CYOHA: What if Japan attempts to bypass the United States?

On December 7th 1941, a date that has lived in infamy, Japanese carrier based aircraft began the Pacific War via a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor. A few hours later (December 8 local time) Japanese aircraft would begin assaulting U.S. positions in the Philippines while Japanese troops landed in Malaya. Faced with the apparent intractability of the endless slog in China, Japanese policy makers had settled on “the Southern Operation”, attacking the colonial holdings of the European powers in South East Asia. By seizing Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, and others, Japan would secure its access to vital resources currently being denied to it by U.S. economic sanctions. Yet, the Imperial Japanese Navy in particular believed that any war with the Europeans would mean war with the United States as well. After all, the United States had responded to the Japanese invasion of southern Indochina with a total asset freeze and complete embargo of oil exports; what other response did the American have but war? If America would go to war, then the Philippines represented a critical threat to Japan’s lines of communications in the Western Pacific, and it–along with the Pacific Fleet–would have to be dealt with, thus laying the road to Pearl Harbor.

But what if things played out differently?

Despite the risk, Japanese leaderships has convinced itself that the United States would not go to war to defend British and Dutch colonialism, not when Hitler’s armies were at the gates of Moscow, and Japanese forces are stretched thin in Southeast Asia. The Empire of Japan will not go to war with the United States on December 8, 1941. Rather, all of Japan’s forces will be aimed at the British and Dutch, and the Philippines will be an island of peace as war erupts in Southeast Asia.

On December 8th 1941, Japanese massed Japanese carrier aircraft strike Singapore, the 6 carriers of the Kido Butai moved to support the invasion of Malaya, rather than the strike on Pearl Harbor. What happens next?

A) The United States can not stand by! FDR asks for a declaration of war against Japan, which narrowly passes. He orders MacArthur to begin preparations for the defense of the Philippines and for naval and air forces in the Philippines to commence operations against the Japanese. Meanwhile, Admiral Kimmel is ordered to prepare his fleet to sail to the relief of the Philippines.

B) Much to his dismay, FDR decides he will likely not get Congress to support war with Japan, nor can he risk a naval and air war in the Pacific when Hitler seems to be on the brink of victory in Europe. Although his sympathies are with the Dutch and British, the United States will not go to war in December 1941.