Japanese Forces

Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact

Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka signing the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact. Later, in 1941, Japan, as a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, considered denouncing the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, especially after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), but made the crucial decision to keep it and to expand southwards invading the European colonies in Southeast Asia instead. Historians after the war found evidence that had Stalingrad fallen, Japan would have invaded Siberia.