In answer to the very first post of this thread, yes, those events are lame. Japan should atleast get California, or maybe the strategic San-Diego and Los-Angeles, plus all the pacific islands.
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It is natural that this sort of discussion would get a little... emotional.
Americans have the deep felt belief they are a little different, exceptional, if you will. (I say this as an American...) There are some truths to the American tradition of resistince and stubborn independence, but these only go so far.
The primary reason why the US would be impossible to *occupy* (not *defeat*, but occupy) is not so much the character of the American populace, real or imagined, but rather demographics, geography, logistics, and the character flaws of the enemies (current or potential, i.e. Germany, Japan, or in theory, the USSR) of the US during WW2.
Let us take the potential of these three aggressors, and examine what they would have had to do.
Germany would have had to defeat everyone it historically did, plus Russia. Russia would be necessary because the western front was undermanned as it was due to the manpower demands of the eastern front, it is not conceivable that Germany would have the manpower for *both* the eastern front, the occupation of their conquests to date, *plus* an invasion of the US. They simply would not have enough men. They would also likely have had to pacify the UK, take control of Gibraltar in order to block access into the Mediterranean, and win in North Africa to control the Suez and lock the Mediterranean down solidly.
Japan would have had to pacify and hold China or not have invaded it in the first place, hold down a number of widely stretched atolls, and hold down the East Indies, whose supplies of oil were crucial to the Japanese war effort. They had an even worse manpower problem than the Germans, especially if they were occupying China, which would likely still have an active communist insurgency.
Russia would have had to conquer and pacify all of Europe, in all likelihood, before being able to invade the US. Assuming US non-involvement, they would likely still have done it at the historical date they did or later due to Germany not being distracted by a second front. It is unlikely they would have done it *earlier* than they did, certainly. They would have had similar, pacification, occupation, and supply problems as the Germans, although they had more manpower to throw at these problems. If they invaded, hypothetically, at the historical end of the war against Germany with US involvement, their invasion would be done in the face of the fact that the US would be able to destroy entire cities of theirs, as well as troop concentrations (which the Russians were fond of..) every few months, without them being able to respond in kind.
All three would have had to do this in the face of US resistance to these efforts, unless we presume some alternate history scenario where the US joins the war very late, potentially after the invasion of the UK by Germany/Russia after the hypothetical pacification of Russia/Germany.
It should be noted that all the German strategic aims in Europe and North Africa were aims the Germans were, to some degree or another, <b>already in the process of failing to achieve without US intervention</b>. They simply had too much to do and not enough to do it with as it was.
If we presume the US stays out of the war and Germany manages all of these goals, there is still the matter that the US is preparing itself during this entire time. Its economy is so much vastly larger than Germany's (in fact, is larger than *all* the combatants on both sides *combined*, if I recall correctly), that even its peace time budget, assuming some level of preparation, is not insignificant. Granted, any German army invading the US would likely be toughened veterans, but the US is sufficiently large to absorb some casualties and territory losses to learn from its mistakes (much as Russia did).
There is also the matter of naval power. The Germans and Russians had no real power projection naval capacity, and their Fleet did not have the traditions of the Royal navy or the USN. They had a submarine fleet, but this is not sufficient by any stroke of the imagination to protect and escort a invasion across the Atlantic ocean. The US has aircraft carriers and was somewhat familiar with their use even at the beginning of the war, Germany only played around with aircraft carriers. The building of a naval fleet that could take on the USN and win would take at least a year, maybe two. This, in all likelihood, could not be started until victory over Russia and possibly also the UK, giving the US more time to prepare. If the US DOW'ed Germany after the invasion of the UK (assuming they stayed out until that point...) they would have an advantage through the sheer fact that they had naval power projection capacity and the Germans did. If the US Japan war went ahead without Germany coming into it, the USN would have been a toughened, built up fleet as well (assuming they won, which seems likely). The Japanese were outclassed by the USA badly, having a much smaller economy, slower research, and nowhere near the building capacity. Any war effort would have had to go nearly flawlessly, as they had very little room for mistakes. This goes for the Germans as well.
There is also the matter of logistics. With the technology of the time, it was difficult and intensive to supply a major invasion over so short a space as the English channel, imagine how much greater the challenge would be invading straight across the Atlantic ocean! (let's not even talk about the much wider Pacific and Japan's proved incompetence at logistics..)
