[Zhang Fei]

[Japans strike south focus is interesting, and likely deliberate on the part of FDR to draw Japan and US into a war (which we know he wanted). By getting Japan to focus on the pacific, Stalin was free to shift the Siberian divisions to the defense of Moscow, and they arrived in the barest nick of time to save the city.]

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I expect Japan’s decision had nothing to do with FDR. Two points - (1) numerous foreign invaders have conquered China without requiring out of area supplies (i.e. the goods embargoed by FDR) and (2) Japan’s alliance with Germany was like many similar wartime alliances - purely a matter of tactical convenience rather than any meeting of the minds.

Re point 1 - if Japan had merely bided its time and taken the better part of a century to pacify China (i.e. slaughter irreconcilables and mollify assimilables), Japan would today include all of China. That it chose to do otherwise was unwise and perhaps an indication that it was ruled by degenerate gamblers.

Re point 2 - Japan had good reason to avoid triggering a Soviet collapse. If Germany overran Russia, what was to prevent it from overrunning Japan and its possessions?

[Little Ray]

I don’t think the Japanese had a choice about going to war with the US.
The embargo on oil and scrap steel was absolutely devastating to the Japanese economy. They needed to grab resources like oil, rubber, and iron, and force us to end the embargo.
It just didn’t go very well for them. The US had more industry on just the West Coast than existed in all of Japan, and the Japanese never managed to exploit their conquests very well.

[Campion]

Also, Japan attacking eastern Siberia ... why? It’s endless wilderness, frozen part of the year and mud and mosquitoes the rest, with barely any roads and (at the time) one decent railway. You have hundreds of miles to cover before you get to anything worth conquering, and your forces would be very thinly spread, hard to resupply, and easy for an enemy to break through.