Would it have been technically feasible for Japan to invade Russia via the Arctic, East Siberian Sea and Bering strait during WWII, and could this have been a feasible source of oil if Russia focused on defending against Operation Barbarossa?

by ThrowawayBrisvegas

I have only been able to online find resources on Manchuria and Manchukuo, so I infer this is impossible or was never entertained.

Operation Barbarossa commenced June 1941, while Pearl Harbor was attacked in December. While the skirmishes of Khalkin Gol/Nomonhon had allowed the Naval branch to gain power in Japanese decision making, there was still some belief in the Northern Route and capturing lake Baikal, as opposed to the navy-endorsed Southern Operation which seized SE Asian oil and rubber production from the Dutch and US Philippines.

Since the Navy had focused on developing long-range engagements in SE Asia and at the onset of the Pacific Theater Japan had a capable airforce with quality of craft similar to Western counterparts, would they have had the technological capabilities to invade Russia from the North and East? Japan had the icebreaker Otomari during the 1920s and the Otsu-type Takatsu-Maru apparently had icebreaker capability. If Pearl Harbor was delayed or abandoned, and the Japanese attack commenced during the Summer, could the navy successfully lead amphibious assaults along the Arctic coasts of Siberia and establish air superiority? Would the longer route doom supply lines, despite appearing comparable to the distance to Hawaii? As the Russian force was being called back to Moscow and the Caucasus, supposedly a substantial retainer was left behind. Was this entirely for deterring the Japanese, or due to Russian suspicions of the US's intentions post-war?

Finally, if the Japanese did forgo Pearl Harbor and instead had to cross through the Bering strait, would the US have seen this as a threat and intervened if it could receive congressional approval?

ryamano

Lots of "what if" questions there.

The Russian oil that is explored nowadays in these regions was discovered in the 1970s. Exploration of those areas requires technology (and also infrastructure) that didn't exist in the 1940s. Indonesia, on the other hand, was exploring oil in the 1940s at the time the Japanese were facing the embargo, and was much less defended than the Soviet Union, with the Dutch being a government in exile and all.

Also most of the Russian oil in Siberia comes from West Siberia, which is much nearer to the Soviet Union than to Japan. The supply line to feed an army so far inside a continent in winter would be terrible. The Japanese had problems supplying people inside the Chinese theater, I can't imagine the nightmare that would be supplying people in West Siberia after the Soviet Union got its act together.

There's also the fact that the Japanese had to get there in the first place. If you read about Khalkhin Gol, you know that the Japanese perfomance was terrible. The Japanese had good naval aviation and naval technology, but their tank technology was severly lacking compared to the Soviets. Considering home advantage (knowledge of the terrain), supply lines, industrial production and tech advantage, it's quite unlikely that the Japanese would succeed against the forces that remained in Siberia after Barbarossa.

The supply lines to get to the Bering strait would be very stretched out. We know this because the Japanese invaded the US controlled Aleutian islands in Alaska (as part of their planning of the battle of Midway) and not much was done with that. It was very difficult to send supply to the Aleutian bases.

Some other areas in the Northern pacific would be more feasible to invade, like northern Sakhalin.

We don't know how the US Congress would react to a Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union. But considering how they were already reacting to the Japanese invasion of China, with embargos and freezing of assets, they'd likely not be too happy. I don't know if outright war would be declared, but possibly even more economic measures would be imposed. And the embargo was having an effect. The Japanese had 6 months of inventories of oil and scrap iron when it was imposed. Without access to more resources, the Japanese war machine would grind to a halt in China. With an invasion of the Soviet Union, it you'd probably halt even earlier. Like I mentioned first, not much resources in Siberia at that time. It was one of the reasons why the more democratic Japanese government in the 1920s had stopped intervening in the Russian Civil War. It was too costly and not much benefit was being acquired from owning those lands.