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The problem there is the Japanese oil crunch. With Britain, the Netherlands and the USA all embargoing Japan and guaranteeing each other's colonies, there weren't really a lot of good options for the Japanese. Also, Roosevelt wanted a war and was already giving substantial aid to the British; while Pearl Harbour certainly made things much easier for him, it's not certain that Roosevelt couldn't have dragged the USA in anyway.
(As it actually happened, of course, Hitler was high on meth and wanted to declare war on the USA, so what we're positing here is a saner Hitler as well as the Japanese listening to him.)
Avoiding invading Russia, yeah, that could be done.
If. Historians are split on whether the logistics could be stretched far enough to let Rommel reach the Suez, even with ~unlimited troops due to no Barbarossa.
Not as powerful, no (although hollow pits were considered at Manhattan, just not deployed by war's end). They're not "city off the map" unless the city is made of paper. But they're a hell of a lot more effective than TNT and once the production line had spun up the losses would become unacceptable.
Well, the oil they wanted was in the Dutch east indies, not the American Phillippines. So they could have just gone for that without attacking the USA. I do agree that the US would have likely gotten involved eventually, but just delaying that a bit could have made a difference. Notably, it was Germany that declared war on the US, not the other way around- Hitler wanted to show support for his new ally.
Well, there's no way to know for sure of course. But Malta is a small island. In 1940 it was defended by a grand total of 3 biplanes. So if the Italians had gone for it they probably could have taken it. Or Germany could have taken it in 1942 with greater numbers. Then with Malta gone, Axis shipping in the Meditteranean becomes much safer. Plus with no Barbarossa they'd have the entire air force at their disposal for support, and could focus more resources on building ships, so logistics overall would be better. There's also the option to go after Turkey and/or Spain, opening another land route.
I'm not trying to see this would be easy or guaranteed. But I do think it was possible.
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