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I think the japanese thought more about how they were defeated in 39 then about the politics of the USSR. and Also before the invasion Japan still played around with the idea of surrendering to the USSR, hoping for better treatment (consessions) then the USA would have offered. The biggist shock was not that their being invaded by an enemy who "doesn't care about lives" but that their plan A was down the drain.
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I agree with a lot of that, but I can't help but notice the difference between their attitudes fighting the US and the USSR. Sure them getting beaten by the USSR before made them weary to some extent, and though there were a lot of bad things going on for them, to have the mindset they did, to always be the attacker and so forth, probably really broke their morale, what was left of it, when the myth was shattered by being attacked massively themselves on land.
Sure the US was taking it to them in small doses, despite them getting into mainland bomber range in so doing, but those were fairly minor losses in men and equipment if you look at it in that somewhat myopic way. I just think their attitude about saving face was fine and good when they faced nations that could at least be held at arm's length by dishing out heavy losses to those enemies, but when they fought the USSR it was an entirely different matter. The USSR, as far as Japan knew, was definitely into taking over land and subjugating it as many knew, and would later show to be more true. In my mind it's not so much their losing to the USSR that scares them, though that is a good sized reason, because if anything they were weaker and the USSR was stronger, but it had alot more to do with the USSR mindset; ruthless, and willing to take losses without blinking an eye. It also didn't help matters that the USSR was the third MAJOR nation ganging up on them. We could see that they planned to invade Siberia in '42, but the German failure in 12/41 made them drop that. In other words, they didn't think they could succeed against the USSR unless someone was aiding them. Frankly the whole attack at Pearl Harbor looks to me to have played to that same philosophy. The basic idea being, that as long as the Germans are going to be at war with that nation, then we will too, but they didn't want to be at war alone with another major nation. It would've been interesting to see what Japan would have done after Pearly Harbor if Hitler didn't honor the pact and didn't declare war on the USA.
I guess those are my last comments on Manchuria and the Japanese/USSR mindset.