Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 270 (Part 1)" video.

  1.  @bkjeong4302  I am not sure the USN would necessarily be much smaller if the US did not hold the Philippines. The lever for the 1916 building program was that the US was whining about the British blockade of trading partners in Europe. Or, consider the flipside: the US buys all of the Spanish Pacific possessions, rather than just the two real pearls. The US did pay Spain to drop it's claims to the Philippines, $20M. Germany paid 17M Marks for the balance of the Spanish colonies. What was the Mark/USD exchange rate in 1899? If the US held all of the Marianas, and Carolines, and Palau, Japan could not have occupied those territories in 1914, and the League of Nations would not have given Japan a mandate to rule those islands after the war. That might turn Japanese attention even more toward a land campaign in China and eastern Russia, rather than across oceans. Would the IJN have had such aggressive expansion plans, post WWI, if they did not have an island empire to patrol?
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  2.  @matehavlik4559  It is an interesting question. After the US took the Philippines and Guam, Spain sold the rest of it's Pacific holdings, the balance of the Marianas, the Carolines, and a couple other bits to Germany. When WWI started, Japan, being allied with the UK, occupied the German colonies. After the war, the League of Nations gave Japan a mandate to hold all the former German colonies north of the equator. So, would Spain have held all of it's Pacific colonies until 1941, or sold everything, including the Philippines and Guam, to Germany? If Spain sold everything to Germany, then Japan would have held the Philippines and Guam in 1941.
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  3.  @bkjeong4302  I was reading "Castles of Steel" tonight. The book says that, in early 1898, the Kaiser was openly saying he would buy, or simply take, the Philippines, if the opportunity presented itself. The Germans were too slow when the opportunity, US declaration of war on Spain, came. The Germans did not arrive in Manila Bay, in strength, until about a month after Dewey's arrival. Their play, at that late date, was to hope the US failed. Bottom line is the Kaiser was very interested in the Philippines, and would have taken them if the German Asiatic squadron had been quicker on the jump and gotten there first. Without the Philippines, would the US have been interested enough in the Pacific to claim Samoa and Wake in 1899? Would the fleet have been move to Hawaii? Would the IJN try to attack the fleet in San Pedro?
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