“Just when we learn how to play poker, they change the game to bridge.”
1930s: I think this is the most „interesting“ period of this timeline – there are many subtle differences in the courses of events that would go on to dominate the following decades and decide on the existence and nature of Eastasia. During the 1930s, Japan first began occupying territory on the Asian mainland. Since this happens before our putative POD, the developments can be considered unchanged. In OTL, the United States imposed economic sanctions upon Japan in response to this „barbaric act of colonialism“ (see the header quote), although the more likely, or at least equally likely, rationale was that the Japanese were threatening US and British economic interests in China. Imposition of these sanctions, which cut Japanese access to important resources vital to the war in China (such as oil), were a direct cause of the Japanese attacks against the Dutch East Indies and possibly other actions against European colonies.
Although in the timeline of Red Alert, World War II as we know it has never taken place due to the assassination of Hitler by time-travelling Albert Einstein, in Red Alert 2, the Arizona Memorial can be seen in missions set around Pearl Harbour, and the Iwo Jima Memorial is seen in missions set around Washington, DC. Although their presence could be explained in other ways, possibly by a Pacific theater against the Soviet Union, it’s parsimonious that the occurence, by the time of Red Alert 2, of a Japanse-American confrontation similar to the Pacific War of OTL was unaffected even by the absence of the European theater of World War II.
There is no grounds for assuming that the Second Sino-Japanese War, which provided much of the impetus for the later confrontation between the USA and Japan, would have been averted by the non-occurence of Hitler taking power in Europe, as it’s commencement is much earlier than the ascension of Hitler into power and the Tripartite Pact, (or any other developments in German-Japanese relations) by which Japan might have felt emboldened in its plans to attack the United States.
However, of a number of events the resolutions of which which Pat Buchanan claims in Why Did Japan Attack Us? to have caused the Pacific War, some would foreseeably have resolved differently in the absence of an European theater.
The Japanese invaded French Indochina in the aftermath of the French defeat by Germany in the European theater of World War II; it is conceivable that this had not occured if there was no French defeat. The US embargo on steel and scrap metal against Japan was a consequence of the Japanese invasion of French Indochina which likewise could have been avoided, and the embargo on oil, which caused the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies to secure the local oil fields, were the unintended result of the way in which the sanctions were drafted.
Buchanan mentions an even later Japanese proposal to, in return for a revocation of the US oil embargo, submit to a US-brokered peace deal with China and withdraw from Indochina and China, with the exception of maintaining a few possessions in northern China as a buffer against the Soviet Union. Although Buchanan does not give a description of which possessions the Japanese were going to maintain in China under this proposal, a Japanese puppet state in Manchuria seems likely, and Japan perhaps maintaining some coastal possessions in China outside Manchuria does not diverge greatly from the proposal. China would be split two ways, as the rest of the country would probably have fallen to the KMT, which would not have been weakened by a lenghty conflict. The remaining communists would be persecuted, likely successfully.
The US, “fearful of a second Munich”, rejected the offer. In the absence of a European theater, the decision would be made without the experience regarding appeasing Hitler, it may have been accepted.
A Japanese decision not to attack the USA in this situation would avoid the defeat by the USA, yet I think it is likely that the possessions in China could still not be maintained in the mid- to long-term if economic sanctions, particularly on oil, are maintained, there is no peace treaty, and there is no expansion into the Dutch East Indies to access the local oil reserves.
It is conceivable that even without USAmerican brokerage, there could have been a peace treaty between Japan and the KMT, if Japan unilaterally withdrew as offered in the peace proposal, although I cannot gauge the probability of this event, nor whether these possessions could have been held with the lack of oil imposed by the fuel embargo and without access to the Dutch East Indies oil fields.
It is also conceivable, of course, that Japan does attack the Dutch East Indies, but does not attack the USA, which historically was done to deter USAmerican intervention into the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies. If this does not provoke a USAmerican declaration of war, an event whose probability I cannot gauge, perhaps it would be possible for Japan to continue fueling its war effort in China to avoid defeat, or at least stave it off for a long time, while also avoiding confrontation and consequent defeat with the USA.
That, if sanctions are imposed, because none of these events diverge from OTL, or for other reasons, mutatis mutandis (absence of the German ally) and ceteris paribus, in fact lead to the attack on Pearl Harbour, may seem dubitable. I do not actually believe it very likely that the absence of their Germany ally would have made Japan more apprehensive about its decision to attack. Indeed, the rationale behind the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour doesn’t seem to have relied upon, or even considered, the existence of Japan’s European allies. If none of these events diverge from OTL, it thus seems plausible that we arrive at the Pacific War.
The absence of a simultaneous European theater would have no effect on the macropolitical outcome of this war favorable to a Japanese victory, however there is the possible implication that it would lead to a quicker Japanese defeat that results in the KMT being less weakened by fighting the Japanese and in a stronger position in the war against the Communists, thus avoiding a Communist victory in the Chinese civil war.
If these events diverge from OTL and the Pacific War does occur, unlikely as it may seem in this situation, however, it is unclear how much of an argument any of these divergences are for a less drastic military response against Japan in the timeline of Red Alert 2, in which nuclear weapons exist.
However, one repercussions of the absence of the Hitlerists in far-away Germany would ironically work in Japan’s favour – without the genocidal Antijudaism of the 30s and 40s, scientists important to the USAmerican atomic bomb program would have perhaps stayed in Europe and the atomic bomb would never have been created, or created much later, perhaps in Europe. The result is a lack of nuclear weapons and in the Red Alert branch. Presumably, ceteris paribus, the outcome, then, would be identical to that of Red Alert 3.
In the timeline of Red Alert 3, the assassination of Einstein takes place at the 1927 Solvay Conference. Consequently, and YMMV on plausibility, nuclear weapons are not developed. The absence of nuclear weapons is a prerequisite of Japan’s presence as a world power in Red Alert 3, following from the contentious assumption that the US may be apprehensive about committing the necessary resources to attempt an invasion of the Home Islands, Operation Olympic (or the even more contentious assumption of a successful Operation Ketsugō, defense of the Home Islands). The Japanese would subsequently keep their monarchy, independence and perhaps even are not made to relinquish some colonial possessions on the mainland, even in defeat.
A corollary to Einstein’s assassination is that this timeline lacks the conditions for the invention of the time machine, which occurs in the timeline of Red Alert after World War II. Hence, ceteris paribus, Hitler was not assassinated in the timeline of Red Alert 3, which for the European theater results in nothing else but the version of World War II of OTL. In this situation, the arguments for an avoidance of war are invalid. However, this aspect of the universe of Red Alert 3 is undefined, and it is certainly possible to posit an arbitrary alternate aethiology for the invention of the time machine and its use for the same purpose, or the removal of Hitler and the NSDAP as historic factors due to reasons entirely unrelated to time travel. As the invention of a time machine is already implausible except under widely divergent nomological assumptions, I am unable to comment on the plausibility of the former: under the laws of nature of the Red Alert branch, it may very well be that a reasonably bright but otherwise nondescript AT&T filing clerk ends up inventing a time machine in his basement office in 1947 and it ends up being used for the same purpose, neither do I know whether the historical fact that Hitler survives and becomes an important political factor is actually the “plausible”, that is, likely one.
※ This touches upon the question of whether a branching timeline only includes such changes as are caused directly by the point of divergence, or whether, in rewriting the entire playbook, quantum butterfly effects may impinge upon the events within the period in question, just as they would have in the original writing, thus leading to events completely uncaused in their occurence, if not their characteristics, by the original divergence event. This may itself be a question whose answer depends on universe-specific nomology. That additional divergences are a plausible assumption for the whole Red Alert branch is reinforced as, of course, Red Alert 3 presents us with incredible technic leaps that are somewhat challenging the suspension of disbelief if we assume the only point of divergence was a Japanese victory in World War II. However, although additional divergences may seem like a more plausible explanation if we have to explain the technological development of a universe looking like that of Red Alert 3, it is not clear whether the writer(s) intended there to be any divergences except those which follow from their defined point of divergence – or, in fact, whether we can assume this timeline to have been imagined by them with this degree of “ontologically completeness” at all.
I think the question that pivots the USAmerican decision regarding conditions of surrender is whether all parties involved perceive the Soviet Union as the dominant threat. However, the question is whether, in OTL, the USA would have prevented and not rather appreciated a hypothetical Japanese military intervention in the Chinese Civil War against the Communists, in the Korean War or even the Vietnam War. It is my assumption that reduced Japanese militarism following the defeat in World War II is not the result of USAmerican orders to the Japanese government to abstain from such policies, but rather, is the product of a sudden turn to pacifism that followed defeat in World War II. It is also possible that such intervention would not have resulted in territorial concessions towards Japan, although to think that post-war Japan would even consider to propose intervention in the Korean War in return for the establishment of its colonial rule on the peninsula, or in the Vietnam War for territorial concessions there, seems absurd.
This turn away from militarism may be caused by the psychological effects of defeat, or the sheer loss of manpower. Given the post-war economic miracle, it cannot plausibly be linked to a loss of industrial capacity, although the development of industry and wealth may itself lend itself to make people complacent and pacifistic, so that by the time recovery has occured, people find themselves with an urge to avail themselves to wealth within the booming economic system. Finally, the loss of control over areas may itself make military operation more difficult and costly than the maintainance of control in territories never lost, especially if control was originally established in a fortuitous moment of technological or organizational superiority, and the areas in question have since then caught up in the relevant fields, so that once Japanese occupation is removed from these areas, intervention at a later point is deterred, whereas merely maintaining occupation may not be. Thus, the USA, intending to keep Japan as an ally whose military strength is less curtailed than it is in OTL in order to provide greater containment of Soviet power in Asia would plausibly have greater motivation to abstain from those impositions which also follow from the unwilligness, without this greater motivation implausible, to commit to an invasion of the Home Islands, or the unlikely occurrence of a successful Japanese defense. Of course, depending on the situation at the end of the USAmerican will to fight, such a peace proposal would possibly amount to the Japanese peace proposal mentioned earlier and presumably rejected by the US in a timeline in which a USAmerican-Japanese confrontation occurs at all. I’m not sure, though, how the USA would navigate a war against a fanatical enemy unwilling to concede surrender at all. It would be interesting to see how the Japanese would react against an enemy who refuses to advance further against them.
