I can see this happening.It could be that the USSR is more aggressive in the Manchurian border clashes throughout the mid 1930s and Japan moves into a far more anti-Soviet stance. Ishiwara and Co manage to out manoeuvre Tojo and argue that China isn't the priority and that the USSR is an existential threat to Japanese survival.
Japan avoids entering an actual war with China and instead solidifies her position in Manchuria and keeps reforming her army (already happening prior to the invasion of China).
If Japan is lucky she could maybe wind up with Indochina as some sort of deal with the allies.
Not totally impossible, but probably not super likely.
In the 1930s, while the Japanese military agreed on the need of aggressive expansion to secure natural resources, opinions were divided between two powerful lobbies:
The Strike North Group which following the Doctrine of Hokushin-ron, wanted Japan to expand its sphere of influence northwards, into Manchuria and Siberia. This doctrine was mostly supported by the Japanese Army.
In contrast, the Southern Expansion Doctrine, or Nanshin-ron, favoring expansion into the Chinese mainland and South-East Asia, was supported mostly by the Navy and important zaibatsus, who saw in South-East Asia and the Pacific the most potential for Japanese expansion.
The Battle of Khalkhin Gol, in which the Japanese Army lost a major border skirmish against the Soviets, greatly discredited the Strike North Group and the Japanese Army, setting Japan on a course of southwards expansion and eventually conflict with the United States.
In a timeline in which the Japanese win against the Soviets in Khalkhin Gol, or at least fight them into a stalemate, I can see the Japanese Army and its Strike North doctrine becoming much more influential.
As a result, Pearl Harbour never happens, instead Japan declares war on the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarrossa in 1941, and the United States gets involved later in the conflict, probably by 1942.
With no Pearl Harbour in the way, I can imagine the Americans reaching a negotiated peace with Japan, once they have taken all their Pacific islands. Of course, in this scenario we would probably see a prolonged war because the Soviet Union would be in very dire straits.
I can imagine the USA nuking Berlin and the Ruhr Valley rather than Hiroshima and Nagasaki in this timeline, with several Normandy-style landings to liberate Europe in the face of Soviet quasi-defeat. In any case, the war would last by 1946-48, and end either in a negotiated peace or a grueling, extremely difficult Allied victory.
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