Panoply of Panay Possibilities

[raharris1973]

This thread is designed to consider a range of alternate outcomes for OTL’s Panay Incident of December 1937, when Japanese aircraft attack and sunk a US patrol boat, the USS Panay on the Yangtze River. In OTL, a partial film of the attack was shown. Some film showing more detail of the attack was censored. The incident was ultimately settled by Japan issuing an apology and paying compensation to the United States, but not diverting from its aggressive China policy and the US not straying from its policy of merely morally criticizing Japan’s war against China and refusing to recognize Japan’s conquests.

The incident has been used as a PoD for what-ifs several times, usually as a way to bring about an earlier US-Japanese war, often as something more like a 1 on 1 feud.

That is one direction the incident and its aftermath might have played out differently, but not the only alternate path. Perhaps even more likely would have been a very risk-averse US public demanding greater retrenchment from China, or the Far East, to avoid an unwanted war, as contemporary comments by progressive Texas congressman Maury Maverick at the time indicated.

The incident truly offers a range of alternatives, a “panoply of possibilities” from war to retreat, and I’ll explore each in turn.

To increase the public impact and salience of the incident, I will say the PoD is that at a minimum, the unreleased film footage of the attack is not censored, or makes it past censors and ends up widely shown in newsreels.

This was used in the AH.com timeline "Thirty Extra Feet".
Thirty Extra Feet: The History of the Pacific War, 1938-1944

A variation on the Panay PoD, but with more altered diplomatic backstory, is discussed right here: WI: USA goes to war with Japan in 1937? | Sea Lion Press | Forum

A potential further twist, and for this idea I have to credit Dale Cozort, is that perhaps during the incident itself, a lucky shot from a shipboard gun hits and downs one of the attacking Japanese aircraft, and this is captured on film, or rumored to be. That makes the film footage so tantalizing to media that it becomes impossible to censor.

It was discussed in his Alternate History Newsletter nearly 25 years ago: http://www.dalecozort.com/AHNewsletter/Nov99/Panay.htm

What might have happened:

The crew of the Panay attempted to fight back in our time-line. They didn't have much to work with because the first Japanese bombing run took out their main armament (along with their radio). On the other hand, small arms fire does occasionally take down low-flying planes. When it does, the shot that does the damage is called a “golden BB”. Let's say the crew of the Panay do shoot down one of the Japanese planes. It spirals in and crashes on camera.

Nothing much else changes until the Roosevelt administration tries to talk the camera crew into withholding the most damning footage. That doesn't work in this time-line. First, everyone has heard that a Japanese plane was shot down, and they want to see that. If that footage isn't shown, its absence will be obvious. Also, that footage makes the reels incredibly valuable. They get shown in their entirety.

The Panay incident now resonates in the American psyche.

Let’s say this twist is added in, now let’s consider the alternative American reactions in turn, from most intensive to least intensive:

I. Pugilistic Path to Primacy

War

Both powers, Japan and the US, have weaker fleets and battle lines as 1937 ends and 1938 dawns than they did in the OTL winter of 1941-1942. They are especially weaker in carriers and carrier aviation.

A US declaring war would need to accept that victory would and could come only in the long haul, and the short-term will see tactical losses.

The Japanese should be able to invade and occupy the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island in the first 6-8 months of fighting. The US would become a cobelligerent of China, offering it credits and weapons, and the US would start industrial mobilization and enlargement of the fleet.

The US Marines in China should retreat upriver to Free Chinese areas.

The US would fight according to war plan Orange, sticking to light raids on the Japanese held western Pacific while building up the fleet, and fleet train, for a trans-Pacific push to recover the Philippines, smash the Japanese fleet, and blockade Japan into surrender.

The Japanese would try to draw out the Americans into early decisive battle on favorable terms, attriting them on their way to the interior of the Japanese held Pacific.


II. Pugnacious Posturing Promoting Political Propositions

Naval demonstrations and diplomatic demands and ultimatums

The next rung down the latter would be the US making naval shows of force and demanding Japanese restraint in China or parts of China, but this one should in most cases be considered in tandem with the war option because any war declared by the US would probably be proceeded by at least a short stage where the US is doing this kind of activity.

There is a slim chance, that an isolated Japan backs down in the face of these demands, though not without bitterness and internal strife, including probable assassination of whatever civilian government leader needs to order the backing down in China. This Japan would also be bitter and keeping its eyes open looking for any more favorable opportunity to emerge to resume its war in China or expansion in the Asian-Pacific in general. For example, biding its time a couple years until for example Germany and Italy make a big commotion in Europe distracting the great powers and making appear Japan may have realistic odds of locking in an early victory.

III. Purposeful Proxy Prop-Up

Aid to China

Here, the US would not be seeking to go to war or to significantly increase its chances of getting into one, but it would seek to “stand up” in a material way to Japanese aggression to counter its affects, by aiding the principal victim of Japanese aggression, China, with credits and arms. The motivations whs ould be moral, and practical (to keep the Japanese unsuccessful and busy)

IV. Petroleum Prohibition

Severe economic sanctions

Another response to Japanese aggression and way to express outrage could be economic, rather than military sanctions, including bans on the exports of key supplies crucial to the Japanese war effort. Above all, this means petroleum and all its derivative products, but also iron ore, scrap and its derivatives. Boycotts of Japanese imports could be enacted as well. These could be devastating to Japan, and Japan could have a thinner cushion against them in the winter of 1937-1938 than it had by OTL 1941. With an all-out offensive to seize all Southeast Asia including the Dutch East Indies less practical in 1938 than 1942 [yes, the 1938 US, UK, French and Dutch navies are likely weaker, but they are unencumbered by another war, and the 1938 Japanese navy is also much weaker] Japan may back down. However, as above, it would be at the cost of internal strife and would leave militarists and novelists keeping their eyes open for external and not just internal revenge when an opportunity emerges.

V. Prudently Pusillanimous Partial Pullback

A pull-out of Marines, Naval flotillas, concession protection from China and a travel at your own risk advisory

Given the isolationist mood of the country, the severity of the neutrality laws recently passed, and the national discussion of the Ludlow Amendment requiring a referendum before declaring war, these remaining, more dovish than OTL approaches, may be more realistic than the more hawkish ones.

