Epicurius posted:

Japan didn't have the manpower or the supply/logistics to win in China. If you look at the map of the land they took, its never all that far from the coast, except for a little bit near the puppet state in Inner Mongolia, because so many of their supplies were being shipped by sea. The further away from the coast they got, the more strained their supply lines got. Meanwhile, behind the lines, the combination of the Communist "base areas" and the non-Communist resistance meant that Japan couldn't even secure the countryside in the area they controlled. There was an active resistance movement in Manchuria that the Japanese actively tried to put down for ten years, finally succeeding in 1942. Meanwhile, the whole "burn to ash/three alls" campaign by the Japanese was a symptom of their inability to do anything against unrest, or to get any benefit out of the territory they controlled. When you resort to large scale civilian massacres and scorched earth combat fighting guerrillas, it's a sign that your conquest attempt has gone pretty seriously wrong.

Cythereal posted:

I've repeatedly heard stories that a lot of the lend-lease trucks sent to the Soviet Union still had USA painted on the sides, which most Russians who saw them thought was an acronym to the effect of (I don't remember the exact Russian words) "Kill that loving Adolf."

sullat posted:

Would it? From a Soviet perspective, China being a big mess would be preferable to China being a stable power that's still unhappy about the loss of the north side of the Amur.

Fangz posted:

And then the Soviets kicked their arse.


I don't think the Sino-Soviet rift is a thing that is obvious ahead of time.

feedmegin posted:

Japan is about 50% bigger by land area and has twice the population of the UK, you know...

Libluini posted:

Before the Japanese invaded, there was an entire, very bloody war between China and the Soviet Union. The Sino-Soviet split has nothing to do with this.

HerraS posted:

drat, why didnt the Japanese think of having two and a half million Indians fight their wars for them?

bewbies posted:

Didn't they have that exact idea/concept? Like, liberating the Indian subcontinent and then rallying them as kind of a pan-Asian brotherhood against western imperialists?

Cythereal posted:

Thanks to Yamamoto pulling a "Do it my way or I and my senior staff quit," Japan went with that last option and we all know how that turned out.

Cythereal posted:

They toyed with the idea, yes, but the IJA said oh gently caress no we're not invading India we barely have the manpower or equipment for our current commitments.

It was one of several possibilities the Japanese military leadership considered in 1942 after taking the Philippines. Their immediate military goals secure, they faced the question of what to do next. The main ideas considered were ceasing expansion to consolidate and fortify their gains, invade India and Sri Lanka, invade Australia, invade the rest of the DEI to cut off Australia from the US, or invade Midway as a stepping stone to Hawaii.

Thanks to Yamamoto pulling a "Do it my way or I and my senior staff quit," Japan went with that last option and we all know how that turned out.

Milo and POTUS posted:

Even if they did it the other ways I doubt it would have gone much better in the long term

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/mueller-manafort-witness-tampering/index.html posted:

Hapsburg group activity
In late February, the new filing says, Manafort "repeatedly contacted" two anonymous people who may be witnesses against him, called Person D1 and D2. Those two people had previously assisted lobbying and public relations efforts that Manafort masterminded in the US and Europe. They have recently helped investigators find evidence of the witness tampering effort, prosecutors said.
Manafort and a confidante first asked the two people to claim that the Ukrainian lobbying work only happened in Europe, effectively attempting to get their stories all on the same page, since all involved knew the group had lobbied Congress, investigators said. Manafort also attempted to use the two people to influence the distinguished group of former European political leaders they previously worked with, called the Hapsburg group, who were part of the alleged lobbying scheme.
The two people had previously helped Manafort arrange for the Hapsburg group to contact US senators, meet with members of Congress and their staffs, and publish an op-ed in The Hill newspaper in Washington that supported the politics of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, while posing as independent voices, prosecutors have said. In Monday night's filing, prosecutors attached several emails and schedules from 2011 to 2013 about the Hapsburg group's meetings in the US with members of Congress.
Manafort's allegedly illegal contacts with the two people happened in the days after prosecutors unveiled a new set of criminal charges against him in DC related to his lobbying work. Those charges had revealed for the first time the existence of the Hapsburg group and its efforts in the US.
Also that week, on February 23, Manafort's longtime deputy Rick Gates agreed to plead guilty to charges of conspiracy and lying to investigators and would cooperate with prosecutors, making Manafort's case an even more difficult one to overcome.

goatsestretchgoals posted:

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Cythereal posted:

Probably so. The IJA vetoed the India and Australia invasions (and thought they'd vetoed the Hawaii move) because they'd be massive sinks of manpower when the IJA had very little manpower to spare. The consolidation and fortification plan was dismissed by both the IJA and IJN because it was cowardly and unglorious. The IJN and IJA thought they'd agreed to advance southeast into the rest of the DEI to cut off Australia until Yamamoto threw his tantrum.

Alchenar posted:

Note that despite this, Imphal still happened.

HerraS posted:

drat, why didnt the Japanese think of having two and a half million Indians fight their wars for them?

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

quote:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The Star-Spangled Banner is three-fifths good song, but then you get to the pro-slavery verse and welp

"This Land is Your Land" should be the national anthem. Especially the verse about private property.

HEY GUNS posted:

That verse is about soldiers, who are either paid to be there (hirelings) or forced to be there (slaves). Francis Scott Key, like all americans of the time I know about, was really, really anti-standing-army.

Don Gato posted:

I sometimes wonder how the founding fathers would react to the near hero worship of the military in modern America. Washington would probably be down but Jefferson would be beyond horrified.

HEY GUNS posted:

That verse is about soldiers, who are either paid to be there (hirelings) or forced to be there (slaves). Francis Scott Key, like all americans of the time I know about, was really, really anti-standing-army.

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

Is this so clear-cut? What I have come to understand is that there were escaped slaves serving under the British and participated in the attack on Baltimore. Francis Scott Key of course kept his own slaves.

HEY GUNS posted:

fingers crossed a bunch of scottish/irish dudes halberd erik prince

HEY GUNS posted:

Slave owners did not refer to what they were doing as keeping slaves

Mycroft Holmes posted:

Mycroft Holmes posted:

Cessna posted:

Unit cuff title: