There is a lot of truth to what you say, but, the short, disasterous war in Siberia and Mongolia resulted, I think, in the Japanese signing a nonagression pact with the Soviets, which, unlike Hitler, they honored. the Soviets broke that pact in 1945 at Roosevelt’s urging.
It was that nonagression pact that freed up the Soviet forces under Zhukov to move west to stop Hitler’s forces. I think it was Zhukov’s posting to the remote regions of Siberia that saved him from being purged, which probably saved the Soviets from total defeat from both ends of their empire.
In the lead up to Japanese entry into WW II, the Japanese Army despite [and possibly because of] the loss at Kalin Gol [saving face, as it were], wanted to fight the Soviets, AGAIN. It was the Japanese Navy that sent Japan on the path it took.