Stuff I didn't know

...'I diddled the old lady too!'

"We'll be here all week, folks.  Don't forget to tip your waitress."  Good one, Mr. Beagles.

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Like many Americans of a certain age I grew up thinking that the US played the major role in Germany's defeat in WW2; the contributions of the Soviet Union were downplayed and not given the credit they deserved.  Now I've learned that the Soviets also had a big part to play in the defeat of the Japanese, something that never occurred to me.  It's a bit complicated and maybe you guys knew it but I didn't.

In 1941 the Soviet Union signed a five-year neutrality pact with Japan.  All well and good as it gave the Soviets the ability to focus on fighting the Germans.  But later, at Yalta, Stalin made a deal with FDR that the Soviets would go to war with Japan within ninety days of Germany's defeat and surrender with the expectation of certain geographic concessions, like Korea and other Japanese occupied territories.  And they did, just barely, declaring war on Japan a couple of days after the bomb in Hiroshima.  It took less than two weeks to drive the Japanese out of Manchuria and the Soviets were on a roll, off to Korea and eventually the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido.  It was only then that the Japanese military leadership signed an unconditional surrender, figuring their future would be much brighter with a deal with the Americans.  And Truman stiffed the Soviets, leading to the split of Korea into North and South.

To the Japanese military leadership the nukes were no big deal; just bigger bombs.  More than three-quarters of Japanese cities were already bombed and burned and they were prepared to fight until the end in defense of their homeland.  They reasoned, probably rightly, that the US was in no hurry to invade Japan but they did not foresee the loss of Manchuria and were not prepared for the 1.6 million Soviet troops deployed there.  It's a hell of a tale.  I think I got most of this right but here are some of my sources; you may find them interesting:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBuMDG2TvcY&t=166s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjygZML_X-o&t=20s

There's plenty of other material out there if you want to do a little digging, but now I have to rethink the current global situation.  After more than seventy years Russia and Japan still have not formally signed a peace treaty; ownership of the Kuril Islands is still in dispute.

They weren't kidding when they said "Politics makes strange bedfellows."  Two of our allies in WW2, China and Russia, are now our biggest adversaries and our two main foes, Germany and Japan, are now our closest allies.  What a world we live in.