The cable story makes no sense. The Soviets feared that if Japan became involved in the broader war, they would probably be forced to fight the Japanese. What is interesting is why did Hitler declare war on the US but did not demand Japan declare war on the Soviets? Hubris or just another monumental German blunder?
Looking back, it appears that Hitler made a monumental mistake in declaring war on the United States, but you have to remember that up until WWII, no country had ever fought a two-front war and won. The Germans were keenly aware of this and I believe Hitler thought that declaring war on the United States was a low risk move because the United States would focus exclusively on fighting Japan. Moreover, Hitler thought that by declaring war on the United States, he was encouraging the Japanese to go all out against the United States and thereby keeping the United States tied down in the Pacific, which was his goal
After Pearl Harbor, what no one expected was for FDR to focus America on defeating Germany rather than devoting all of America's resource to fighting Japan. No one, except Americans, could understand how economically powerful the United States was. And when you look from a pre-WWII perspective, it really was beyond belief that the United States was able to fight a global war on 2 fronts and win on both fronts. Simply put, that was thought to be an impossible feat.
Most of WWII was a Euro-Centric war-— and you can see this in the various TV histories that for the most part ignore the Pacific theater.
FDR and his euro-socialist pals focused on Europe— because of the Brits. The Ribbentrop Molotov pact was broken by Hitler in June 1941. Pearl Harbor attack in Dec. 41. Stalin— who was a psychopath and could not see another one in hitler— was stranded— then to be our “ally” of sorts.
There is excellent info on the Jap ambassador to Berlin—and his close relations with Hitler on the subject of why no demand japs declare against the Sovs. The matters in the Ukraine, white russians came into the mix.
The whole thing makes sense when one realizes the level of penetration (the cambridge 5 et al in Brit govt. who all worked for the soviets). Agents in place steered the war effort to help soviets. Japs were already in Manchuria (Manchukuo) and on the soviet border. The Brits made sure the US entered the war-— many threads on this one now declassified story of the jap codes and purposeful deception of the Brits (who were, remember compromised by stalin).
To counteract this— the rewritten soviet “meme” is that FDR callously let the soviets slug it out vs. the Germans on the Eastern Front to save US lives. FDR being the genius and all, more likely... a patriot got between Dexter White and Hopkins et al. so they couldn’t push the Southern front invasion sites instead of Normandy. Patriots like the FBI maybe who knew White and Hopkins were bent.
May I suggest you grab a copy of John Koster’s recent “Operation Snow” which documents the post Soviet records showing how White forced the Japanese attack and war entry at Soviet direction.
This had been covered in asian reporting but not here and his heavily documented book was ignored in the press.
The Soviet spies and moles in the FDR team caused the Japanese to feel that they had no choice but make war.
>>>The cable story makes no sense. The Soviets feared that if Japan became involved in the broader war, they would probably be forced to fight the Japanese. What is interesting is why did Hitler declare war on the US but did not demand Japan declare war on the Soviets? Hubris or just another monumental German blunder?<<<
In fact Germans wanted the Japanese to attack Soviets but there was a non-aggression treaty between USSR and Japan similar to Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Japanese wasn’t that fortunate in skirmishes with the Soviets through the late 1930s and decided to follow it.