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Did a Japanese defeat lead to US entry into WW2?

Writer's picture: Michael BakerMichael Baker

Over the summer months of 1939, a Soviet army commanded by General Zhukov (famous later for becoming the captor of Berlin in 1945) fought a critical campaign against the Kwantung Army, the crack Japanese force that had occupied Manchuria since seizing it from China in 1931. The fighting began as a border incident and expanded into what we now call the battle of Nomonhan or Kalkhan-Gol. Up to that date, this was the largest tank battle in history. The Red Army won a decisive victory, puncturing the Japanese myth that the elite Kwantung Army was 'invincible'. At the time such a defeat played a crucial part in what proved to be the countdown to Japan's attack on the United States at Pearl Harbour in December 1941. Until Nomonhan, Tokyo's avowed strategic goal of acquiring access to the raw materials it so badly needed had largely targeted northern China, with expansion into adjacent Soviet territory as a potential option. Defeat at Nomonhan dramatically closed down this possibility, persuading Japan increasingly to favour a southward expansion towards Indo-China and the Pacific - a move which sooner or later would bring it into confrontation with British, Dutch and American interests in the region. An intriguing counter-factual arises from this: if the Kwantung Army had beaten Zhukov at Nomonhan in 1939, would Tokyo have opted instead for a northward expansion into resource-rich Mongolia and Siberia? In such a case, there would have been no Pearl Harbour to trigger Hitler's declaration of war on the US, begging the question whether an isolationist America would have entered the Second World War even later than it did - or even at all. Listen to Episode 6 of Unknown Warriors, Series 2.

If you think you know about WW2, it's time to think again.



An Understanding History Podcast


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