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Ukraine ping [Had a dust-up with the Japanese along the Manvhurian border in 1937, which the Soviets won.] This was trumpeted as a great victory and built up into the first evidence of Russian supermen (in much the same way as others built up the German supermen of the Heer in the post-war era) of WWII. Then in the post-Cold War era, Soviet archives were cracked open for a few years (until Putin slammed them shut), and the truth emerged - that the Soviets had scratched out a victory against a Japanese force inferior in numbers (equipment and men) and technology, while sustaining higher casualties than the Japanese, while on defense (!). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol#Soviet_assessment ... Despite this, the Soviet operations chief of the Far Eastern Front, General A. K. Kazakovtsev, was not confident in his army group’s ability to stop an invasion if the Japanese committed to it (at least in 1941–1942), commenting: “If the Japanese enter the war on Hitler’s side ... our cause is hopeless.”[75] ]

Don't forget that the Soviets lost to the Poles and their Ukrainian allies in 1920-21. Lenin offered the Poles all of Ukraine West of the Dneiper, but under pressure from the British and French it was foolishly declined. That would have denied the Soviets much of Ukraine's farmland and given a reborn Polish-Ukrainian commonwealth a port on the Black Sea. Also note that the Soviets performed poorly in 1939 when the Polish chose to engage them. When the Poles fought the Soviets then, they did very well until they ran out of ammunition.

The Soviet edge over the Japanese was in armor. Had Hitler shared some German tank technology and designs with the Japanese to encourage them to attack the Soviets rather than the U.S., the Soviet Union would have been conquered and world history would have been much different. Hitler's racist mindset cost him a victory.

[The Soviet edge over the Japanese was in armor. Had Hitler shared some German tank technology and designs with the Japanese to encourage them to attack the Soviets rather than the U.S., the Soviet Union would have been conquered and world history would have been much different. Hitler’s racist mindset cost him a victory. ]

Ultimately, German and Japanese interests were diametrically opposed. From Japan’s standpoint, a Germany that had conquered Europe *and* Russia was in a position to conquer Japanese holdings in China and Japan itself.

Similarly, the Germans presumably weren’t interested in owning only European Russia. If they had given the Japanese their technologies, the odds are reasonable that they would eventually have clashed on the battlefield on much more even terms. Hitler was presumably hoping that the Japanese would exhaust themselves against Russia, leaving any Japanese gains in Russia and Japanese holdings in China open to German conquest.

The debate about the limited cooperation between Germany and Japan tends to focus on missed opportunities. IMHO, there were good strategic reasons both sides hedged.