Shaka's right, the Japanese needed Dutch oil to run their economy. Would FDR have been able to get a war declaration past congress if the Japanese just went after the Brits/Dutch/Anzac's? Good question, it would have been close if he could do it at all. The Brits felt he promised he would. The Soviet army that stopped the Germans at Moscow in '41 was the Siberian army, Japan goes north the Sov's lose, but was their enough oil known and available to 40's tech to meet Japan's oil needs? I don't know but I doubt it. That's why the IJN told the Japanese army that even if they went north the IJN would still have to take the Dutch East Indies to get the oil they needed.

1)There was essentially no possibility of a declaration of war against either Japan or Germany without Pearl Harbor, and the German declaration of war against America, respectively. It's been lost on people not alive at that time, or who haven't studied the era, but the POV of the great majority of American people in that era was completely against becoming involved in what they saw as "foreign" business. If American interests were directly threatened, that was another matter. But, there was nothing like the basic feeling of solidarity with much of the world, or of an American role in a worldwide struggle before Pearl Harbor. That came later. 2)Actually, there WOULD have been some sense in Japan moving further against British interests IF they were certain America would not intervene. And, that the Soviets wouldn't or couldn't. The Soviets were a MAJOR issue for Japan. If one checks military histories of the 1930s, one will find an obscure, but very significant, military campaign in East Asia, along the border between Japanese Manchuria (Manchukuo) and Siberia. Briefly, in a campaign which featured corps-level engagements, the Soviets, under Zhukov, waxed the IJA, and left such a strong impression in the effort that the Japanese Army was never, ever, thereafter willing to face the Soviets on the ground if they had a choice. The British, otoh, were fine targets as far as Japan was concerned. The opening of the Pacific War, remember, involved taking Hong Kong, which was indifferently defended at the time, but, also Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore was widely described, before the attack, as an impregnable fortress. The Japanese took it with ease. Malaysia was a long way from Japan, and Japan was heavily engaged in many places, yet they took it quickly, with ease. They moved, then, into Burma, with limited forces, and did rather well, fighting on a shoestring. In the real world, Japan decided that even though America was NOT making threats to go to war, although America was organizing political and economic opposition to Japan, it could not risk a war in far places while the Phillipines remained in America hands, with major military bases, and astride the lines of communincation between Japan and the new conquests. The Phillipines were the whole reason Japan attacked America. Had America NOT had them, Japan would not have attacked Pearl Harbor and it's likely America would not have had a way to fight Japan. Now, what was the purpose of moving against India and Australia? To remove Britain, yet further, from Japan's area of interest. Expand the defensive perimeter, IOW. And, more conquests, more glory. Australia made sense as an economic asset. It had a lot of things Japan needed and could use. India, otoh, made little economic sense, but it would have furthered Japan's political campaign to pose as the champion of Asians against the European colonialists. Australia was possible, in terms of the size of the army Japan would have faced and because of Japan's naval domination. Briefly, not only was/is Australia only lightly settled, but it's pattern of settlement is such that practically the whole population, and most of the economic assets (almost all of them save some mines and ranches) are on or near the ocean. A country with complete domination of the sea could move troops at will, landing anywhere they wanted. The limiting factor with respect to Australia was logistical. Japan lacked the logistical capability to invade Hawaii, a much, much smaller landmass with a much smaller population. They could conduct naval operations to their heart's content, but they didn't have the transport and cargo bottoms to support large land forces in such places. Had Coral Sea and Midway gone the other way, Japan WAS moving, gradually and on a small scale, to cut Australia off from America by taking the islands to the NE of Australia. India was the same problem, writ even bigger.Japan was doing all it could handle to stage a few divisions into Burma, to try to cut the Burma Road into China. They just couldn't support large armies further west.

BSL - While I agree that there was significant opposition to our entry into the war without a direct attack on the US, In my opinion you might be overstating it a little. Remember the only war this country has ever fought that didn't have on the order of 1/3 of the population opposed to it was WWII, and that was only because the Japanese attacked first. Oppositon to war is nothing new. Only 1/3 of the population were supporters of Independence, 1/3 didn't care(just wanted to live their life and not be bothered by either side), and 1/3 were loyalists. Many issues over the years seem to have this rough breakdown. I'm not saying FDR would have a cake walk. There were 4 days before we declared on Germany and that was after the Germans declared. FDR knew that if he tried to get a Declaration on Dec 8 for both Germany and Japan it would inflame the Isolationists and the Declaration of War would have been much closer and might have been defeated.

Generally, I agree with BSL statements. The US entry into WWII was not a given. FDR had to do alot of work to get America to go to war against Japan. Thats why I earlier stated that one of the biggest mistakes the Axis made, was the DoW against America. Without it, America may never had entered war against Germany.

Shaka and I are 100% agreed on the question of Hitler's declaration of war on America, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It was arguably his greatest mistake (although many would put the decision to stage Barbarossa up along with it and, perhaps, ahead). Slade, I realize that it's difficult to understand the mindset of that era, which was markedly different from that which came to characterize most of America in the half century which followed, and which persists, in some degree, even today. However, it was the traditional American way of looking at the world which existed all the way back to the days immediately following the Revolutionary War. As a practical matter, the President had, from the late 19th century all the way up to WW2, a real power to commit American military forces abroad, largely on his own say-so IF the committment was fairly small, involved little danger to America, itself, and could be handled by our small, standing military establishment. HOWEVER, as far as "real" wars went, wars which involved real countries and real risks, and which couldn't really be handled by the traditionally small military we had between the end of the Civil War and WW2 (save during the period of our involvement in WW1), things were very different. In this, the President had to pay close attention to Congress and the country at large. If he dared attempt a committment without support, he was looking for, a)repudiation at the polls, and b)impeachment. The power of Congress was real, and especially important because America just didn't have enough standing forces to fight any of the Great Powers of the era without building the military and there was no way, at all, to increase the military without Congress. FDR DID as much as he could to get American into WW2 before Congress and the public was ready. Some of what he did was plainly grounds for impeachment had it been noticed and Congress become sufficiently angry. But, as far as he did go, he just didn't have the power to get America into a war with Japan or Germany on his own authority. Not without the cooperation of Japan or Germany, anyway.