I quote AH.com's @David T in support: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...fic-war-started-in-1934.490044/#post-20635256

The actual effect of the Panay incident in OTL was to strengthen isolationism in the US.

As David M. Kennedy writes in Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, p. 402: "But the Panay was not to be a modern Maine, nor even a Lusitania. Its sinking produced a cry for withdrawal, not for war. 'We should learn that it is about time for us to mind our own business,' Texas Democrat Maury Maverick declared in the House. A few months later, a Fortune magazine poll showed that a majority of Americans favored getting the United States out of China altogether. When Japan tendered an official apology for the Panay incident and paid some $2 million in reparations, the crisis swiftly blew over.

"The principal residue of the Panay affair in Congress was not more bellicosity but more pacifism [citing the boost the incident gave to the proposed Ludlow Amendment]... https://books.google.com/books?id=UQlEq9GILRgC&pg=PR111

Americans did sympathize with China--but not enough to go to war for her. As a Hearst press headline put it: "WE SYMPATHIZE. BUT IT IS NOT OUR CONCERN." https://books.google.com/books?id=qTCOAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT67

If widespread availability and viewing of the Panay film creates a groundswell of public and congressional opinion that China is a dangerous war zone and certainly not a place of business as usual, the prudent call may be for the withdrawal of US patrol boats and Marines from the country, perhaps back to the Philippines, and a warning to Americans in China that they travel there strictly at their own risk. The US would no longer keep up the legal fiction that the China Incident is not a war, and so would end up applying the neutrality acts against both China and Japan, thus denying both belligerents weapons, credits, and war materiel, and forbidding Americans from traveling on belligerent ships. Commodities as basic as crude oil, scrap iron, standard gasoline and rolled steel probably wouldn’t be excluded from trade under the ‘war materiel’ category.

Under those existing neutrality laws, it would be illegal to compromise neutrality by discriminateing between an aggressor and defending nation and treating them differently, so no financial support for China would be possible. China would have to look elsewhere, like to the Soviet Union and Britain, for aid.

The United States would remain free to protect the Pacific possessions under its own sovereign protection like the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and Hawaii. FDR and the Navy Department and its supporters in Congress would probably have an undercurrent of resentment about having to beat a hasty retreat from China and would try to resist naval cuts and build up the force in the long term, even if isolationism and retreat is carrying the day, the week, the month, and the year.

The global knock-on effects of the abject US retreat from China could be substantial however.

Japan would be emboldened in its course in China and may be encouraged to more broadly stereotype westerners as weak-willed.

Chamberlain would see confirmation of his views of America as unreliable and of the necessity of appeasement.

As 1938, 1939, and 1940 wear on, Japan could easily be tempted to put heavy pressure on British and French concessions and personnel in China in the form of blockades, harassment, and murders if they see that as serving their purpose of weakening western cooperation with Chiang Kai-shek.

These pressures could potentially succeed in forcing an appeasement of Japan policy on Britain and France, their breaking with Chiang, and recognition of Japan’s puppets. Or, alternatively, a retreat from their concessions in China to their Southeast Asian colonies, likely still including Hong Kong.

Japan will likely feel it can flexibly pick on western powers one-by-one, without assuming taking on one means taking on all. So, with America regarded as a weak-willed non-factor, Japan later on is more likely to think it “safe” to try to seize Malaya or the Dutch East Indies (should it ever have the desire or “need”) without feeling attacking the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii are necessary parts of the package.

VI. Para-Pacifistic Panic & Profligate Pan-Asian Pullback

Same withdrawal from China, plus accelerated independence of Philippines without a residual naval base or defense commitment.

This scenario involves the same American retrenchment as described above, with all the same knock-on consequences as described above, but the publicity of graphic Panay footage also leads to a somewhat more comprehensive consideration of American obligations and vulnerabilities in the Asia-Pacific, which widens the discussion from China to the Philippines.

The hearings and discussions by Congressional isolationists which point out the distance of America’s small stakes in China from the US, and difficulty of defending them, show the same thing applies to the Philippines. Discussion with the military on strategy shows that the realistic outer edge of any American defensive perimeter is Alaska-Hawaii-Panama.

Congress had already committed to Philippine independence by 1944 with the Tydings-McDuffie Act.

Focused discussions on the relevant issues lead Congress to vote to accelerate the Filipino independence timetable a few years to 1941 or 1942 and foreswear a post-independence US naval presence. The US emphasis in decolonization also switches to handing over defense responsibility to a Filipino Army.

Essentially, this American abdication in the western Pacific simply accentuates all the knock-on consequences discussed in the previous option about emboldening the Japanese and reinforcing Anglo-French appeasement tendencies.

 

[raharris1973]

OK, I am going to develop my projection out from the most dovish idea on the spectrum first:

To remind y'all, that's:

raharris1973 said:
VI. Para-Pacifistic Panic & Profligate Pan-Asian Pullback

Same withdrawal from China, plus accelerated independence of Philippines without a residual naval base or defense commitment.

In this TL, what happens is that the Panay incident is coupled with the US sailors happening to get a lucky shot, the "golden BB" shooting down one of the attacking Japanese fighters, and this is captured on film. Other than this alteration of the Japanese aircraft being brought down, the events of the day still unfold as in OTL, with higher Japanese command intervening to stop the attack and the Japanese ultimately apologizing and paying reparations. However, the knowledge that there is dramatic, two-sided battle footage makes it impossible to censor all copies of the Panay film, and the wide availability and viewing of the scene in American theaters (and cheers erupting from Chinese and Chinatown theaters) ....

raharris1973 said:
creates a groundswell of public and congressional opinion that China is a dangerous war zone and certainly not a place of business as usual,

...and that the ...

raharris1973 said:
the prudent call may be for the withdrawal of US patrol boats and Marines from the country, perhaps back to the Philippines, and a warning to Americans in China that they travel there strictly at their own risk. The US would no longer keep up the legal fiction that the China Incident is not a war, and so would end up applying the neutrality acts against both China and Japan, thus denying both belligerents weapons, credits, and war materiel, and forbidding Americans from traveling on belligerent ships. Commodities as basic as crude oil, scrap iron, standard gasoline and rolled steel probably wouldn’t be excluded from trade under the ‘war materiel’ category.

