but in 1939 at a battle in Mongolia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol Soviet armoured forces crushed the Japanese 6th Army Also, even though the Chinese were less well equipped than the Japanese and were fighting an internal Civil war. The Japanese were unable to take out the Chinese nationalist army even before the entrance of the Allies. At the battle of Shanghai and Wuham, japanese won pyrrhic victories and lost so many men, as the Chinese retreated into the West, the Japanese alone lost 100,000 men and were unable to take Sichuan.
Japan wanted resources from SE Asia and knew USA would object as the USA already had interests in that area. Japan knew war with USA was inevitable, so they launched a pre-emptive strike at Pearl Harbour in an attempt to cripple their navy. Little did they know that the bulk of the Pacific fleet was not there.
USSR relocated their Mongolian units to defend Moscow when they were told by a spy Japan would not attack. Also, Germany destroyed an extremely high % of USSR tanks during 1941/early 1942. At one point in that time period, USSr only had a few thousand tanks left, mostly near Moscow. So, I doubt they would have been able to muster enough tanks to fully defend against Japan. Comparing USSR 1938 when they were strong, to USSR late 1941 when Germany was close to Moscow and they were weakened is not good comparison. If 2.5Million Japanese soldiers had attacked East USSR in late 1941, when USSR was in full retreat from German units, I'm pretty sure USSR would have collapsed or signed some sort of treaty as they did not have the manpower to deal with a two front war in late 1941.
Japan would have to deal with Germany if both conquered USSR. In addition, while the Siberia is rich in recources hardly anybody lives there. Therefore the Japanese would not have had many people to exploit to take advantage of the conqured recouces. Going to East Asia made much more sense (Japan gets Asia, Germany everything else). Why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor beats the crap out of me
Now things get more interesting. It is confirmed it was an attack on the ship last week. Just the kind of thing you need to stir the pot and get things going for escalating violence. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/tanker_explosion
so odd they only found it was a suicide attack now.If they choke the straits, USA will have to intervene, but there is no mroe money to fight another war, we must HYPER INFLATE
Fidel Castro at Cuban parliament: Nuclear war is near BY JUAN O. TAMAYO jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com Cuba's Fidel Castro Saturday participated in his first government function since he nearly died in 2006, hammering away at his apocalyptic forecast of nuclear war and urging President Barack Obama to avert it. Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/07/1766036/fidel-castro-at-cuban-parliament.html#ixzz0vwvZJlTZ