If I may, I'd like to counter this point. The important thing to remember here is that the possibility of German aggression is what forced through the re-armament policies in both Britain and France. If there is no Hitler and possibility of a Continental war, then most likely re-armament would have started at an even slower pace then when Hitler was threatening the continent with war. Would that not actually make the British and French weaker to respond to Japanese aggression? I'm aware that before Hitler's rise the British did indeed consider the Japanese to be their main opponents, not sure about the French though, and on paper the RN did meet the requirements needed to match the IJN. But even then the British conceeded that their replacement of obsolete ships in the 1930s was moving at a slow rate. Also without Hitler, the British most likely would not embark on their naval expansion in the mid 30s to deal with the dual threat of Japan and Germany and therefore might only continue with their previous plan against Japan which was already felt as inadequate.Ziggy Stardust wrote:Even if we grant the Japanese as complete a surprise victory as they got historically in 1941 (which I must stress is incredibly unlikely without the war in Europe raging ... the British and French would have certainly sent more forces to the East if Europe was peaceful), there will immediately be large scale reinforcements of a kind that the Pacific NEVER saw (not even in 1945) during the war. The Japanese would likely be defeated even if the U.S. didn't get involved for some reason
And as for the British Army, we're already aware that they were at the bottom of the food chain when it came to resource allocation in the mid 30s re-armament programmes. Before the threat of Germany was even considered, their priority was even lower in relation to the other Services. Importantly, the Munich Crisis is what led to the Army getting a massive overhaul and without Hitler there would be little reason for there to be one, as in the early 30s when Japan was viewed as the main threat, there was little expansion or re-armament of the Army.
Also we need to remember financial considerations as well. The reason why Britain was able to ignore the financial constraints of re-armament was because Hitler's Germany was a real threat to the survival of Britain. If the only real threat was Japan, though threatening some of the colonies but not the Home Islands, its doubtful if the British would have embarked on a massive re-armament on the scale of what they did with Germany just to counter Japan.
Obviously with no threat of war with Germany, France and Britain would have been able to strengthen the colonies, but what exactly would they strengthen them with? As we know, massive British and French(?) re-armament was related to a more aggressive Germany, and quite clearly based on early 30s plans against Japan, although on paper the British met their needs for countering Japan, in reality they were inadequate. Of course Singapore would have actually had more ships, but would the quality of these ships be top-notch? Yes more troops would have been sent, but due to a lack of re-armament they might actually be worse off then the ones that were sent in reality.
And I'm not sure what is meant by "massive" reinforcements that would surpass the 1945 levels. Does this include only the British Pacific Fleet of 1945 or the US forces as well? Well if only the BPF is considered then yes, maybe reinforcements would surpass those levels. But if its meant to include the US Navy then that is highly unlikely. The US Navy of 1945 was possibly the largest modern navy ever assembled and I highly doubt that "pre-rearmament" Royal and French navies combined even come close to the number of modern ships deployed by the Americans. Also did not the Americans deploy most of the fleet in the Pacific War anyway? Logistics and maintaining these "massive" reinforcements are also other tricky issues. Also I have to add that according to Max Hastings, in his book Retribution, the war in the Far East never captured the imagination or popularity as the war in Europe did with the British public. Would the British public tolerate deploying millions of men to fight for a bunch of exotic colonies. And how would they defeat Japan without American help? The British already thought that invading Japan was impractical and its doubtful that they could implement a successful blockade of Japan without destroying the Japanese fleet. And even if there was a blockade, we know in reality that even with a stronger blockade in place by the Americans, Japan had refused to surrender. Also I'm not entirely sure but didn't the British lack amphibious transportation anyway? I recall they were reliant on American support for some of their operations in Europe. Also massive reinforcements are conditional on re-armamanet programmes in Europe and without Hitler that isn't happening.
Basically I doubt Britain and France could defeat Japan alone. Without the presence of Hitler and an aggressive Germany there is basically little reason to embark on the massive re-armament programmes we saw in the mid to late 30s. Therefore Britain and/or France would be engaging the Japanese with pre re-armament forces which are in themselves inadequate and obsolete. I'm not saying Japan could defeat both those powers either but it is a strong claim to make that Japan would have been defeated by what are essentially two weakened powers without the assistance of the US. Also I think the industrial might and the power of the US Navy were essential ingredients for victory over Japan. Lacking US involvement any conflict between Britain and Japan would most likely end up stale-mated. Though I agree that Japan most likely would not engage in conflict with Britain and the US without an aggressive Germany.
Sorry for bringing this up as the topic is two years old, but i found it strange that no one addressed these points.