It takes the US billions of dollars in the present day to supply a army much smaller than the ones we are discussing here in Iraq with modern logistics abilities. Granted, this army is much better armed and with many more weapons to supply, but considering that the force in question numbers around 300k and that an invasion force would number into a million solders in this cross Atlantic invasion, and you can see the problem. The Germans, Russians, and Japanese also had/would have less secure lines of supply than the US does or did, one bombed port, critical rail line, etcetera might have made supplying a force large enough to complete its task even more of a nightmare.
There is also the stupidity of the occupation policies of all three powers, especially the Germans and Japanese, both of whom went to seemingly extraordinary lengths to transform the initial view of the populations of some of their conquered territories that they were liberators into a view that they were occupiers. The Germans were so bad that they made eastern Europeans, already familiar with Stalin’s excesses, want Stalin back. The Japanese made Filipinos, Vietnamese, etc, long for the days of European/American imperialism (and Imperialism it was). The Russians were slightly better, they smartly set up puppet states instead of trying to hold everything, and gave the locals the semblance of power and control to some degree. That and force kept Eastern Europe more peaceful under the Soviets after WW2 than it had been for the Germans during it.
Part of this was ideology. Fascism inherently believed that the various conquered people were sub-human at best, useful for slave labor, if that. They believed, quite literally, that might made right. Since they had conquered the country, they got to do <b>whatever they wanted</b>. It is this feature of fascism that explains some of the insane occupation policies carried out by the Japanese and the Germans. The Russians at least had the lie that communism made everyone equal and the workers of the world were uniting together. They even practiced this, to some degree. Gender equality in the USSR was notably better than in the US. The Soviet system even improved the standard of living for the people living under it during the 50's and 60's. It improved the standard from a much lower level (which is easier to do), and did so much slower than the US. But the fascist system was an absolute horror to the "sub-human" races, period.
Of course, US sentiment against communism has *always* been more reliable, and generally stronger, than its feelings against fascism. So the USSR would have likely faced particular problems occupying the US as well.
In summary, any war against the US by any of these three powers would not have been short, barring some miracle invention that gave them a technological edge. (An early German A-bomb, maybe) And long, drawn out total wars are almost *always* won by the richer country with more industrial power. Long wars are about who can survive the most mistakes, and poorer countries with less manufacturing strength have less room for mistakes. They might be tactically brilliant, as the Germans were, but inevitable strategic mistakes will be made from which they can not recover. It is this fundamental reason that makes the US so hard to occupy.
Now, a stalemate *might* be achieved, where the aggressor country meets all their immediate strategic goals (Germany/Russia controls Europe, Japan controls the Pacific except for the West Coast) and the US *might* be tempted to simply call it a day and go home. FDR would likely not have done this, but and FDR who had seen Europe or the Pacific go down to Germany/Russia/Japan would have likely lost the 1944 election. So it’s possible an isolationist Republican would have done it.
Americans have the deep felt belief they are a little different, exceptional, if you will. (I say this as an American...) There are some truths to the American tradition of resistince and stubborn independence, but these only go so far.
The primary reason why the US would be impossible to *occupy* (not *defeat*, but occupy) is not so much the character of the American populace, real or imagined, but rather demographics, geography, logistics, and the character flaws of the enemies (current or potential, i.e. Germany, Japan, or in theory, the USSR) of the US during WW2.
Let us take the potential of these three aggressors, and examine what they would have had to do.
Germany would have had to defeat everyone it historically did, plus Russia. Russia would be necessary because the western front was undermanned as it was due to the manpower demands of the eastern front, it is not conceivable that Germany would have the manpower for *both* the eastern front, the occupation of their conquests to date, *plus* an invasion of the US. They simply would not have enough men. They would also likely have had to pacify the UK, take control of Gibraltar in order to block access into the Mediterranean, and win in North Africa to control the Suez and lock the Mediterranean down solidly.
Japan would have had to pacify and hold China or not have invaded it in the first place, hold down a number of widely stretched atolls, and hold down the East Indies, whose supplies of oil were crucial to the Japanese war effort. They had an even worse manpower problem than the Germans, especially if they were occupying China, which would likely still have an active communist insurgency.
Russia would have had to conquer and pacify all of Europe, in all likelihood, before being able to invade the US. Assuming US non-involvement, they would likely still have done it at the historical date they did or later due to Germany not being distracted by a second front. It is unlikely they would have done it *earlier* than they did, certainly. They would have had similar, pacification, occupation, and supply problems as the Germans, although they had more manpower to throw at these problems. If they invaded, hypothetically, at the historical end of the war against Germany with US involvement, their invasion would be done in the face of the fact that the US would be able to destroy entire cities of theirs, as well as troop concentrations (which the Russians were fond of..) every few months, without them being able to respond in kind.