The threat posed by the Soviet Union may further provide impetus for the coalescence of the superstate of Eastasia. I’m uncertain whether it is likely that the Soviet Union would have invaded Manchuria at anywhere near the same time as it did in OTL if Japan is not allied to a Nazi Germany which invades the Soviet Union. OTL, there is a casus belli and the opportunity for Stalin to make gains of territorial influence, and the latter has repeatedly been enough of a motivation. That Japan is part of the Tripartite Pact does not itself create a credible motive of threat or revenge. In the Red Alert timeline, there is an absence of a casus belli, but all else remains equal. However, it appears that Stalin was largely motivated by the requests of the western Allies, who desired a second front against Japan in the Pacific War. If there is no Nazi Germany against which the Soviet Union is in an alliance with any faction desiring a second front against Japan, such an invasion may not happen.
If the Pacific War is averted or ends early, and relations between the USA and Japan are cordial, there is a peace agreement between Japan and the KMT, these may serve as deterrent factors. If Japan is expulsed from China in one of the ways described above and China is ruled by the KMT, I’m not sure about the implications, but given that territorial gains made by the Soviet Union were largely returned to KMT control, it seems unlikely that the invasion would have taken place.
However, in Red Alert, we are told that there is an Asian theater to World War II in that timeline: the Soviet Union invades China and Japan is fighting the Soviet invasion on the mainland. This doesn’t imply Japan’s cordial relations, or membership in any international organization that would connect, with the US or the European countries which appear in Red Alert as the “Allies”, but may simply have amounted to co-belligerence. It also doesn’t imply that Japan is occupying parts of the mainland, and military forces may just have been deployed there in response and cooperation with continental Asian countries. The timing of World War II in the Red Alert timeline coincides with the Korean War of OTL. In absence of the Soviet invasion of Korea, there is no Soviet-aligned North Korea in this time and timeline. In OTL, North Korean partisans were supported by the Soviet Union and sheltered on Soviet territory during their struggle to liberate Korea prior to the Soviet invasion of Korea and the establishment of North Korea. We can imagine this situation to continue for another five years longer in the timeline of Red Alert than it did OTL, and the Korean partisans then join a Soviet invasion of Korea that is homologous to the Korean War of OTL and occurs contemporaneously to an invasion of Manchuria and the European theater of World War II of Red Alert.
It is possible that an alliance between the local powers dates to the peace deal between Japan and the KMT (with Korea, as a Japanese colony, as the junior partner), crafted by the US as a regional defense pact for just this purpose. It may also be that the peace deal did not bloom into a real alliance until the common effort of repelling the Soviet invasion.
A possible and entirely unanticipated result (yet one I believe I have seen in some alternative history novel) is that Japan aligns with the Soviet Union. It’s hard to gauge how Stalin measures what qualifies as being under his influence, and whether the Japanese paying lip service and framing their operations – credibly – as anti-colonial struggle against the European powers would qualify. I believe this development unlikely, and in case, this is not what happened in Red Alert.
In The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, a book in the fictional universe of 1984 which expounds the history of this world, it is said that the three superstates have been fighting each other for 25 years by the titular year of 1984, so since 1959. By that year, thus, all three superstates must have come into existence, though we cannot rule out that they were all three formed before.*
This implies that the founding is not the end of a series of conquests by an expanding power, which predates this date and merely declares the extent of its conquests to have met its goal, but rather, it implies the founding of a new organization by other pre-existing factions.
This can readily be conciled with the previous state of affairs – namely, a divided China.
It is also said that Eastasia is the youngest of the three superstates.
In any case, in the mid-60s, after decades of heavy fighting between various states and warlords, the superstate of Eastasia emerged as a unified power, encompassing China, Japan, Korea, Indochina down to Indonesia, Mongolia and parts of India. Japan may not necessarily even have won that war, but it was integrated into the new superstate. The more I explored the repercussions of this divergence, even being very liberal in the possible events to follow, no amount of justified divergence would get an emperor. The closest possible outcomes would be a victory in China by either the Nationalists or Japan.
Eastasia composed of Singapore, China (including Taiwan, but other areas within the Qing/RoC borders are battlegrounds disputed by Eurasia), Philippines, Laos, Vietnam, Korea (undivided; no Abrams Tank, get Black Eagle), Thailand (get Palace for Tech Center), Cambodia, Japan (No Abrams Tank, get Predator Mech for Light Tank), and India, although its status is disputed. It is at least partially controlled by Eastasia, although it does not seem to be a full member country of the Alliance and merely a colony; everything south of a rough line connecting Pune, Hyderabad and Vijayawada seems to be a battlezone.
* According to an earlier proposal version of the timeline, 1964 is the year in which Eastasia is founded.
между Вислой и Амуром 