meghdut
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I would like to add a lesser known, but in my opinion an extremely significant battle. The battle of Khalkin Gol, fought between Red Army and Imperial Japanese Army in 1939. Japanese military was divided between northward looking and southward looking factions the former wanted to expand towards China-Russia and the later wanted to expand towards Pacific-US. The battle of Khalkin Gol was a test of the Northerner's theory. Japan was decisively defeated in that conflict and suffered huge causalities. Afterwards Russo-Japanese relations improved and Japan remained passive when Operation Barbarossa was unleashed on Russia. Had Japan won Khalkin-Gol battle she might be tempted to launch offensive into Russia in conjunction with the Germans, which could have potentially catastrophic consequence for Russia who would be unable to withdraw her Eastern border armies, who were decisive in blunting and then throwing back the Germans during battle of Moscow. With active Japanese participation with Germany Russia may well have collapsed in WWII