All three would have had to do this in the face of US resistance to these efforts, unless we presume some alternate history scenario where the US joins the war very late, potentially after the invasion of the UK by Germany/Russia after the hypothetical pacification of Russia/Germany.
It should be noted that all the German strategic aims in Europe and North Africa were aims the Germans were, to some degree or another, <b>already in the process of failing to achieve without US intervention</b>. They simply had too much to do and not enough to do it with as it was.
If we presume the US stays out of the war and Germany manages all of these goals, there is still the matter that the US is preparing itself during this entire time. Its economy is so much vastly larger than Germany's (in fact, is larger than *all* the combatants on both sides *combined*, if I recall correctly), that even its peace time budget, assuming some level of preparation, is not insignificant. Granted, any German army invading the US would likely be toughened veterans, but the US is sufficiently large to absorb some casualties and territory losses to learn from its mistakes (much as Russia did).
There is also the matter of naval power. The Germans and Russians had no real power projection naval capacity, and their Fleet did not have the traditions of the Royal navy or the USN. They had a submarine fleet, but this is not sufficient by any stroke of the imagination to protect and escort a invasion across the Atlantic ocean. The US has aircraft carriers and was somewhat familiar with their use even at the beginning of the war, Germany only played around with aircraft carriers. The building of a naval fleet that could take on the USN and win would take at least a year, maybe two. This, in all likelihood, could not be started until victory over Russia and possibly also the UK, giving the US more time to prepare. If the US DOW'ed Germany after the invasion of the UK (assuming they stayed out until that point...) they would have an advantage through the sheer fact that they had naval power projection capacity and the Germans did. If the US Japan war went ahead without Germany coming into it, the USN would have been a toughened, built up fleet as well (assuming they won, which seems likely). The Japanese were outclassed by the USA badly, having a much smaller economy, slower research, and nowhere near the building capacity. Any war effort would have had to go nearly flawlessly, as they had very little room for mistakes. This goes for the Germans as well.
There is also the matter of logistics. With the technology of the time, it was difficult and intensive to supply a major invasion over so short a space as the English channel, imagine how much greater the challenge would be invading straight across the Atlantic ocean! (let's not even talk about the much wider Pacific and Japan's proved incompetence at logistics..)
It takes the US billions of dollars in the present day to supply a army much smaller than the ones we are discussing here in Iraq with modern logistics abilities. Granted, this army is much better armed and with many more weapons to supply, but considering that the force in question numbers around 300k and that an invasion force would number into a million solders in this cross Atlantic invasion, and you can see the problem. The Germans, Russians, and Japanese also had/would have less secure lines of supply than the US does or did, one bombed port, critical rail line, etcetera might have made supplying a force large enough to complete its task even more of a nightmare.
There is also the stupidity of the occupation policies of all three powers, especially the Germans and Japanese, both of whom went to seemingly extraordinary lengths to transform the initial view of the populations of some of their conquered territories that they were liberators into a view that they were occupiers. The Germans were so bad that they made eastern Europeans, already familiar with Stalin’s excesses, want Stalin back. The Japanese made Filipinos, Vietnamese, etc, long for the days of European/American imperialism (and Imperialism it was). The Russians were slightly better, they smartly set up puppet states instead of trying to hold everything, and gave the locals the semblance of power and control to some degree. That and force kept Eastern Europe more peaceful under the Soviets after WW2 than it had been for the Germans during it.
Part of this was ideology. Fascism inherently believed that the various conquered people were sub-human at best, useful for slave labor, if that. They believed, quite literally, that might made right. Since they had conquered the country, they got to do <b>whatever they wanted</b>. It is this feature of fascism that explains some of the insane occupation policies carried out by the Japanese and the Germans. The Russians at least had the lie that communism made everyone equal and the workers of the world were uniting together. They even practiced this, to some degree. Gender equality in the USSR was notably better than in the US. The Soviet system even improved the standard of living for the people living under it during the 50's and 60's. It improved the standard from a much lower level (which is easier to do), and did so much slower than the US. But the fascist system was an absolute horror to the "sub-human" races, period.
Of course, US sentiment against communism has *always* been more reliable, and generally stronger, than its feelings against fascism. So the USSR would have likely faced particular problems occupying the US as well.
In summary, any war against the US by any of these three powers would not have been short, barring some miracle invention that gave them a technological edge. (An early German A-bomb, maybe) And long, drawn out total wars are almost *always* won by the richer country with more industrial power. Long wars are about who can survive the most mistakes, and poorer countries with less manufacturing strength have less room for mistakes. They might be tactically brilliant, as the Germans were, but inevitable strategic mistakes will be made from which they can not recover. It is this fundamental reason that makes the US so hard to occupy.
Now, a stalemate *might* be achieved, where the aggressor country meets all their immediate strategic goals (Germany/Russia controls Europe, Japan controls the Pacific except for the West Coast) and the US *might* be tempted to simply call it a day and go home. FDR would likely not have done this, but and FDR who had seen Europe or the Pacific go down to Germany/Russia/Japan would have likely lost the 1944 election. So it’s possible an isolationist Republican would have done it.
Chilango2 said:
Except we've all taken the fact that America could not have been conquered as a given; the question is how would America have acted if it had been occupied.
If somehow the US was occupied, the US would have reacted the same way as the Europeans. Most of the people would have reluctanly accepted the fact that the Germans or Japanese rule over their countries now, out of fear for their families and some would rebel and resist the Germans/Japanese. Though I would believe that the US resistance would eventually throw off the Axis invaders, due to logistics and a couple of other factors.
One, America is an ocean away from either Axis, meaning that supplies and reinforcements would take a while to get here (and if they aren't ambushed by military forces first).
Two, the Wehrmacht at its peak contained 18.2 million men and Japanese army about the same. Most of the army would still be busy fighting a war with the remaining countries (Russia, possibly Britain, Australia), with peacekeeping in other regions (China, Europe), or would be dead from fighting. This would leave about few hundred thousand to garrison the entire US and to defend from an invasion from Canada. I would be impossible to keep the entire US under control and put a reasonable amount of troops in the Canadian-US border. Resistance groups would form all over the place, becuase of the lack of troops.
Three, geographical, it would be a disaster. The two large mountain ranges, lack of any rivers going west-east, and the sheer area would cause an extremely slow reaction time to any resistance, allowing the resistance to grow. FYI, resistances do have a snowballing effect, if they start succeeding, then more and more people join and more and more headaches for the invaders. And any smart American resistance would sabatoge all the railroads and means of transportation, slowing down reaction time even further. Supplies would take a long time to get to whereever its needed, meaning inland troops would have some serious supply issues. Not to mention you're fighting in someone else's homeland, where they know the place much better.
Four, CANADA (first time..... canada matters
). Canada would obviously help push the invaders out, because Axis-control of the US would mean someone's on Canada's doorstep. Waging a war with the invaders would draw even more troops away from garrison duty.
Basically, what im saying is that any occupation of the US wouldn't last very long because of these reasons.
One, America is an ocean away from either Axis, meaning that supplies and reinforcements would take a while to get here (and if they aren't ambushed by military forces first).
Two, the Wehrmacht at its peak contained 18.2 million men and Japanese army about the same. Most of the army would still be busy fighting a war with the remaining countries (Russia, possibly Britain, Australia), with peacekeeping in other regions (China, Europe), or would be dead from fighting. This would leave about few hundred thousand to garrison the entire US and to defend from an invasion from Canada. I would be impossible to keep the entire US under control and put a reasonable amount of troops in the Canadian-US border. Resistance groups would form all over the place, becuase of the lack of troops.
Three, geographical, it would be a disaster. The two large mountain ranges, lack of any rivers going west-east, and the sheer area would cause an extremely slow reaction time to any resistance, allowing the resistance to grow. FYI, resistances do have a snowballing effect, if they start succeeding, then more and more people join and more and more headaches for the invaders. And any smart American resistance would sabatoge all the railroads and means of transportation, slowing down reaction time even further. Supplies would take a long time to get to whereever its needed, meaning inland troops would have some serious supply issues. Not to mention you're fighting in someone else's homeland, where they know the place much better.
Four, CANADA (first time..... canada matters
). Canada would obviously help push the invaders out, because Axis-control of the US would mean someone's on Canada's doorstep. Waging a war with the invaders would draw even more troops away from garrison duty.Basically, what im saying is that any occupation of the US wouldn't last very long because of these reasons.
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Faeelin said:
Yep I doubt that the entire world united could have conquered the US in say five years following 1945 because of logistic and geographic but mainly because of the industrial power of US. At no point in history have any country been so dominating in industrial output as the US 1945. The US relative position in the world have been in quite steady relative decline ever since then.
I fail to see how can Canadian invasion be so threatening to the Axis in the US. The population was pretty small. (I think 15 million or so). Today, it's 30 million and that's only 1/3 of US population today.Qwerty123 said:If somehow the US was occupied, the US would have reacted the same way as the Europeans. Most of the people would have reluctanly accepted the fact that the Germans or Japanese rule over their countries now, out of fear for their families and some would rebel and resist the Germans/Japanese. Though I would believe that the US resistance would eventually throw off the Axis invaders, due to logistics and a couple of other factors.
One, America is an ocean away from either Axis, meaning that supplies and reinforcements would take a while to get here (and if they aren't ambushed by military forces first).
Two, the Wehrmacht at its peak contained 18.2 million men and Japanese army about the same. Most of the army would still be busy fighting a war with the remaining countries (Russia, possibly Britain, Australia), with peacekeeping in other regions (China, Europe), or would be dead from fighting. This would leave about few hundred thousand to garrison the entire US and to defend from an invasion from Canada. I would be impossible to keep the entire US under control and put a reasonable amount of troops in the Canadian-US border. Resistance groups would form all over the place, becuase of the lack of troops.
Three, geographical, it would be a disaster. The two large mountain ranges, lack of any rivers going west-east, and the sheer area would cause an extremely slow reaction time to any resistance, allowing the resistance to grow. FYI, resistances do have a snowballing effect, if they start succeeding, then more and more people join and more and more headaches for the invaders. And any smart American resistance would sabatoge all the railroads and means of transportation, slowing down reaction time even further. Supplies would take a long time to get to whereever its needed, meaning inland troops would have some serious supply issues. Not to mention you're fighting in someone else's homeland, where they know the place much better.
Four, CANADA (first time..... canada matters
Basically, what im saying is that any occupation of the US wouldn't last very long because of these reasons.
Why occupy? The SOP is to set up a puppet government, train their security forces until they can suppress any insurgents and then pull out.
rgds/EoE
rgds/EoE
bmk1st said:
That'd be 15 million more soldiers and potential factory workers than the Axis'd be facing without Canada involved, making an already hopeless situation still more hopeless.
BTW, I'm assuming you meant 1/9. The population of the US today is about to break 300 million (it should happen next year), and rising fast.
I´m fan of "What If" games, in one of those about the showdown between Japan and the Axis both sides use alot of "Natives". Ameroindians (Japan) and KKK & Volkdeutshe (Germany) which makes me wonder how hard it would be to setup puppetforces for ockupation duties? What kind of influence did "the Bund" have among germans in the US?
arc3371 said:
Very little. The vast majority of Americans of German descent came before the unification and were economic, political, and in some cases religious(later) migrants. Also most were from Bavaria and the Western and North Western portions of Germany, NOT Prussian. Americans almost always have a cultural connection to their country of origin but very rarely have a political one. If they do it usually evaporates when those politics are cast into one of aggression. Like Irish Post 9-11, Germany and Japan WW2, or Russia Cold War.
arc3371 said:
When the Bund was seen as a cultural type club for promoting exchange between Germans in the U.S. and Germany it had wide popular support with German Americans. When the Nazi's tried to convert it into a propaganda outlet, and then into a source of organization for German/American resistance it failed miserably. Note also that any political ties between American Germans and Germany proper had already been effectively cut off in WWI.
bmk1st said:
Nitpick - 1/10th the population. The bigger issue with Canada is that it is culturally and linguisticly identical to the U.S. A partisan movement based in the U.S. could freely recieve support from Canada, and/or base itself from within Canada with near perfect concealment within the Canadian population. Failing that, the land area of Canada is ~ the same as that of the U.S. This represents a doubling of the geographic area that must at the very least be kept under tabs to prevent an area of organized resistance from developing into open revolt.
Yeah. And the Mexicans were at war with Germany too in that period, starting from 1942 iirc. It would be an amusing fictive scenario to see Canadian and Mexican troops fighting with American troops in defense of the continent from the Germans or Japanese
jacob-Lundgren said:maybe they are the ones who armed him
I'm Southern. We're all armed to the teeth.
Rocketman said:I'm Southern. We're all armed to the teeth.
I've seen Deliverance: you don't have teeth!
:rofl:
Obviosuly the Confedaracy was a different time, and a quarter of the size of the union, but doesnt its occupation and subsequent reintergration into the union, suggest that there is nothing inherantly different about American culture that procludes eventual submission by the vast majority once occupied.
Major Sharpe said:
Very interesting argument. :sits back down and waits for americans to answer to this: