Japan’s military strength
Geopolitics, experience, and logistics were major reasons why Japan did not attack the Soviet Union during WW2. After the outbreak of World War II, in April 1941, Japan signed a neutrality treaty with the Soviet Union to avoid a two front war. The agreement was seen as a temporary arrangement to the Soviets forces meaning that they had more time to attack Adolf Hitler in his 1941 invasion. On the other hand, while Japan fell free after attempting to attack the Soviets in 1939, the Khalkin Gol attack, which left Japan greatly weakened by the Zhukov army even before the red army began its operations.
At this point, the country’s naval power and jungle fighting were still strong. Despite the unsuccessful Soviet attack at Gol, Japan further sought to conquer and attacking western powers located in the pacific. In the two years, the Japanese government made decisions that worsened the situation. In August 1940, Political leaders who were unable to control their military sought more security by founding the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” This meant that it had intentions to remove Western Imperial powers from Asia. To Japan, the project was meant to improve the country’s economic and material wealth and avoid reliance on supplies from the West. Yet this did not mean to “liberate” the oppressed people of Asia.
During the same period, more treaties with other western powers made Japan seem more of a threat to the United States. A good example took place on 27th September 1940 when signing the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy that connected Asia and Europe’s conflict. Here China seemed to support the global war against fascism. In mid-1941, it is the period when Japan signed the neutrality pact highlighted earlier, which meant that Japan could not attack the Soviet Union during the WW2 period. Hence, it was clear that the Japanese military was headed to South East Asia, where the US had more interests. Another pact is the Vichy France agreement that made it possible for the Japans military to enter Indochina to start their southern advancements. Responding to the growing threat, the US temporarily stopped holding negotiations with Japanese diplomats. In addition to full embargos being instituted on Japanese exports and freezing of its assets.
As noted, Japan’s military strength was centered around the Imperial Japanese Navy. Because of its discipline and bushido code, their equipment strength was 20 years behind the times. Japanese tank designs, for instance, were outdated French models. They understood this following the Khalkhin Gol, where they understood that they could not match up with the Soviet Union. However, compared to the rest of the world, they had a state of the art navy characterized by the best ships and planes with several advantages over the 1941 U.S Pacific fleet. The Khalkhin Gol attack, however, defined the relationship between USSR and Japan, which faced a mechanized army for the first time.
The Soviets were also properly equipped, tactically adept, and technically superior hence the Japanese lost its 6th army. They learned that they were no match both on the ground and air. Besides, Japan knew that it had nothing meaningful to gain by going into war with USSR again since it could not match the human resources, technology, size, and tactics used by the Soviet Union.
Notably, before the war, the Japanese navy and the Japanese Imperial Army (JIA) had two opposing expansion ideas. JIA’s idea had the idea to expand northwards to Nothern China and Korea. In contrast, the navy idea was for Japan to expand south to Southeast Asia. When the war started, the country considered attacking USSR because Russia was its traditional enemy. However, after much consideration, Japan re-evaluated its plan and sought to expand south, which was more valuable for its oil than Soviet eastern territories. Therefore, any plans to attack the soviet were eliminated.
The reason why the US became Japan’s major target due to its naval power in the pacific as they believed that there should be no obstacle for its Southern expansion. As a result, Pearl Harbor was attacked to decimate the Pacific fleet to allow Japanese ships to pass the pacific. Therefore, as the Pacific war increased, Japan lost its army and resources; thus, the idea to go into war with the Soviet Union could work and never occurred till the war came to an end.