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Originally Posted by Harry Buttle
Culturally impossible, but the Japs would have best profited from declaring for the allies in 1939/40 and sending most of their fleet to the Med and a Div or two in support roles, they could have then 'secured' the DEI for the Dutch and used the resources to push for a win in China (they would have to try to stop the extremely atrocity prone IJA from committing its worst excesses), I'm not saying they'd have won - but they would have had indirect allied assistance and would have secured a lot of immediately usable resources and couldn't have lost as badly as they did.
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That does sound (with hindsight) like a promising strategy. Japan cast her lot with the Allies in WW1 and got quite a few ex-German possessions out of it. Being a Allied Power in good faith probably would have sent some badly needed cutting-edge naval technology her way as well. (Sonar, Radar) But given her status as a signatory Axis Power and her unwillingness to concede anything in China or Asia...culturally impossible like you said. Their mindset at the time just wouldn't allow for compromises or half-victories.
One other possibility that I've seen brought up before would be if Germany had knocked the Soviet Union out of Europe in 1941 and Japan had then decided on going after whatever easy pickings were left of Stalin's regime in Siberia instead of going south. Frankly I don't feel Germany's chances in the Soviet Union were much better than Japan's against the Allies. However, Germany gave it their best shot and as well as they appeared to be doing in the summer and fall of '41 the Japanese had already made up their mind to turn elsewhere. So probably a moot point.
