On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the U.S. naval base Pearl Harbor, and the United States and Japan entered a state of total war. Germany, an ally of Japan, then declared war on the United States on December 11. At this time, Nazi Germany was facing a fierce counterattack of a million new Soviet troops under The city of Moscow, with heavy losses of personnel and equipment, whether It would be possible for Army Group Center to retreat completely was unknown, and the prospects for the entire Soviet-German war had become rather bleak. At this time, it is simply incredible to declare war on the world's first industrial power. Therefore, many people in later generations believed that the attack on Pearl Harbor under the high secrecy of the Imperial Japanese Navy was to dig a sinkhole for Nazi Germany and directly accelerate its demise, but the truth was not so simple. We can even say that the pit dug by Japan for Germany was actually based on the pit that Germany had dug for Japan earlier, and twice!
In 1931, Japan launched a war of aggression against China, and in 1937, the scale of the war was expanded and comprehensive. By the end of 1938, the vast plains of north China and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in northeast China had almost all fallen into the hands of the Japanese army, and the coastline had been blocked. As we all know, the situation in China at that time involved the interests of many powers. In addition to Japan, it is the Soviet Union and Britain and the United States. The Soviet Union was different from Britain and the United States. Britain and the United States have significant economic interests in China, but the degree of geopolitical isolation is relatively large. The changes in the situation in China did have a substantial and significant impact on the geopolitical interests and national security of the Soviet Union, because the two countries had an extremely long border. When China's independence and territorial integrity can still be guaranteed to a certain extent, the Soviet Union can use China as a huge buffer area and handle China-related interests with ease. However, when China was invaded by Japan in an all-round way and lost a large amount of territory, especially the vast and rich northeast region, the Soviet Union suddenly became a "neighbor" in the land sense with a military-industrial power such as Japan. Security issues in the Soviet Far East became extremely intractable.
Similarly, in the face of a country like the Soviet Union with abundant ground military strength, Japan was actually extremely jealous, fearing that the territorial gains it had stolen through the war of aggression in China would be "cut off" by the Soviet Union. Japan has wantonly undermined the economic interests of Western countries such as Britain and the United States in China, but it is difficult for Britain and the United States to make up their minds to directly engage in military conflict with Japan for the sake of China. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, had a huge possibility of going to war with Japan because of territorial security. It is probably only a matter of time before the two sides tear their faces.
In 1939, a large-scale military conflict finally broke out between Japan and the Soviet Union in the Nomonhan region of Outer Mongolia. The two sides fought from May 39 until the end of August. Because the Japanese side was inferior in terms of technical weapons and the number of troops, the war situation has always been very unfavorable to Japan. At this time, Japan naturally thought of Nazi Germany, a European ally that was extremely ideologically hostile to the Soviet Union, and hoped that Germany could effectively deter the Soviet Union in Europe and thus alleviate its unfavorable situation in Outer Mongolia.
But Nazi Germany made a huge joke with Japan. The Soviet-German Pact of Non-Aggression was signed on August 23, 1938, and the two sides instantly changed from ideological enemies to quasi-allies! Japan was left to fend for itself against the Soviet Union. The continued unfavorable situation on the battlefield forced the Japanese military to make a major compromise and propose an armistice to the Soviet Union. The two sides ceased fire in 1939 and formally concluded a peace agreement in June 1940.
The Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact made Japan's position in China very awkward. On the one hand, the pressure on Japan by Britain and the United States and other countries is increasing day by day, and on the other hand, the huge pressure of the Soviet Red Army has not become less with the conclusion of the peace agreement. Japan is essentially under geopolitical pressure in both the north and the south. The Soviet Red Army did not dare to provoke, and the aggressive route could only continue to develop in the south and southwest directions and even southeast Asia, which greatly threatened the colonial security of Britain and the United States in Southeast Asia. Western countries are becoming increasingly hostile to Japan. So how can this situation be solved?
The Japanese thought that since the Soviet Union and Germany had formed a quasi-alliance, they might as well simply pull the Soviet Union to the side of the German-Italian-Japanese alliance. Let the Soviet Union go from being jealous of Japan to one that shares China's territorial interests. In this way, the situation on the Battlefield in China is equivalent to adding a powerful ally with a huge size. The Soviet Union annexed and occupied China's Xinjiang and northwestern regions, and Japan continued to occupy the northeast and north China and developed southwards without scruples, see what else you can do with Britain and the United States. Even if the contradiction escalated into a trade and energy embargo, Japan could still make up for it from the trade with the Soviet Union as a result of its aggression. The pattern is perfect!
In fact, the period from mid-1940 to mid-1941 was indeed an extremely dangerous and dark period for the anti-Franco-Spanish camp. Nazi Germany was invincible in Europe, not only occupying France, but also directly threatening the survival of the British Empire. This made it difficult for Britain to draw in the efforts to deter Japan by taking into account its own interests in the Asian region. It is also almost impossible for the United States to make up its mind to fight shirtless in Europe and any part of the Asia-Pacific region to defeat fascism, because it cannot find the right time to enter the war. If the Soviet Union had really joined the German bloc and expanded into the warm waters of the south, Britain and the United States would have had almost four words for such a super-geo-alliance that almost spanned Eurasia: helpless.
While Japan was immersed in its own dreams, Nazi Germany made him a bigger, if not a big, super joke—————— the Soviet Union and Germany went to war. On June 22, 1941, the 5.5 million Nazi Germans, including the Navy and Air Force, launched a world-shattering blitzkrieg operation against the Soviet Union! This is not a local military conflict of petty fighting, this is a deliberately planned war of exterminating aggression, and there is not the slightest room for compromise and mercy on both sides. The Soviet Union, too, rightfully threw itself into the camp of the British Empire, which had been at war with Nazi Germany for more than a year and a half, and signed an agreement on the supply of weapons and equipment with the United States, which had long been hostile to Germany.
Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union made Japan's imagined giant ally instantly a member of the American-British camp, which was embarrassing. Because for Britain, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and extracted most of its land and air power, the British Empire itself was temporarily safe, and there was room to "send warmth" to little Japan. For the United States, the soviet union's accession was achieved, whether it was a two-way squeeze of Nazi Germany or a two-way squeeze of militaristic Japan. Even if the Soviet Union and Japan did not turn their faces for the time being, the possibility of their alliance would be completely absent. So what does this mean? This means that the feasibility of the United States entering the war has been greatly improved!
Nazi Germany's aggression against the Soviet Union allowed Japan not only to continue to face the British and American powers alone in China and even in the Asia-Pacific region, but also to lose the Soviet Union's card, which made Britain and the United States have a huge pressure on Japan. U.S. negotiations with Japan have become increasingly tough. On July 26, the United States announced the freezing of all Japanese property in the United States. Subsequently, Britain, India, and Burma also froze Japanese assets and abrogated the Treaty of Commerce. On July 28, the Dutch East Indies froze Japanese assets, restricted trade with Japan, and suspended the implementation of the Oil Agreement. On August 1, 1941, the United States further banned the export of all materials except grain and cotton to Japan, and decided to send advisers to the Chinese government, forming the ABCD (I.e., American, British, Chinese, and Dutch) front against Japan. On November 26, 1941, the United States issued to Japan the Outline of the Basics of the U.S.-Japan Agreement, also known as the Hull Memorandum, demanding that Japan withdraw all its navy, army, air force, and police from China and Indochina, and that Japan could not recognize the puppet regime of pseudo-"Manchukuo" and Wang Jingwei.
Although the outbreak of the Pacific War began with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, we can say that the previous negotiations between the United States were almost all about going for a showdown. Go to war or get out. Although Japan has achieved temporary advantage through sneak attacks, in the larger strategic structure, Japan is the side that has been squeezed by the United States and has to launch a desperate attack on this super military power. And the final outcome, everyone knows.
summary
Nazi Germany, through the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact and Operation Barbarossa, twice sent huge geopolitical negative assets to its ally Japan, far away on the other side of Eurasia. In the eyes of posterity, it is extremely ridiculous and funny. But for Nazi Germany itself, all this was not unreasonable. The signing of the treaty with the Soviet Union was to stabilize the other side from concentrating on war against Britain and France, and the undeclared war against the Soviet Union was the fundamental dream and geostrategic goal of Nazi Germany and even Hitler himself, and it was a must-do thing, otherwise the existence of Nazi Germany would be of little significance.
But all this seemingly reasonable and uncontroversial behavior has caused Japan to suffer, so why is this so. The reason is that Germany and Japan are in two remote and relatively independent geopolitical regions. Germany's expansion is in Europe and North Africa, while Japan's expansion is in China and the Asia-Pacific region. The alliance between the two sides only uses a very vague concept of military power on the other side of Eurasia to contain countries such as Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union, with little clear area of common interest between them. It is a completely self-centered strategic concept. The high degree of isolation of the two sides' expansion areas made it impossible for the leaders and military generals of the two sides to sit together on the same battlefield and directly coordinate military operations, as in the Anglo-American alliance, but more like self-talk under a loose framework. In contrast to Japan's more flexible expansionist route, Nazi Germany's war of extermination against the Soviet Union was an uncompromising operation, completely unshakable by the temporary deterioration of Japan's situation. Japan, on the other side of Eurasia, had to go along with it and eventually tear its face with the United States.