Yes we absolutely could have. And that was the Nimitz strategy. But the astonishing ego of MacArthur had to be appeased, and his mom use political influence on FDR to give MacArthur a campaign. Nimitz intent was the basically quickly kill the Japanese Fleet, advance to Formosa, and form bomber bases and navy bases to attack Japan. Douglas MacArthur probably prolonged the Pacific War by 9 months 2 a year and cost thousands of lives.
That sounds right to me.
...The Brits were itching for a fight and the Bismark made that even worse. So a devastating war was started that Wilson disastrously got the USA involved with.” [DesertRhino, post 98]
This assertion holds a certain superficial credibility among makers of documentary miniseries, conspiracy theorists, and other dilettantes. But it relies heavily on after-the-fact reasoning, and on facts about Imperial Japan which came to light only after the war.
And it leans heavily upon USMC’s public affairs office, plus a number of postwar John Wayne films: gave rise to the pop-culture notion that the only warfare of importance against Japan was waged by the Marines and the US Navy, on tiny central Pacific islands and on blue water.
A very incomplete strategic picture to say the least.
Imperial Japan began to move against Northeast China in 1931. During 1941-1942, it stepped up the pace of expansion, taking the Philippines, most of what is now Indonesia and Malaysia, French Indochina, Siam (Thailand), Burma, a number of smaller islands (including Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian chain), and yet more of the Chinese mainland. Air & sea encounters flared in the Indian Ocean; British bases on Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) were raided. Australia and British India came under quite real threat of invasion.
Euro colonial and American forces were defeated or in full retreat everywhere. The Allies were forced to confront the ugly truth that they did not know what the full capabilities of the Japanese might be, nor what might happen next.
In the face of such wholesale ignorance it could not come as a surprise that “politics” (a term held in scorn) would play a role. Was Douglas MacArthur an egotist? Of course. So were the other senior commanders: no one rose so high without being so.
Any claim that a push through the central Pacific was the only effort required isn’t supported by the facts. No one could be sure that Japanese forces would not surge out of the southwest Pacific, or south from Manchuria, to smash the American thrust. Simply spearing across the ocean north of the Philippines looked imprudent, in the length of lines of communication required, and the forces needed to guard them.
And securing islands like Saipan and Guam for bomber bases was not seen as a winning move. No bomber aircraft yet existed that could make the trip. The B-29 was still in development and its eventual success was looking more doubtful. Air power at that level was by no means a proven concept.
No one foresaw that the submarine campaign against Japanese merchant traffic would be as successful as it turned out to be. Same with the aerial mining effort.
So, bets were hedged.
Gen MacArthur did not spend lives to no purpose. Forces under his command sustained fewer casualties. He displayed an uncanny ability to “hit the Japanese where they weren’t,” throwing units onto shores where they did not have to fight like crazy just to gain a toehold.
The central Pacific, containing smaller landmasses much more widely dispersed, afforded fewer options to Allied planners. Made it easier for the Japanese to guess where the next blow would land. Heavier losses were not avoidable.