary, such as an early Japanese-Russian alliance to partition Manchuria, in order to bring Japan into this alliance.

But, assuming Japan is indifferent to the USSR, A German-USSR alliance is an obvious threat to Italy, the Baltic States and the Balkans. Probably Turkey too. I can see almost all of the Balkan and Baltic states, Finland, Poland, Italy, France and the UK joining together.

I don't think in such a war, France would be knocked out of the war so quickly. If people had foreknowledge for years that the Soviet Union AND Germany were going to be working together, especially if Germany became taken over by Communists, the western allies probably would have reacted more aggressively after a Polish partition. AFter all, the domino theory of communism spreading throughout Europe would have elicited such a fear.


Now, if the intent of the original post was to have a "Germany takes over the world" wank, then the Alliance with the Soviet Union would have to be subdued, i.e. something like the Molotov-Ribbentrop deal. In this way the Allies would react the same as OTL, which would result in Russian acquiring Eastern Europe and Germany conquering Norway and France. It is possible that Italy would have joined the war on Germany's side without such an explicit alliance.

So, now does this alliance get "hot and heavy" after France falls? UK on their own? Japan then still likely attacks Pearl Harbor, as US policy to cut off imports probably wasn't affected by a Germany invasion of Russia. So, now Japan enters the war, Russia doesn't touch Japan, and Japan is a de facto ally of the Russo-German-Italian Axis as all three powers would be mutually carving up parts of the British Empire.

The question is, would the US even want to join a war in Europe against such insurmountable odds? My guess is "NO" and the US would wait to play one side against the other when eventually Germany or Russia infringe on each other's territory. Again, no alliance lasts forever. Before this point, UK would have lost the middle east and North Africa. The fight in Japan will be quicker, as the US will dedicate all their resources to Japan's defeat. WHen the US gets the bomb, an arms race will begin. Germany and the USSR will get bombs before the UK does. There will essentially be a long cold war after this point.

The US had a plan for a thirteen million man military in case Britain and the Soviet Union fell.
The US might be able to win, but at horrendous cost.

It remains to be seen if the American people can stomach a war where millions die in modern history. I would have to guess no, because unlike the Civil War, the enemy didn't live a few miles away.