Saturday, February 14, 2009

A What If Question

Now I know this post is irrelevant and random, but hey, what are blogs for? Anyway in History class we’ve been studying WWI. We learned about the U.S entry into the war. And the question arrived; what if America had never entered WWI? At first I thought that maybe the Treaty of Versailles (the treaty at the end of WWI that imposed strict punishments on Germany, and set the seeds for the next war) wouldn’t have imposed such harsh conditions on Germany because they would have won so absolutely without the aid of American soldiers. Or perhaps the Germans would have won. Or maybe neither would have won and the war would have ended in a stalemate. But that was before I remembered Japan. Ever since modernization Japan had long been the superpower of the East. They had defeated China several times, and gained some territory. They had also defeated Russia. In WWI Japan was rich and strong. “Japan, when she entered the war, was at least twice as strong as when she bcgan [began] the war with Russia. She had an army of one million men, and a navy double the size of that which she had possessed when the Treaty of Portsmouth [the treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese war. The first war in the modern era that an Asian country had defeated a European country] was signed.” I found this quote here. Japan was one of the Allies for WWI and attacked outposts of Germany in China, and some pacific islands. Japan defeated the Germans easily. It’s conceivable that if America had never entered the war Japan would have taken our place as the Allies’ savior. An argument at the end of WWI was that Japan wanted the land from their conquests and the other Allies refused. If Japan was the nation that had rocketed the Allies to victory it is doubtful they would have denied its request for more land. Japan had proved that it had an expansionist policy. With more land, thus more riches and resources perhaps the U.S would have faced a Cold War, not with the Soviet Union, but the Japanese Empire.

2 comments:

  1. An intriguing post, Temujin. Did the Japanese have ponies? (just kidding).

    Sounds like the makings of a good novel...

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  2. And if 'what if' historical scenarios interest you check out Philip Roth's The Plot Against America

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