Although with hindsight we can say that Barbarossa and declaring war on USA was a mistake for Hitler, it is remarkable to note how the Germans intricate plans were in fact thwarted by the ineptitude of their two allies. Barbarossa essentially floundered in the mud and snow of the fierce Russian winter. However the Germans did know about the Russian winter and had planned to launched Barbarossa several months earlier then they in fact did. Why were they delayed for several months? Hitler’s old pal Benito Mussolini had launched an attack on Greece but the Greeks trounced the Italian army so Hitler had to bale the Italians out with German forces assigned for Barbarossa, hence the delay of several months. This delay meant that the Germans could not achieve all of their objectives before the winter as planned. Had the Germans had those extra months of good weather they could have very feasibly taken Moscow and Stalingrade and the Russian Oil fields, before winter. With Moscow they could have consolidated the Russian rail network over the winter and solved many of Germanys logistical problems. This would have gone along way for the Germans winning the war on the Russian Front. Another little known fact is that the at the high point of the Germans battle in Stalingrade, they has all but pushed the Russians out of the city and into the river. German sources believed the Russians were exhausted and demoralised. And then out of nowhere (as far as the Germans were concerned) the Russians launched a huge counter attack with hundreds of thousands of fresh troops. Where did they come from? They came from Russia’s eastern border. How were the Russians able to move all theses troops away from the eastern border and up to the western border? A Russian spy had discovered that the Japanese under no circumstances would launch an attack on Russia, from a Jap ambassador. This knowledge allowed the Russians to rush these new troops to Stalingrade and turn the tide against the Germans. Interesting what ifs are what if the Italians hadn’t screwed up in Greece and what if the Japs hadn’t leaked their intentions to the Russians, would the Germans have defeated the Russians. With the Russians defeated would the USA and British Empire been able to defeat the Axis on only one front?

I'm one of the minority who strongly believe that Germany COULD have defeated the USSR. Indeed, I believe that they were closer to doing so than is generally realized and that the Soviets were pushed right to the breaking point in 1941 and 1942. So, I tend to focus on changes in the conduct of the war in this period, to find a way to produce a bit more pressure. OTOH, as far as the Japanese entering the war with Russia is concerned, I think history shows that there just wasn't much room for this. As I've indicated, the Japanese Army had experience fighting the Red Army on a large scale and they did poorly. It's often overlooked that the IJA was not organized as a "modern" army, in the WW2 sense. It was, more or less, a light infantry force. They had very limited armor, it wasn't very good armor, and they didn't really have the doctrine or training to use it in the new, style (the blitz or manuever, warfare). The Red Army, otoh, even at it's preWW2 nadir, was huge and had lavish amounts of armor to play with. The IJA was large, but we should recall that they had huge deployments in China and in the new conquests of SE Asia and Oceania. They did not have large reserves of manpower and equipment to move around. Not without seriously weakening themselves elsewhere. Japanese goals bear repeating. Japan wanted to conquer CHINA. The whole of the Japanese part of WW2 resulted from this, essential goal. But, what they really WANTED was China. Everything else was a means towards securing this end. (When the West began to choke of Japanese imports of resources needed to support their military effort in China, Japan decided it needed to conquer land containing those resources. IOW, SE Asia and Oceania. In order to do so, they had to fight the colonial powers: the UK, France, Holland. They ultimately, after a lot of debate, decided that they had to fight America, too, because American possession of the Phillipines put the American military astride the Japanese lines of communication between Japan and the conquests, especially since FDR had been the leader of the effort to embargo Japan. But, it's important to understand that Japan DID NOT "want" to fight America, Britain, Holland, Japan. They did so for specific reason. Certainly, they never would have added America to their war if they felt they could avoid it. Too many countries to fight at the same time. This is the context in which to evaluate alternative history. Hitler CERTAINLY wanted Japan to declare war on the USSR. He had a reason to believe that Japan owed him, since Germany had declared war on America after Pearl Harbor, in solidarity with Japan. But, JAPAN had no good reason to fight Russia and very good reason NOT to if it could avoid it.

Following the defeat of Germany, Russia actually invaded Japanese held China and swept the Japanese aside with a devastating and overwhelming armoured push, Japanese gains in China over the last 12 years were taken by Soviets in a matter of weeks. The Soviets were welcomed as liberators by the local Chinese, and some what suprisingly for us, once the Soviets had cleared out the Japs they went back to Russia, though they did leave some adviseors in North Korea, they could have taken the whole of Korea but patiently waited for the Americans to turn up to occupy their half, which absent mindedly took the USA along time to remember to do.

Was Hitlers declaration of war against the USA in expectation of a similar japanese war declaration on the USSR?

Yep. Thats exactly what Hitler wanted. I'll throw this out here, since the board is slow. Japan was never part of the "Axis", just like Russia was never part of the "Allies". Funny how we forget those things as time goes by.