The Forgotten Soviet-Japanese War of 1939
thediplomat.com
thediplomat.com
edit: sausage fingers.
A historical novel from Japan fully accounting the events leading up to and during the war. It was translated into English this decade.
(Anyway, although I run the risk of the usual "it's whatever's interesting to hackers" retort by wondering about the place of this here, I don't complain! I think it's interesting, and certainly hadn't heard about the war.)
What wars and battles are remembered rarely reflects their importance.
Japan had some great divisions and a great navy, but going up against the Soviet Union in 1941 would not seen them defeated.
So this "if Japan jad attacked the Soviet would change everything" meme is mostly wrong but every couple of years it comes back because somebody that doesnt know the history well digs it up.
The reason Japan did atrack was because they knew they had no chance.
Specifically after they had totally lost in 1939.
https://medium.com/the-strategic-review/background-ops-5-the...
Incidentally, Zhukov's Autobiography is extremely insightful and the uncensored version has only been out in English for ~20 years now:
https://www.amazon.com/Marshal-Victory-Autobiography-General...
Another popular hypothesis why Germans were so confident attacking USSR is the "Japanese unkept promise." It suggests that somebody in German supreme leadership was assured by Japanese diplomats that they will "surely will attack USSR," but personal opinions of their generals were moving orthogonal to their diplomatic efforts
https://www.amazon.com/Nomonhan-1939-Armys-Victory-Shaped-eb...
How about the earlier Munich Pact where France and England handed Czechoslovakia over to Hitler? In my eyes, that was the "green light" for Hitler's imperial ambitions.
Speaking of the Munich Pact - Stalin wanted to move Soviet troops through Poland to defend Czechoslovakia, but Poland refused passage. So if you're going to say the Ribbentrop Pact green lighted the invasion of Poland, you could say Poland green lighted the invasion of Czechoslovakia, which ultimately led to its own invasion.
The Soviet Union wanted self-defense pacts with England, which were not given. The Soviet Union had a very weak one with France in 1935, which former UK PM David Lloyd George said justified Hitler's Rhineland militarization.
Any how - Japan and the USSR staying at peace had an effect on WWII. From the time of the Pacific lend-lease, Russian flagged ships sailed from Vladivostok to Seattle and back, carrying needed supplies, unmolested by German submarines.
The Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact was signed two months before Operation Barbarossa. Stalin went to the train station to see Foreign Minister Matsuoka off, which is something he never did. Obviously he saw it as crucial. So too did the Japanese probably, as it saw the western powers encircling it in 1941.
Wow. That's one interesting interpretation of history.
Soviet Union presented an existential threat to Poland, a country that only gained independence from Russia (amongst others) post-WW1 and fought off an Bolshevik invasion a few years after. And with our 20/20 historical hindsight, it is only a few years later that the Soviet Union annexed the eastern half of Poland (which lead to mass murder of civilians and of course the Katyn massacre), and followed by 50 years as a Soviet vassal state ... but yeah, if only Poland had trusted Stalin's good-will.
Honestly ...
I think that's a no-brainer considering that Poles helped themselves to annex parts of Czechoslovakia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish–Czechoslovak_border_c...
The new Stalin biography by Steven Kotkin goes into great detail about all these negotiation. The way you frame it that the SU 'was not given'that is not how diplomacy works.
The SU might accept a deal with Britain IF they agree to literally everything the SU demanded.
But in reality it was a very clear strategy by Stalin to avoid a 'Imperialist-Capitalist Block' and he had this strategy as early as 1922.
At the same time yoir interpretation of Japan as 'getting encircled' is a very benefical interpretation. The western powers stopped selling them oil because they were a relentlessly agressive empire that attacked China and was talking about far greater things. Not selling an empire like that the resources to expand is not the same as 'encircling them'.
P.S. There were almost no German subs in the pacific, so it not suprising that no ships were attacked there.
It's all was described in secret addendum to that pact - two biggest socialist countries decided to split Eastern Europe and agreed on which countries to gobble.
The North African campaign was similar in that it was partly an attempt to get to the Arabian oilfields, but fought over the top of at the time undiscovered Libyan ones.
They actually almost got one of the cities but Fall Blau was a total desaster and the German spearheads were opposed by to many soviet troups.
The oil back then came from the US, Soviet Union (Baku) and Persia.
Significant Soviet forces stayed there until 1946 - and they've tried to annex parts of Persia/Iran.
Though in 1942-43 when Soviets had to expend an enormous effort and spared no resource to annex back places like Stalingrad, the Soviet forces in Persia still stayed put. Their mission was seen utterly important.
Just pointing out the irony of these historical references while there is near zero interest here in what is clear and present.
But, you know, carry on with the downvotes and confusion.