Under those existing neutrality laws, it would be illegal to compromise neutrality by discriminateing between an aggressor and defending nation and treating them differently, so no financial support for China would be possible. China would have to look elsewhere, like to the Soviet Union and Britain, for aid.

Furthermore, this strongly felt and argued isolationist push for the US to get out of China, which enjoys plurality or majority support...

raharris1973 said:
also leads to a somewhat more comprehensive consideration of American obligations and vulnerabilities in the Asia-Pacific, which widens the discussion from China to the Philippines.

The hearings and discussions by Congressional isolationists which point out the distance of America’s small stakes in China from the US, and difficulty of defending them, show the same thing applies to the Philippines. Discussion with the military on strategy shows that the realistic outer edge of any American defensive perimeter is Alaska-Hawaii-Panama.

Congress had already committed to Philippine independence by 1944 with the Tydings-McDuffie Act.

Focused discussions on the relevant issues lead Congress to vote to accelerate the Filipino independence timetable a few years to 1941 or 1942 and foreswear a post-independence US naval
presence. The US emphasis in decolonization also switches to handing over defense responsibility to a Filipino Army.

With regard to the now-acknowledged Sino-Japanese War...

raharris1973 said:
Under the existing US neutrality laws, it would be illegal to compromise neutrality by discriminating between an aggressor and defending nation and treating them differently, so no US financial support for China would be possible. China would have to look elsewhere, like to the Soviet Union and Britain, for aid.

The global knock-on effects of the abject US retreat from China could be substantial however.

Japan would be emboldened in its course in China and may be encouraged to more broadly stereotype westerners as weak-willed.

Chamberlain would see confirmation of his views of America as unreliable and of the necessity of appeasement.

As 1938, 1939, and 1940 wear on, Japan could easily be tempted to put heavy pressure on British and French concessions and personnel in China in the form of blockades, harassment, and murders if they see that as serving their purpose of weakening western cooperation with Chiang Kai-shek.

These pressures could potentially succeed in forcing an appeasement of Japan policy on Britain and France, their breaking with Chiang, and recognition of Japan’s puppets. Or, alternatively, a retreat from their concessions in China to their Southeast Asian colonies, likely still including Hong Kong.

Japan will likely feel it can flexibly pick on western powers one-by-one, without assuming taking on one means taking on all. So, with America regarded as a weak-willed non-factor, Japan later on is more likely to think it “safe” to try to seize Malaya or the Dutch East Indies (should it ever have the desire or “need”) without feeling attacking the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii are necessary parts of the attack package.

In Internationalist or hawkish circles, especially Democratic ones, there will definitely be complaints about FDR's timidity, with Democratic believers in that tendency thinking, but probably not publicly saying, "Mr. Roosevelt, I knew Woodrow Wilson, Woodrow Wilson was a friend of mine. Sir, you are no Woodrow Wilson" - and their implication would be perjorative not complementary. Republicans may go through the same mental exercise just substituting, "Franklin Roosevelt, you're no Theodore Roosevelt". But the public will be primarily consumed with domestic issues and believe FDR is making the right call, even as it keeps a permanent residue of hate for Japan.

The Soviet Union I believe for now will stay committed to its course of providing practical support to the Chinese United Front resistance to Japan, being steadfast in sending weapons, aircraft, pilots, and advisors to help the Chinese Nationalist forces even more than the Communists in the 1938 summer-autumn battles over Wuhan and Guangzhou. It will also propagandize for China's cause using the international left.

France will have divided internal counsels, with leftist forces arguing for solidarity with China and Soviet Union, and working to keep Indochina ports and railways open for the supply of munitions to China, while others on the French right will call for ditching China if a rapprochement and non-aggression deal with Japan can be had. This call will come from right-wing "Better Hitler than Blum" types as well as sensible Europe-first centrists and conservatives. The May and September crises over Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, by bringing the specter of war in Europe forward, end up uniting most of the French political spectrum behind a timid posture in China, leading to French withdrawal of non-essential personnel, and its troops and its ships from the concession areas in China, in imitation of the Americans. The difference in the French case is, the French concentrate these assets in their Indochina colony to protect it. The French also decline to traffic arms to either the Chinese or Japanese using Indochinese ports and railways, which over the long-term as South China's ports are occupied, leaves China in a worse position and more dependent on the Soviet Union and its limited logistical capacity.

The Dutch remain studiously neutral and silent on Chinese questions, insisting on keeping commercial and political questions separate, while increasingly nervous about Japanese aggressiveness, and the accelerated US departure. They attempt to upgrade naval defenses in the East Indies within their quite limited budgetary constraints.

Chamberlain, seeing the British position in China now more exposed by American and French withdrawals, will explore an appeasement posture toward Japan and the concept of a grand bargain with Japan oriented against the Soviet Union and Chinese Communism while trying to preserve the security of Britain's imperial possessions and its large economic stake in China, especially from the Yangzi valley on south. His people will try overtures along Navy to Navy lines and court circles around Prince Chichibu. But, because of the scale of British stakes in China, for the moment in 1938, Britain will continue and increase financial aid and allow arms sales to Chiang Kai-shek's regime, not pulling back unilaterally.

When Roosevelt makes noises trying to dissuade Chamberlain from any deals with Japan, threatening to make separate arrangements between the US and the Dominions, Chamberlain acidly writes off the threat as empty, the Americans having no credibility with any of the Dominions, much less Australia and New Zealand, after signaling their broad retreat from the western Pacific.

The British feelings of insecurity in the Far East become far more acute with the Japanese campaign to seize Guangzhou from Oct-Dec 1938. And that will be spoiling Chamberlain's post-Munich high.

Meanwhile, for the Japanese, while apologizing and paying reparations to the Americans certainly doesn't feel glorious, the completion of withdrawal of US Marines and partrol boats from Chinese waters and minimization of diplomatic staff, complete by the summer, are positive developments. By October 1938, with the victory in Wuhan in hand, Chamberlain looking eager to bargain, the Americans out of China, and the Americans speeding their timetable for Filipino independence, and the French beginning to follow suit, the Japanese can look back on the first 15 months of the China War, and even the fallout of the Panay Incident, with a degree of satisfaction that things are going Japan's way.

