[quote=@Dinh AaronMk] I'm sure that's what the Turks told themselves again and again during their occupation of Armenian territory. Or even Kurdish. Nationalism isn't that easily breed out over generations. Especially if you're two different peoples. Modern nationalism doesn't just leave the mindset of a people when a generation or two passes in or out of the social framework. If anything, it'd get passed down from one generation to another. Because that's their identity. And identity is important. Tribe is important. And Japan is all about their tribe and the Japanese. Not the Indonesians or the Koreans. It's all for the make benefit of them and the Japanese imperial institution would have been well built for that way of thinking. The Emperor is a God. And the Japanese are the people of that God. Everyone else is not. Besides, the dutch had been fighting Indonesian nationalism for a long time before Japan no doubt seized the islands. Though the Japanese may have used these nationalists to overthrow the Dutch and get themselves in it was never a serious commitment to favor the Indonesians. Any attempts at seizing this or acting out wouldn't be acted to kindly. And then all of a sudden there's a cycle of violence in the region much like Isreal-Palestine. Or modern Xinjiang with one side trying to get a head on the other, and the other being seriously offended and violent. They would not be loyal. Not until they all die. And then there goes the 150 million. [/quote] No, they of course wouldn't all be loyal. Far be it for me to say that. But if after a year of Nazi occupation many people were already joining the ranks of the collaborators, after forty years the number of people reconciled to the Empire would have continued to rise, even more so if it remained stable unlike the collapsing Ottoman one. Japanese populations could be making inroads into the islands, and people could have been assimilated depending on the country's policies. The reasons for this reconcilement could be many and varied, ranging from simple recognition of the reality of power to a fear of Communism and belief that only a united Japanese Empire can stand against it. The propaganda perpetuated by such a fascist regime would have likely militarized many non-Japanese people against the perceived threat. And it's important to recognize that some countries are like Finland, while other countries are like Kazakhstan. Not every nationality is as rebellious as the next, and Indonesia is hardly homogenous culturally. [quote=@Vilageidiotx] That's not quite how nationalism works, I am afraid. Your argument about populations would be true if this was a thousand years ago, but national identity erases this. Koreans are still Koreans, and they will be very aware of this. You also have to remember that Japan was never a benevolent conqueror, and it is doubtable that they have been kind to even the new generation. And your representation of the way war works is not... actually how war works. To wage an industrial war, you have to have the industry. This was always Japans biggest problem in the early days, and a major factor in the history of their real world Empire. Pearl Harbor was not an attempt to conquer the United States. Not even an attempt to conquer Hawaii. Rather, Pearl Harbor was the desperate attempt by the Japanese to destroy the US Pacific Fleet so that they could bring a quick end to a Pacific War. They did this because the US refused to sell them oil and they needed to take Dutch Indonesia or else risk being unable to fuel their economy. And they used that strategy specifically because they knew that, once the war started, the US industry would destroy theirs. Remember that Japan is a tiny rocky island, that their Empire was what allowed them to industrialize, and that their modern industrialization is related more to their relationship with the US after the war than it is anything innate within their culture. Case in point, when China finally industrialized their economy dwarfed Japans pretty quickly. A Japanese War with China would much like their war with the US in our time. A few quick victories around the coast followed by slow economic collapse as China headbutts them into the ground. ...and also, if NRP's have taught me anything, it is that most people seem to think war is just a bunch of aircraft carriers. [/quote] I'm hardly an expert, so I'll take your word for it on the war topic. Though I would posit that Japan's economy would still be comparable to China's, considering in the real world it took them until the 2000s to do just what you say, with all of the benefits that affords them. Your comparison would be entirely accurate if China was the United States, but as it would stand in the 1980s China would still have a smaller economy than Japan, unless Aaron has somehow ensured economic growth four or five times larger than that engineered under Maoism.