I don't agree with your assessment.
1) the USSR is much weaker than history presented; its population data was faked and its industrial output is not as great as the statistics implied. i.e. a lot of statisticians did not believe that the 123 million population of USSR was real especially when Stalin purged and replace the census chief after he failed to show that the USSR was hitting the 5 year plan specified population limits - which his successor quickly matched in his census..
I am not entirely sure which history you were reading. Soviet propaganda claimed Soviet population to have been 190 million in 1941, hence the Soviet patroitic rallying cry of "You can't hang all 190 million of us" during the second phase of battle of Moscow, Dec 1941 - May 1942. But most modern sources agree Soviet population on the eve of Russo-German war was in reality around 170 million, not "less than 123 million". There were 105 million Russians alone, plus the population of the other Soviet republics.
German population in 1940, on the other hand was 69 million. Total number of
volksdeutsche in all territories the Nazis lusted for, which the Nazis believed could have been integrated into the greater Reich, was around 80 million. Many of these would have been inaccessible had Germany not gone to war with the USSR. In Himmler's Aryan fantasy he believed he could raise the number of volksdeutsche to 100 million in all of lands Germany intended to conqueror through large scale fertility campaigns by
1980. German occupation had always been brutally exploitative. It was not the Nazi way to even attempt to give people not regarded as volksdeutsche anything like the training and education needed to achieve anything near their full productive potential. In 1941, the total population of German occupied areas was perhaps 110 million, of which about 20 million the Nazis have already earmarked for verious forms of extermination, and another 20 million living in various states of disenfranchisement and demotivation.
With small exceptions, the quality of German satellite troops were not only far below those of Germany, it was in most cases below the troops fielded by the USSR from late 1942 onwards. Also, German satellites might appear united with Germany in hatred of soviet communism, they were deeply divided by mutural suspicion, as well as deep wariness of how the Nazis evidently did business. Where they can, they excel at frustrating Hitler's expectations of their contribution. They can hardly be counted as anything like equivalent of what their nominal population size might suggest.
2) Germany, had not yet developed or integrated her conquest in WW2, give her a few more years vis a vis the USSR, Germany could have called on a lot more. if major land war was postponed, you would have seen the development of Romanian, Hungarian, - basically eastern European resources. You also have Spain and Vinchy France - which you can debate the percentage of ultilization rates; but my point is that Germany had not even reached her plateau; even her own rearmament programs are incomplete and her armies are still horse drawn and not motorized. Give Speer 2 years and I bet you that industrial Axis would be much stronger.
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Albert Speer's consolidation would not have amounted to much without Hitler's decision to maximize war production AFTER the defeat at Stalingrad. Up until that diseaster, German economy was not really even on a war footing after 3 years of real war. Even in 1942 70 million Germans plus all their occupied subjects were still being handily outproduced by a mere 47 million British. Soviet peacetime armament production far exceeded, with heavy emphasis on far, that of Germany in the lead up to war, when Germany was rearming as fast as possible through an unsustainably inflationsary policy of arms procurement. Soviet UNion produced about 5 times as many tanks between 1935 and 1941 as did Germany. This was based on German estimates after capturing or destroying nearly that many tanks in 1941.
Hitler was always mindful of the crumbling of the German homefront near the end of WWI as result of privations imposed by war economy. Hitler thought maintainance of quasi-peactime economy was essential for popular support for Nazi rule. It took success of the concerted
Totaler Krieg – Kürzester Krieg campaign after Stalingrad to convince Hitler that German population will accept a total war economy without rebelling. Even then Hitler personally intervened to water down many of the rationalization and production increasing measures undertaken by various Nazi gauleiters to keep up civilian morale. There was a farcical episold told in Goebbel's diary in which Hitler countermended Goebbels' order to close Berlin Beauty Salons in interest of war economy for the fear of losing the support of German hausfraus. Hitler advised Goebbels to not try anything like that again. If Germany didn't face heavy defeat, it is absolutely implausible that Hitler would chose to try to fully exploit German productive potential.
Yet USSR would continue to heavily outproduce Germany throughout the entire war, including the vaunted Speer period AFTER 1943.
I think evidence is strong that despite lower state of Soviet economic development, the overall social economic constraints on Germany is such that Soviet capacity to devote her available industry toward armament production during peace time vastly exceeds that of Nazi Germany. Soviet capacity to utilize her available industry towards war production in war time still surpass that of Nazi Germany across the board even when the Nazis were doing the very utmost they could in extremis. In most cases German armaments were more sophisticated, but also disproportionally more resource intensive. So in many cases available German industry that is devoted to war production is not as well applied towards war fighting effectiveness as their equivalent Soviet industries.
So long term demographic and fundamental economic outlook of a Germany that did not attack Soviet Union in 1941, taking into account the track record and outlook of the respective regimes, is not as rosy as you might imagine.