In fact, to the Japanese, western potential opponents, like Americans, French, and British seem weaker willed than eastern ones, like Chinese, or Soviets.

As fighting approaches the southern end of the China coast and the borders of Hong Kong in late 1938, the Japanese become more convinced that pressure on western interests is a useful path for deterring and removing support for China.

Behind the headlines, for the US, in 1938, US military, especially naval, spending, is still actually increased. Indeed, more resources than OTL go for arming up the forces of the Philippine Commonwealth, and for improving the defenses of Hawaii, and moves to enhance to permanent ship-basing capabilities at Pearl Harbor are improved. Pro-naval spenders are able to make pro-jobs and industry arguments in favor of their bills, and among each other, and the right kind of audiences, they are energized by and can subtly appeal to a sense of wiping away humiliation stemming from the US withdrawal from China in the face of local Japanese superiority and national will for conflict/aggression. This counter-trend continues with greater strength in 1939 and 1940.

From December 1938, the Japanese begin a series of intermittent blockades of the landward approaches to the British concession areas in China, notably at Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. The stated objectives of the Japanese are to secure full cooperation of concessionary police and troops, mainly controlled by Britain, with the Japanese military and Chinese collaborators against agents of the Chinese Nationalists and Communists, the handover of Chinese silver reserves located in vaults in Tianjin, establishing direct relations and acknowledgement between the concessionary powers and Japan's puppet Chinese authorities, and an end to arms for Nationalist China and anti-Japanese publications within the concessions.

The British threaten and then impose some unilateral economic sanctions on Japan in retaliation, and the US gives six months notice of intent to terminate the US-Japanese trade treaty, but does not immediately impose trade restrictions - so Chamberlain barely notices, nor feels, much support. The Dutch remain studiously neutral and do not apply any sanctions. The French hesitate to act out of fear of causing conflict or endangering Indochina.

Ultimately, Chamberlain is unable to accept a deal with Japan under pressure of siege on the terms Japan is demanding: a neutrality treaty, a 'de facto' recognition and agreement for concession authorities to deal with whatever adjacent Chinese puppet administration exists next to British concession areas in China, de-recognition of Chiang Kai-shek and recall of British diplomats from his capital of Chongqing, an agreement to maintain the separation of political and commercial questions, to not supply arms to a power Japan is at war with on the mainland of Asia and for Japan not to supply arms to a power Britain is at war with on the mainland of Europe, and protection of British lives, property, and freedom to trade in areas under Japanese control.

However, the blockaded and harassed British position in the northern China, non-coastal concessions in Beijing and Tianjin, is becoming untenable by mid-February 1939, leading to a side-deal for British evacuation of its citizens and forces protest under (muted at first, and louder later) by late February, early March, which the Japanese allow to proceed generally peacefully because of its humiliating effect and because sanctions are relaxed while it is going on. The coastal concessions from Shanghai on south, resuppliable by sea, remain as a symbol of British persistence in the Far East, however weakened.

This Far Eastern retreat is great blow to British prestige and starts a steep slide of Chamberlain’s popularity, and is criticized in the Commonwealth and British press.

Chinese advocates of peace, capitulation, or collaboration, like Wang Jingwei, in exile or occupied territory, also use the weakness of the British here, and earlier weakness of America and France, to bolster their case against continued Chinese resistance. Like OTL, they participate in collaborationist regimes, but remain on the isolated fringe of Chinese political opinion.

Then events in Europe intrude, with Hitler's sudden occupation of Prague in March 1939.

This straw, completely undercutting the Munich deal’s “achievement”, breaks Neville Chamberlain’s back politically.

Chamberlain is not even given the time by his fellow conservatives to try to save his Premiership by reversing policy and handing out security guarantees to European countries. His final military counsels on doing so were in any case divided since the situation with Japan around Shanghai, Hong Kong and points between remains quite tense.

The conservative party grandees appoint Duff Cooper to the British Premiership, with a mandate to stand up to Hitler and strengthen national defense.

The fall of Prague underlines the importance of line-drawing against Hitler and signals that Central and Eastern Europe cannot be treated as irrelevant, but this does not dictate PM Cooper’s exact moves, and within his mandate he has a bit of tactical flexibility, simply by virtue of not being Chamberlain, in fact for being the vindicated Cassandra.

PM Duff Cooper’s Britain extends security guarantees to Romania, Greece, and Turkey in response to Hitler’s Prague coup, and makes overtures to negotiate with the USSR and Poland to join a Franco-British European front to contain Hitler. Cooper also reiterates Britain’s absolute commitment to the security of France and its colonies, and, somewhat to the embarrassment of the latter, voices Britain’s “determination to see the neutrality of the Low Countries and Scandinavian countries respected by the powers and maintained by all effective means.”

You will probably find the absence of an outright, unilateral guarantee to Poland the most notable thing about the Cooper policy. Cooper and Cabinet go this direction for several reasons. First, their objective is still first to contain Germany if possible, rather than go to war, and the continued tensions with Japan in China, and agitation in Japan for a German alliance brings up the spectre of a two-front war with a heavy call on British naval resources. Second, intel reports of the moment were strangely focusing more on the potential threat to Romania and its oil than the threat to Poland. Cooper, just moved over from the Admiralty, was especially attuned to the importance of oil, and could conceive of expeditionary operations in the Mediterranean or Black Sea in support of Romania as being at least somewhat plausible, whereas expeditions through the Baltic to aid Poland appear physically impossible. Additionally, Cooper does not want to make the herculean challenge of reaching Soviet-Polish agreement on concerted defensive plans & preparations against Germany any more difficult by providing either party with an “easy out” by granting unilateral guarantees.

Hitler’s Germany proceeds to make territorial demands and threats against Poland, and alternately offer “guarantees” and an anti-Soviet directed “alliance” to Warsaw, during 1939. Warsaw tantalizes and frustrates all its neighbors by talking through the year without ultimately agreeing to anything substantive.

To strengthen his hand against western or Soviet interference in the contingency of a Polish war, Hitler seeks Italian and Japanese alliances aimed at France, Britain, and the USSR. To strengthen their hand against the Chinese and prevent Soviet or (less likely) British interference on China’s behalf, many Japanese advocate for alliance with Germany.

Mussolini’s Italy talks some alliance talk, but warns it is not ready for war any time soon.

