How long of a rant do you want? This might be quite long. Initially he didn't want the non-aggression pact with the Soviets, he wanted an alliance with the UK. He considered the UK descended from Aryan stock, and felt they would view communism as a greater threat to Europe than Fascism. That obviously didn't happen, hence the treaty with the Soviets to buy him time in the East.
He figured once Poland, and France fell that the UK would than ask for peace terms, again didn't happen. Once realizing the Luftwaffe wasn't causing the UK to drop out, and an invasion wasn't possible he turned to the invasion of the USSR. He made three bad assumptions here.
1. Believing the UK didn't have the resources with the uboat blockade to mount a successful landing in mainland Europe. He was partially correct, he didn't count on the USA getting involved, and supplying the needed resources.
2. He had Mussolini, and Italy as a partner (thankfully for Europe though
). Italy already occupied Albania, a small part of Southern France, Libya, Italian East Africa (basically Somalia and a bit of others), and Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Basically Mussolini wanted a bigger share of the pie, and some of the so called glory. He started attacks into Egypt-Sudan from Libya and IEA, he eventually lost IEA, and Abyssinia to the British, Australians, New Zealanders, and British India. His forces from Libya were repelled and driven back deep into Libya. He invaded Greece from Albania, and stalled out, than losing ground there as well. It was now 1941, and Mussolini asked for help, Hitler started forming the Africa Korps in January, and deployed them in February. He also diverted a large army to the Balkins to take Yugoslavia, then Greece. In doing this he delayed Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the USSR) from early Spring 1941 till late June 1941. This gave the army less time to accomplish their goals before the Russian Winter started.
3. He planned on defeating the USSR the way he beat France. Break through the front lines with several spearheads then with several pincer movements cut off and capture the bulk of the Red Army. Than capture Moscow and force terms on the Soviets, to surrender everything West of Moscow to the Reich, and let the Soviets have to the east to establish a puppet state like Vichy France. After he consolidated, and depopulated his conquests in Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus' he probably would have finished off the Soviets, and forced terms on the British. The first part worked he captured a great deal of equipment, and over a million Soviet POWs. Army group South got bogged down in the Caucasus region, Army Group North stopped at Leningrad and laid siege for three years, Army Group Center got to within thirty miles of Moscow befor being diverted South to help take the Caucasus oil fields. Then Winter hit, momentum was lost and the Eastern Front became the most brutal war in human history for the next three years.
I haven't read up on this since the nineties, so more recent historians may have uncovered more information. From what I read then, after taking Moscow, he wanted the British to sign a peace treaty where they keep the islands, and the colonial empire, without Eygpt. Germany would have Europe, part of West Asia, and North Africa. That's where Hitler probably would have stopped as they didnt have the manpower or resources to go further. His successors may have tried to go beyond that. He never intended for a war with the USA in fact that didn't happen until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the USA declared war on Japan, then Germany, and Italy declared war on the United States as part of their treaty with Japan. The USA then declared war on Germany and Italy.
As for one poster suggesting Japan would have invaded the Western US, never would have happened, not in the forties, probably not even the fifties, if ever. For proof look up what historians have uncovered about the proposed invasion of Australia. Prior to the Battle of the Coral Sea the IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) proposed an invasion of just North Australia. The IJA (Imperial Japanese Army) opposed this as unfeasible, as nearly three quarters of the army was already deployed in Korea, Manchukuo, French Indo China, and Burma. If the IJA knew they didn't have the troops needed for the much smaller, much closer to supply lines, and much less populated area of North Australia, than they damn well knew they couldn't touch the West Coast of the US with an invasion army. The part of Alaska they did take were the far Western Aleutian islands. Damn near the center of the Northern Pacific, per Google, that's 2,700 miles West of California.
As I said I read most of this in the nineties, so new discoveries may have been made, plus I may have forgotten a few things. I could cite sources, but I'm tired and I doubt few people will read this book anyway.
Sorry for the long post.