Well, why not? Depending on which history you read, Stalin was known to have planed to wage war with Germany in 1942/3. The soviet doctrine of "deep battle" is all about offense in the enemy territory; soviet troops disposition in 1941 are all in attack formation. i.e. heavily built up towards the border. When the Israelis saw the Arab buildup in 1967, they too seized the iniative and preemptive attacked; so it is not wrong to think that the soviet union will attack Germany.
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Stalin personally ruled Soviet military doctrine prior to the diseasters of Barbarossa and Taifun, and Stalin didn't believe in the Deep battle doctrine.
Deep battle was the brain child of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who had been a bitter internal enemy of Stalin's since the Russian civil war. Tukhachevsky was purged and executed in 1937, and Stalin denounced Deep battle doctrine as a German or Japanese plant to faciliate the quick defeat of the red army during a war.
After the purge Stalin ordered radical realignment of red army back to the massed infantry based force with armor in infantry supporting role.
But in 1941, success of German blitzkreig forced another rethink of Soviet doctrine. However it is questionable whether red army's strategic reorientation really is represents a return to deep battle doctrine with its emphasis on deception, high mobility, deep penetration over absolute fighting power of the field formation because this is very different from the Blitzkreig tactics the Germans practiced. Blitzkrieg relies on getting inside the enemy's tactical decision loop to put overwhelming pressure at the focal point of a battle to destroy the enemy field army. BlitzKreig prioritzed fighting power of mobile formations. Deep battle relies on getting inside of the enemy's operational and strategic decision loop to defeat the enemy along the entire depth of his war disposition without necessarily heavily engaging his field army. If there had not been the hammerblow defeats of 1941 and 1942, I suspect "deep battle" would remain a hushed phrase in Soviet military whose utterance could belight a career if not incurr the fatal wrath of the boss.
Concepts of deep battle didn't become menifest with Soviet military operations until late 1942, when Stalin learned through the hamer blows of defeats suffered in 1941 and 1942 to take a back seat to field commanders like Georgi Zhukov and Konstantine Rokosovsky. But the Soviet Army really didn't became fully capable of putting whole of deep battle doctrine into action until summer of 1944 and Operation Bagration.
Also the USSR benefited greatly from WW2 and the UK lost arguably the most.
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It's doubtful what Britain lost she really lost through the war. WW2 so happen to breakout during a period when UK was probably on the way towards losing most of it anyway.
Britain decided to sharply reduce training of colonial civil servants in general, and stop the training of civil servants for India altogther, in the late 1930s, in implicit recongnition that war or no war, Britain in 20-30 years would no longer be the globe spanning colonial empire. The war largely cleared the globe of most direct threats to British empire, destroyed much the world's productive capacity, and left British economy relatively much stronger compare to the rest of the world than it had been before the war. If there had been no war, not only would there have been 3 more formidable direct military threats to the British Empire spread around the globe, but would seen the world's productive power undiminished, and Britain's share in it as low as it had ever been since middle of 19th century, and getting lower by the year.
Through the war the UK gained the US as a solid ally to prevent the rise of a single dominant continental opponent. Which even above the protection of its world wide empire, is the invariant core of British foreign policy. Would Britain accept a preeminiant Germany on the continent in return for security garranty of its world empire? I don't believe so. Nazi Germany's garranty garrantees nothing.
So I am not sure if UK really emerged weaker overall relative to the rest of the world then she would have been had there been no war. But I do admit Soviet Union emerged substantially stronger both internally and externally than she would have become had there been no war.
Absolutely no? I don't think so. Lets see:
1) the USA had a lot of red scare in the 20s and 30s
2) the idea of white supremacy (KKK and others) then popular in the USA is consistent with the Nazi ideal of Aryanism
3) the USA is pro eugenics in the 30s and pro Nazi eugenics:
Well, no matter what your view of FDR was, I believed him to be a great president, a patriot and an elected official who care about the ballot box. I am sorry if I offend everyone, but I do believe that he made the USA strong by cash and carry program that sold weapons and war material at highly inflated prices to European countries fighting Germany. The debt from lend lease fueled american industries and wreaked European economies for years to come. FDR was a true American whom put America first; and if the american public so please it to fight the Bolshevik rather than the Nazis - for justice against unprovoked war, or the warcrimes the USSR had commited, so be it - either way, the USA benefits.
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Nothing is absolute. But a lot is on the lunatic fringe. US was not in the war mainly to get rich at the expense of anyone who would bear the burden. US was in the war to ensure no other power aggrandize itself to the point of being able to seriously imperile long term American security interests. If USSR attacked Germany in 1942, she would have been defeated on a huge scale, and would have to bear the consequences of defeat for a signifcant amount of time without the being able to resort to patriotic ferver inspired by German invasion. It is doubtful Stalin himself would survive and not be putsched in the face of calamitous outcome of the gamble to attack Germany. Statistical chance says whoever succeeds Stalin would not be as ruthless as Stalin, and it is an open question whether Soviet Union herself would hold together through the period when Germany successfully repulse Soviet invasion and subsequent inevitable Nazi antagonization of population of western Soviet Union. Nazi germany would have become comparatively much stronger as a result. Germany would have first actively aggrandized itself, then if Soviet Union attacked Germany would have further passively aggrandized itself. Germany would undoubtedly became the second power in the world as a result, and would have become by far the greater annoyance to America. What could a Nazi Germany in this position possibly be willing to do for America to overcome American distaste for Nazism and unease at so powerful an impalatable and uncontained state in Euroasia heartland?
I don't agree again. there is many reasons which China would support Japan and vice versa. Just that the Hakko ichiu exist doesn't mean that it had to be carried out in a specific way... Just like one of the "wrongs" of Britain to cause the US to declare independence is because the British forbid "america" to take over french speaking Quebec... that doesn't mean that the USA will invade Canada for Quebec nowadays.
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Would Japan not want peace with China?
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It is irrelevent whether it
had to be carried out in a specific way. The fact is it
was always carried out in a specific way, by an army dominated and immensely influential clique that in this, as well as in many others fields, showed absolutely no meaningful flexibility.
Japan wants peace with China only if China existed as nothing more than a name on a map of Japanese empire. Nothing more. The Japanese would probably then change the name. Japanese army as well as army led national leadership of 1930s and war time was doctrinallywedded to the notion that for Japan it was all or nothing, and Japan could get all and therefore need to settle for nothing less than all. Therefore until it actually lost everything, it saw no reason to settle for anything less than everything.
Japan would not allow the continued existence of any China that could wield a armed force and can engage in any foreign or defence policy not dictated from Tokyo. For china to get anything from the war with Japan must be defeated on a scale China could not possibly manage herself, and be left with essentially nothing. This was indeed how China survived the war.
If
Lee teng hui can show how Chinese leaders can be totally pro Japan of that period... or Wang jing wei...
... but lets say:
1) China recognize Korea as a part of Japan
2) China recognize Indochina and Malaysia as a part of Japan
3) Chinese market is open to Japanese goods - China's GDP is still 3X that of Japan
4) China supplies raw material for Japanese factories
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Lee Teng-hui is on record pronouncing himself to have never been Chinese, but rather he was Japanese first, and then Taiwanese second. You might say he stated for the record after his presidency that it was his plan to sell out Taiwan to Japan as much as he can all along.
But Lee achieved his position in Taiwan and could say what he said without being lynched for a reason. Taiwan is in a position totally different from China. Taiwan has no collective memory of brutal Japanese occupation. Taiwan had been near the outer limits of Chinese influence before Japan annexed it and native Taiwanese never felt particularly attached to China. Taiwan became established as a relatively pacified Japanese colony when the more liberal side of Japanese political spectrum still existed and was in a position of influence. Taiwan was perhaps the only Japanese colony which Japan administered with any degree of lenience and enlightenment, and concern for the welfare of natives. Taiwanese memory of Japanese occupation was not all too unpleasant, and it contrasts with brutal mistreatment meted out by the nationalists KMT regime when that latter reestablished Chinese rule over Taiwan after WWII. So that fact that Lee and many Taiwanese natives would think well of Japan and identify more with Japan than with China offers no insight into what the rest of China might think of Japan and might do in relation to Japan. It hardly seems likely that a
China that has not been totally defeated by Japan could possibly have put a person like that in its leadership position. Anyone suspected of Lee's sentiment in China, even today, would be unlikely to die in his bed.
As to Wang jing wei, notice he singularly failed to extract any worthwhile concession from the Japanese eventhough at the time it would have benefitted Japan immensely to give Wang jing wei meaningful concessions in order to undermine the credibility of Jiang's nationalist regime in Chungking and the overall resistance against Japanese in China. Again, Japanese actions show the striking boneheadedness of Japanese wartime leadership in that it would not concede, even temporaily, any ounce of what Japan imagine she would eventually get, which is just about everything on the Asian Continent.
It also shows Japan of 1930s and 1940s had zero intention of treating China in any way similar to how a different Japan of 1900s and 1910s set the course for how it would treat Taiwan.
All I have to say, I don't believe that history is destined to happen and if it is, then there is no point of any what-ifs scenario.
If what if the scenario ignores many key historic constraints, then it is just idle speculation without the capacity to offer insight into how events really interplay and what alternative outcomes are really plausible. The best what-if is a scenario which calculatingly and plausibly loosen just one or a very few specific constraints. This kind of though experiment offer much more potential of insight into how the world really works.