The Japanese on the other hand….well, we will have to look back over at the Far East…

Japan tries to exploit weakened Chinese morale after Britain’s withdrawal from the northern China concessions, with attacks on Changsha, and then Guangxi province in later 1939, but like in OTL, these do not succeed.

Japanese forces also clash with the Soviets and Mongolians on the Manchukuo-Mongolia border over the summer 1939, and the Soviets attain local superiority and smash them there. The Soviet victory, Japanese defeat on the frontier brings about calls for revenge, but also stokes fears of Soviet intervention in the China War, and possible British-Soviet collusion with China.

This adds to the existing clamor by Army-sponsored circles in the public in Japan for an alliance treaty with Germany. A German-Japanese alliance treaty is written up and signed by early August, 1939, its terms essentially dictating that if one of the parties finds itself at war with two or more other powers, the other is obliged to assist with all means at its disposal.

Meanwhile, in the United States, by late summer 1939, pent up irritation in the US over the democracies' retreats in the face of bullying dictatorships is supporting defense spending slightly above OTL levels, and has permitted delivery of arms to belligerents, if they can be done on a cash and carry basis. The US, now free from the Japanese-American trade treaty, can now implement an embargo on aviation fuel and high-octane gasoline.

However, the President and Congressional leaders of the Philippine Commonwealth do not react well to this increase in US-Japanese tensions, as they are looking down the barrel at independence in two years by July 4th, 1941, under the new accelerated schedule, and the US Asiatic Fleet and US Army garrison are largely skeleton forces, mainly devoted to training Filipino counterparts, while permanent US facilities in Hawaii and Wake Island are getting comparatively lavish support.

[significant substantive edits made on 9 August to post originally from 8 August]

....to be continued...

 

[raharris1973]

Additional scenario -

VII. Precocious Panay Problem
An incident, very similar in kind to the Panay incident, happens many years earlier, with possibly different effects, and a longer time horizon for effects to sink in.

The best opportunity for something like this would be during Japan's abortive invasion of Shanghai in January-March 1932, also called "the January incident". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_28_incident

That was the only time before September 1937 that there was Sino-Japanese fighting in the busy shipping lanes of the international port of Shanghai.

The 1932, the US was plunging into Depression fast. Banks were failure. Stock markets crashed years before, the 1930 midterms were a wipeout for Republicans. Some were still saying at the beginning of the year that "prosperity was just around the corner" but fewer were believing it, and that was despite the fact that the economy and banking system had *a lot* more distance to fall from January 1932 to January 1933.

This ever-worsening economic crisis makes me think that US responses towards an attack on a US ship in China would lean towards the dovish end, retreat and retrench rather than fight. It simply costs less. People then didn't know that military Keynesianism was a thing, and it tends to be authoritarian and out-and-out reactionary regimes, no honest conservatives in small 'l' liberal democracies, who have the cynicism to think of war as an escape from domestic political difficulty, and the leverage to pull that trick off. Quaker Herbert Hoover wasn't likely to do it. Also, Japan is even more likely than in the OTL Panay incident to pay compensation, and to apologize, with more sincere feeling even among military/naval personnel in 1932 than in the more radicalized later 1930s.

Between Hoover and the transition into the Roosevelt Administration, the US may quietly, but rather briskly, remove the US Marine and Asiatic fleet presence from China. When the Sino-Japanese war expands later on in the 1930s, that will leave Britain and others none too confident in US resolve. Even more, the residue of the warlike clash in the Yangtze may influence the impending Tydings-McDuffie terms for the independence of the Philippines, setting up a faster timetable for those islands independence, and putting in doubt a long-term US fleet presence. Ultimate withdrawal of a US permanent military presence from the Far East may be considered, from a 1933-1934 point of view, to be a logical extension of the demilitarizing 'Good Neighbor' policy also being applied to Latin America at this time.

 

[raharris1973]

Additional scenario -

VII. Precocious Panay Problem
An incident, very similar in kind to the Panay incident, happens many years earlier, with possibly different effects, and a longer time horizon for effects to sink in.

The best opportunity for something like this would be during Japan's abortive invasion of Shanghai in January-March 1932, also called "the January incident". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_28_incident

That was the only time before September 1937 that there was Sino-Japanese fighting in the busy shipping lanes of the international port of Shanghai.

The 1932, the US was plunging into Depression fast. Banks were failure. Stock markets crashed years before, the 1930 midterms were a wipeout for Republicans. Some were still saying at the beginning of the year that "prosperity was just around the corner" but fewer were believing it, and that was despite the fact that the economy and banking system had *a lot* more distance to fall from January 1932 to January 1933.

This ever-worsening economic crisis makes me think that US responses towards an attack on a US ship in China would lean towards the dovish end, retreat and retrench rather than fight. It simply costs less. People then didn't know that military Keynesianism was a thing, and it tends to be authoritarian and out-and-out reactionary regimes, no honest conservatives in small 'l' liberal democracies, who have the cynicism to think of war as an escape from domestic political difficulty, and the leverage to pull that trick off. Quaker Herbert Hoover wasn't likely to do it. Also, Japan is even more likely than in the OTL Panay incident to pay compensation, and to apologize, with more sincere feeling even among military/naval personnel in 1932 than in the more radicalized later 1930s.

Between Hoover and the transition into the Roosevelt Administration, the US may quietly, but rather briskly, remove the US Marine and Asiatic fleet presence from China. When the Sino-Japanese war expands later on in the 1930s, that will leave Britain and others none too confident in US resolve. Even more, the residue of the warlike clash in the Yangtze may influence the impending Tydings-McDuffie terms for the independence of the Philippines, setting up a faster timetable for those islands independence, and putting in doubt a long-term US fleet presence. Ultimate withdrawal of a US permanent military presence from the Far East may be considered, from a 1933-1934 point of view, to be a logical extension of the demilitarizing 'Good Neighbor' policy also being applied to Latin America at this time.

