Japan remains the scenario's largest unresolved branch. Completing Tosa lets Japanese leaders claim the world's biggest and best battleship on paper, changing the emotional and political meaning of the Washington settlement. A treaty remembered as a success could affect Japan's wider worldview as it enters the interwar period. The consequences might extend to carrier procurement and the way the Imperial Japanese Navy organizes its strike force, although those outcomes remain open for debate.
Notable Point · 1:16:20-1:17:35
A perceived treaty victory could redirect Japanese naval thinking
The closing counterfactual asks how leaving Washington with Tosa and a sense of success might alter Japan's carrier program, strike force, and national outlook.