Moopy Mac: funmonger: Apik0r0s: Not at ALL what I said. Read it again. Attacking Russia would be monumentally stupid of China, there's some ugly history there that doesn't need to be re-visited.

As opposed to the uglier history of China fighting the US. Oh, sorry... the UN.

Your theory still doesn't make sense, no matter how many times I read it. You said China needs Oil... so, um, how will grabbing the Spratlys give them that Oil?

Attacking Russia makes the most sense if China needs oil so badly that it's willing to fight for it. Attacking the US is suicide and you know it.

The better question is why attack anyone to get oil in this day and age? In the 1930s and 40s it made some sense as the international trade in energy hadn't really begun in earnest, so you needed to control the source itself. Now it would seem easier and cheaper to just buy energy on the open market.

The international energy trade began in earnest in the late 19th century. The big corporations freely traded around the world much like they do now, the only thing different is the profit split between production companies and host nations. In the example of Japan, which had no production, they required American oil companies to maintain a 6 month inventory of supplies in order to be allowed to trade in the country, such supplies supplementing the emergency oil they purchased during the leadup to the embargo. Western companies, while they didn't like it, were too worried that their competitors would gain the market share and were thus willing to invest in the inventory.

funmonger: Apik0r0s: Same motive Japan had.

Oil.

Why the fark would they attack the US for oil? Makes more sense to attack Russia. They're weaker than the US, they're right next door, and they have plenty of oil. Hell, attacking Canada for oil makes far more sense than attacking the US.

I take it you don't know where most Russian oil is? The early cold war pissing match over Iran in 1946 was precisely about buffer zones for Russia's oil holdings, and an attempt to get at the British holdings in Iran. To my knowledge, they haven't found much oil at all near the border with China.

And, the Chinese don't need to attack us for our oil, that would be silly. They simply need to do the same thing the Japanese did, attempt to take the oil rich islands of south east asia and hope they can wield them to the Chinese economy in the face of American naval opposition. The Japanese tried and failed, mainly because they had a similar sense of racial superiority as the modern Chinese, and felt that the United States was too soft to spend the blood and treasure we needed to dislodge them from their new empire. I'm personally on the fence whether or not the Chinese will make a similar gamble, but to say that they won't ignores the historical precedent of a power much weaker than they are today who tried that same thing.

Or, they could just be smart about it and negotiate for some oil concessions of their own. Surely they could use some of those massive foreign currency reserves to bribe some third world dictators like the western multinationals have done.

ha-ha-guy: signaljammer: There was no embargo against Japan in July of 1941.

That's precisely when it started.

Well that and all our aid to the KMT, who Japan was at war with. We'd been supporting Chiang Kai-shek to varying degrees for a long time. Declaring war on us, France and the UK in theory gave Japan a chance to cut off Chinese supplies (American shipping, the Burma Road, and French Indochina).

That was one of the conditions of the Japanese ultimatum that Cordell Hull rejected in November. One, they wanted us to sell them oil again, and two, they wanted us to stop giving aid to the Guomindang. Hull wasn't taking that shiat, and FDR welcomed the opening of the back door that he discussed with Churchill.

funmonger: Syphilis_Smile: I take it you don't know where most Russian oil is? The early cold war pissing match over Iran in 1946 was precisely about buffer zones for Russia's oil holdings, and an attempt to get at the British holdings in Iran. To my knowledge, they haven't found much oil at all near the border with China.

I have no idea where the oil is. I know Russia has some, more than China does, and attacking the US - as TFA purports to be a possibility - is suicidal when compared to attacking Russia. I'm not saying that fighting the Russians would be easy... but who would YOU rather fight for oil? US or Russia? This is my sole point, all logistics other than proximity aside.

And, the Chinese don't need to attack us for our oil, that would be silly. They simply need to do the same thing the Japanese did, attempt to take the oil rich islands of south east asia and hope they can wield them to the Chinese economy in the face of American naval opposition. The Japanese tried and failed, mainly because they had a similar sense of racial superiority as the modern Chinese, and felt that the United States was too soft to spend the blood and treasure we needed to dislodge them from their new empire. I'm personally on the fence whether or not the Chinese will make a similar gamble, but to say that they won't ignores the historical precedent of a power much weaker than they are today who tried that same thing.

I'm pretty sure the bold above means Attacking America.

By the way, the Japanese didn't fail due to a perceived sense of racial superiority. Tactical blunders (Pearl Harbor, Going all-Naval in the Pac Rim rather than all-army in Manchuria) and bad luck (Midway) did that just fine.

The Chinese aren't going to gamble jack. They have waaaay more to lose attacking America, and not just from America. India would love to crush a weakened China, as might Russia. It would be a repeat of the days of the Dowager Empress if China tried any such tomfoolery, and they know that better t ...

The Japanese plan was actually to attack the British and the Dutch. However they knew the United States was signing defense treaties with their European friends, so that meant the U.S. fleet would sortie out on Plan Orange with the start of hostilities. To make the best use of their naval forces, therefore, they decided to give up on the original Decisive Battle strategy which called for luring the Amerian fleet across the Pacific, hitting them with fleet subs along the way to reduce their numbers, and then surprising them with a night-time Long Lance attack of the type that was so effective in the waters around Guadalcanal. They instead allowed Yamamoto to take the British lead at Taranto to knock out the U.S. fleet in Pearl Harbor to allow their ships to freely tackle what became known as the ABDA command.

I don't understand your comment on the tactical benefit of Manchuria. There was no oil in Manchuria, and the Japanese efforts to mimic the German Bergius/Fischer Tropsch industrial facilities to make synthetic gasoline from Manchu coal were barely under way in 1941. The Japanese already knew they could not effectively invade the Soviet Union, so what were they going to accomplish? They would have run out of gas long before they reached the Soviet oil fields in present day Azerbaijan.

Hell, the only real tactical blunder in the list you gave was Midway, which you chalk up as bad luck. The other major error was that they neglected anti-submarine warfare because they felt Americans could never endure the discomfort of underwater life. I'd say you should trust me when I say that the Japanese had unrealistic expectations for the way the war would be fought, and denied to the very end that they would lose, due nearly entirely to their sense of racial superiority.