Since you liked this one @frustrated progressive - this continuation is for you:

[As noted, in this scenario, the incident against a US patrol boat occurs in February 1932 in the waters of Shanghai, and is captured on film, this includes the close in attack on the boat, its sinking, and crew member gunners (who do not survive the attack) downing a Japanese aircraft. Over the ensuing month or so, the Japanese and Americans negotiate a Japanese apology and reparations/compensation to the USA, and the Japanese eventually end the Shanghai incident as they historically did, even while persisting in the takeover of Manchuria. This incident and publicity about it does cause a bit of a sensation in the United States. The Hearst Press and Progressive Senators denounce some media outlets and media interests for promoting “war hysteria” in a lame attempt to prop up stock prices and heavy industrial orders. Many ask what the hell we were doing in China with our country falling apart at home. President Hoover orders a withdrawal from China, and Congress people order a broader review of our forward deployed Navy, Marine, and Army posture in the Pacific, in particular. This review continues through and beyond the 1933 election as the collapse of the banking system and swift rise of nationwide unemployment monopolizes lawmakers attention more and more.


Here is where the timeline can branch a few ways.


In the happy, shiny branch, Japanese mortification over the war scare with America and shame over the ‘accidental’ incident endangering peace among ‘civilized people’, not just war on Chinese bandits, causes the Japanese public and government to criticize and condemn the actions of military extremists and the Kwangtung Army in Manchuria, causing the Tokyo government to wrestle back control of policy and negotiate an end to the Manchurian incident restoring the pre-September 1931 status quo in China and Manchuria, essentially a withdrawal to proper railroad garrisons and a restoration of the province to Zhang Xueliang’s authority, and no establishment of separatist Manchukuo. 1930s Japan, despite a bunch of riots, assassinations, and attempted coups, ends up basically behaving itself internationally for the rest of the 1930s. The riots, assassinations, and attempted coups damage the public reputation of the military over time. Chiang Kai-shek’s policy focus in China is anti-communist rather than anti-Japanese in any case. The new Roosevelt administration’s focus is domestic and not foreign, so naval buildup is not on the American agenda either. The hearings on US overseas military deployments, prompted by the clash in Shanghai in ’32, conclude in ’33, and recommend significant retrenchment of US military activities and deployments around the world, in the Caribbean, Pacific, and especially western Pacific, for reasons of economy and preservation of peace and recommend reliance on non-military instruments to maintain world order and peace. The Roosevelt Administration finds these conclusions simpatico with its ‘Good Neighbor’ policy of disengaging from the Banana Wars and military interventions in the Caribbean, although the US still maintains its control over the Panama Canal Zone, Guantanamo Bay, and Puerto Rico. The effects of the study conclusions are felt in the Pacific where Hawaii, Midway, and Wake Island, and Alaska are named the western bastions of US defense. The withdrawal of the China patrols and Marines are retroactively justified, and a goal of post-independence military self-reliance for the Philippines is recommended. The impact is felt as the Tydings-McDuffie Act, formalizing the process for Filipino independence is designed and passed in 1933-34. As finally written, sentiment to pull back from potential exposed flashpoints in the Pacific leads to a hastened timeline for Filipino independence, 5 years, July 4th 1939, instead of 10 years. In turn the combination of speedier American decolonization, and Japanese disengagement from day-to-day skirmishing in Manchuria, and the lack of success and positive hype about military valor in Manchuria, helps keep Japan from relapsing into an expansionist mindset later in the 1930s. Japan occupies itself with industrial development and ever tighter assimilation and integration of its core empire of Korea, the Guangdong peninsula, Taiwan, and the mandates.


Basically, the net effect of the US-Japanese incident and war scare of 1932, was to frighten, embarrass, or shame both countries, and cause them both to back off from forward policies, and the beneficiaries end up being Chinese Nationalists and Filipino Nationalists.


The increased sway of Chiang Kai-shek’s central government over China as he marginalizes warlords and Communists ends up growing the Chinese economy and increasing Japanese export opportunities, especially as European countries begin to focus on rearmament from 1937-38 on.


The lack of an aggressively expanding Japan on the Asian mainland affects the security calculations of other great powers. It allows Britain and France, whose concessions in China and colonies south of China are less menaced by Japan, to focus defense planning more against Germany and Italy. The pressure relief is greatest for the Soviet Union, which from 1933 on only needs to deal with relatively weak forces of Zhang Xueliang, local warlord generals, and detachments from Chiang Kai-shek all swearing allegiance to the Chinese national government on the Amur river, rather than Japan’s more formidable Kwangtung Army. This allows the Soviet Union a greater focus on the German threat after the rise of the Nazis in Germany.


Unenthusiastic for war, even with little fear of war in the Far East, Britain will be trying on appeasement with the Germans at first on issues like rearmament, the Navy, the Rhineland, and Spain.


The USSR, without the need to bulk up its Far Eastern defenses as much as OTL, or to provide support to China’s United Front in a Sino-Japanese War (that isn’t happening ITTL, can throw more support behind the Spanish Republic, to keep up with German and Italian support for the Spanish Nationalists. This will prolong the Spanish Civil War beyond February 1939. It can also concentrate more of its military build-up in its western military districts and offer more robust assistance to Czechoslovakia during the Sudeten crisis if Czechoslovakia is willing to fight.


Ultimately, Czechoslovakia backs down and surrenders the Sudetenland when the west abandons it at Munich, which excludes the Soviet Union. However, the Soviets, angry at their exclusion from conference, redouble their commitment to the Spanish Republic and prevent the splitting of the Republican pockets of Madrid and Barcelona, further tying down German and particularly Italian resources.


The western reaction to the German occupation of Bohemia is more severe however, the French, and the British promptly declare war on Germany, as does the Soviet Union, and the three impose a blockade and embargo. The French immediately begin a program to provide direct aid to the Spanish Republic from across the border and to deploy colonial troops in support of Spanish Republicans and against Nationalist Spanish Morocco in order to prevent Axis encirclement of France.


France is not ready immediately for an attack on Germany, nor is Germany ready for an immediate attack on France in March 1939, and no BEF is ready for deployment on the continent, so a “phony war” ensues.


Poland holds to a tenuous neutrality, not wanting to become a battlefield or to invite Soviet or German troops onto its lands.


Faced with isolation, blockade, and the western powers and Soviets mobilizing and now reaching the point of rearming faster than him (and humiliating him by overwhelming his Spanish allies and German Condor Legion over the spring and summer), Hitler is determined to assault the Low Countries and France by August 1939. Mussolini meanwhile has been ousted by the Italian King, who was angered by the loss of the Italian volunteer corps in Spain.


