Japanese admiration for the Australian cruiser's hard fighting provides the starting point for an explicit counterfactual about later assessments of Australian naval power. The examples are an Australian Tiger or an extra Admiral-class battlecruiser, with Renown and Repulse still active. Such a ship would have required Japanese planners to allocate a force and fuel to find and destroy it early in a Pacific war. The argument links a First World War cruiser action to the deterrent value of forcing an opponent to account for a powerful mobile unit.
Notable Point · 37:09-38:16
The Battle of Cocos shapes Japanese views of Australia
Japanese admiration for Sydney's action feeds a counterfactual about how an Australian battlecruiser might have complicated later Japanese war planning.