The German attack takes the Netherlands and most of Belgium before it bogs down for the winter.


Continued high-cost, low-reward, German attacks that Hitler orders through the winter of 1939-1940 cause the Wehrmacht to launch a coup killing and overthrowing Hitler in early 1940, which leads to Germany suing for peace, withdrawing from the Low Countries, Czechoslovakia, and Austria.


……


Second variant


So much for the happier, shinier, more boring scenario. The likelier event is that the Japanese persist in their Manchukuo shenanigans, become addicted to them, intimidate opponents of militarism with assassination and get on a gradual track leading step by step to all-out war with China. However, all the conflict-averse steps I mentioned on the US side remain the same.


However, like OTL, the path to all-out Sino-Japanese war is interrupted by the truces of the years 1933-1937, where Japan exercises authority over only Manchukuo, eastern Inner Mongolia (Mengjiang) and compels China to respect a demilitarized zone in Hebei province between Beijing and Tianjin and the Great Wall.


The French meanwhile have found the US abrupt withdrawal from Shanghai disturbing. The British do not like it either. The broader American intent to retreat regionally, signaled by the Tydings-McDuffie Act in 1934 is even more unwelcome, especially to the French, who sitting in Hanoi across the South China Sea from Manila, see impending Filipino independence as weakening the white man’s position in Asia, and as a stimulus for Vietnamese independence agitation, alongside Russian Communism, Japanese militarism, and Chinese nationalism.


The British are a little bit less panicked.


Events in Europe are really agitating the French however, notably German rearmament and the reestablishment of a German air force. But what takes the cake is the lack of British reliability as an ally. The June 1935 Anglo-German Naval Agreement seems to kick the legs out from under the anti-German Stresa Front when it is barely two months old.


This combination of allied (American) weakening and desertion in the lower priority area of the Far East, and allied (British) unreliability and double-dealing with France’s greatest potential threat in its zone of vital interest in Europe, and the late and brutal onset of the Depression in France prompts a ruthless prioritization and rebalancing of French global assets and liabilities.


This leads to Franco-Japanese secret negotiations in autumn 1935 for the sale of French Indochina to Japan. The shocking deal involves an enormous lump sum of gold and hard currency, with additional portions of the balance to be paid off in raw materials and labor services. The transfer transition, and installment payments, are set to be carried out between October 1935 and October 1937.


France aims to use the proceeds primarily to support rearmament against Germany, and Italy. The evaporation of need for naval protection against Japan indeed allows France to soon begin relocating more naval ships from Indochina to Djibouti, Tunisia, and Algeria to watch over Italy in the Red Sea and Mediterranean.


The graduated acquisition of all Indochina, and the expense of it, encourages the Japanese civil government and Army and Navy high commands to keep their field forces around the Manchukuo-China buffer zone and in Chinese waters on a tight leash to prevent escalation to outright war over this time.


Japanese Army and Navy budgetary outlays are less than OTL over 1935-1937. But by 1937 there are several new Army garrison and Fleet base command positions available in Indochina, plus opportunities for civil bureaucrats and zaibatsu.


Absorption of Indochina, and lesser frontline combat strength, encourages the relatively cautious status quo policy of not pressing on further into China. The most hotheaded commanders in the IJA are sent to the border with a softer target, Siam. In 1938, a Japanese campaign occupies Bangkok and the entirety of the Siamese Kingdom, extending Japanese power to the Indian Ocean via the Kra Isthmus.


Spared immediate Japanese pressure in 1935-1937, continued Chinese Nationalist offensives drive Chinese Communist forces further northwest into Gansu and Xinjiang provinces.


In Europe, diplomatic events in the 1930s unfold similarly to OTL. France has more funds to invest earlier in defense however.


The Allies appease as long as OTL.


In July 1939, the Philippines become independent.


In 1939, war breaks out over Poland.


In early 1940, with the US out of the Philippines, the Soviets bogged down in Finland, and the western European powers wrapped up in the phony war, the Japanese Navy takes the opportunity to attack the East Indies colony of the neutral country of the Netherlands, in a short, private war.


In spring 1940, Hitler launches a bold attack on Scandinavia. A month later, on the Low Countries and France. Here the French hold the Germans off at the Meuse because of earlier mobilization, better training, and earlier purchasing and integration of aircraft and radios into the force. The strong French persistence holding the line in western Belgium and northern France deters Germany from joining the war.


Germany is ultimately rolled back and beaten by spring 1943, with a Soviet force liberating Poland, Czechoslovakia, eastern Germany, and Hungary, an Anglo-French force liberating western Germany, and an Italian force liberating Austria and Bavaria south of the Danube.


The democracies consider Italy a minor rogue actor and thief with a minor ill-gotten imperium of Ethiopia, Albania, Austria, and southern Bavaria.


The Soviets are a much more formidable dictatorial menace whose power now extends to Prague, Budapest, and Berlin.


The Japanese were quite the successful bandits having gathered loot by legitimate purchase in Indochina, and by small, easy wars in the case of Manchuria, Siam, and the East Indies. They are currently in a state of high tension with a rising China.











…..


Third variant


So much for the happier, shinier, more boring scenario. The likelier event is that the Japanese persist in their Manchukuo shenanigans, become addicted to them, intimidate opponents of militarism with assassination and get on a gradual track leading step by step to all-out war with China. However, all the conflict-averse steps I mentioned on the US side remain the same.


The Japanese full-scale war with China begins about the same time as OTL, the summer of 1937. There is no 1937 Panay incident because there are no US gunships to be hit. The British and French for the moment feel obliged to maintain their concessionary rights in China, including their limited numbers of ships and troops. They lament they lack US support, absent since 1932, but it is not felt as a sudden desertion in the midst of the present war in 1937. The overall shrinkage of the US Asiatic Fleet is considered an unfavorable factor also. But the British and even French feel they have inescapable colonial stakes in East Asia, and the Japanese aim their aggression initially squarely at the Chiang Kai-shek regime, so they keep their presence, and provide aid to the Chiang regime.


In 1938, the Sino-Japanese war spreads to Wuhan and Guangzhou. In 1939, to help complete the blockade of China, Japan seizes Hainan island. The summer of 1939 sees the Japanese have dual crises with Britain and the USSR. With Britain in the spring and summer they have the Tianjin blockade, to pressure Britain on numerous China policy disagreements. This is resolved by compromise in early August. With the USSR they have the Nomonhan incident, which balloons into a border war that the USSR wins decisively, leading to Japanese restraint on the border, and Japanese near-term estrangement from Germany. July 1939 also sees the granting of Filipino independence, and the Filipino President and Congress’s declaration of the Philippines as a ‘perpetually neutral’ state, declining any overtures for a continued US naval base.


In September 1939, WWII breaks out.


Germany defeats France in May-June 1940. This revives German popularity in Japan, inspires Japan to sign the Tripartite Pact, and encourages Japan to occupy northern Indochina to block supplies to China. The US launches scrap iron sanctions in response.


In July 1941 Japan occupies southern Indochina, and the US puts Japan under total embargo and financial freeze with the UK and Netherlands following suit. Japan goes to war against the British Empire and DEI in December 1941, but does not attack the US. Japanese Army and Navy planners do not regard US involvement in war between Japan and Britain and Netherlands inevitable, and so choose to bypass US Pacific possessions like Hawaii, Midway island, Wake Island and Guam. Guam is held under observation from surrounding Japanese mandated archipelagos. The Philippines are observed closely from the Japanese held Taiwan, Palaus, and Spratlys, and its political leaders are told that any deviation from neutrality or naval collusion with the American, British or Dutch will compel a Japanese occupation. The lack of American bases and routine access in the Republic of the Philippines causes the Japanese to consider the threat from a neutral US manageable, not requiring the risk of a preventive strike.]


The US serves as the Arsenal of Democracy (and Communism too) with the ever expanding Lend-Lease program to the UK, USSR, and China. It is in an undeclared naval war with the Germans in the Atlantic and extended its hemispheric defense zone to Iceland.


By no later than April 1942, after multiple naval clashes in the Atlantic, and the US escorting Lend-Lease convoys all the way to Londonderry and Liverpool, Hitler unleashes his U-Boats for unlimited warfare across the entire Atlantic and declares war on the United States.


The United States mobilizes and places forces on alert and begins joint global planning with the British.


The United States issues a demand for Japanese evacuation of British Imperial territorial, and Japan responds by declaring war and storming Guam, and attacking Wake Island.


However, Japan does not attempt a fleet strike on Pearl Harbor because it appears too alert and well guarded.


Although the war has gone global, with Germany having been the first Axis power to go to war with the USA, US strategy, is noticeably more “Europe-first”.


The Japanese also launch an attack on the Philippines after issuing an ultimatum insisting on an alliance and acceptance of Japanese forces use of Filipino facilities. The Filipinos reject the ultimatum, insisting on their neutrality, for the record, and engage in token resistance for about a week before capitulating to Japanese terms, in a manner somewhat similar to Siam/Thailand in December 1941.


The US has a stronger focus on the Battle of the Atlantic, and without the MacArthur factor and ‘I Shall Return’ vow in the Philippines, there is no substantial Southwest Pacific campaign. There is aeronaval skirmishing and raiding around the Japanese perimeter, while the Americans are building up their fleet train to be ready to launch a Central Pacific drive by the beginning of 1944.


The greater concentration of naval, air, and shipping resources in the Atlantic hastens the pace of the war against U-Boats, and ensures enough Allied shipping is enough for the Allied North Africa landings of January 1943 to seize all the Vichy French held ports of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, trapping the Africa Korps, and preventing any German response or reinforcement in Africa.


This ITTL Operation Torch is mainly administrative, followed by combat, which the British 8th Army bears the brunt of, to finish off a trapped Afrika Korps and Italian Army in Libya, which only a few American units get to ephemerally participate in as a blocking force.


This operation is followed up by Allied landings in April 1943 in Sicily and Crete, where they face more stubborn German resistance. This breaks Italian morale, and leads to an invasion of Italy in late June and the invasion/occupation of Sardinia and Corsica by August 1943.


By the fall of 1943, even as the Italian campaign continues, the prime Anglo-American focus shifts to preparation for the cross-channel invasion of northern France.


In Asia, the focus for 1944 is on an American supported British and Chinese effort to open to Burma road, and in the Pacific, on the launching of a Central Pacific drive through the Marshalls and Marianas.


Meanwhile the Soviets are grinding the Nazis and their allies back off their territory.


The Western Allies launch an invasion of the French Riviera at the beginning of April to seize essential southern French ports, while the Italian offensive liberates Rome.


On May 1st, the Western Allies storm Normandy.


The Western Allies and Soviet forces meet along the Oder River and the Bohemia-Slovakia junction and Lake Balaton in Hungary west of Budapest in early December 1944.


Meanwhile in the Pacific, the Japanese fleet has been heavily damaged and the US has taken Saipan in the Marianas, and is now launching bombing raids on Japan from there.


The liberation of Burma quickens in the winter of 1944-45. The USSR declares war on Japan on April 1, 1945, launching a massive offensive on Manchuria, northern China, and Korea.


Further campaigning in 1945 sees the USA take Okinawa and begin invasion preparation. In territorial terms, the British have more sweeping success in Thailand, Malaya, Sumatra and Borneo, and the Soviets also do so in liberating all of Sakhalin, the Kuriles, all Korea, and China down to the cities of Shanghai and Wuhan, and the Chinese liberate their own southeastern provinces.


Japan is battered and discouraged and offering peace by the summer but on terms the Allies cannot take seriously. The use of the atomic bomb in early August gives the Japanese the excuse to accept surrender on Allied terms.

 

[raharris1973]

By the way, out of the original 6 scenarios (I used roman numerals) I think the OTL response, condemning the attack, but not making any ultimatum, demanding compensation and getting it, holding steady with the China Station naval patrols, but not retaliating against Japan in any other way in terms of economic punishment, aid to Japan's enemies, joint anti-Japanese diplomatic action, or increased military build-up, would rank between scenario 4 (IV) and 5 (V) in severity, so OTL was "4.5".

Scenario 7 (VII) is it's own beast, since it deals with a hypothetical similar incident several years earlier, although the way I imagine it most likely playing out "rhymes" the most with scenario VI the lowest on the severity or highest on the retreat/appeasement scale.