Why would the Soviets do August Storm in TTL? They're more capable than OTL, but what's the motivation?
Furthermore, the Kwangtung Army in TTL will be stronger due to not being stripped to fight the United States in the islands, so it might not be so much of a walkover.
Revenge for 1938 and a desire to exact the maximum amount of advantage in a postwar scenario with the USA.
This is quite true. Based on the POD Stalin hasn't yet agreed to join in against Japan (Happened in December of '43 IOTL.).
The Kwangung Army was never going to be able to outfight ANY "European" army, but it would be far better equipped than IOTL late 1945 and the Red Army would be far less well equipped.
The IJA was not going to defeat any Allied forces, not in a setpiece battle. The real issue is that the Allies simply can not sent an Army Group roaring across Burma, the terrain makes that impossible (not sure it could be done TODAY), so the number of ground troops available will make only a small difference in that theater.
Overall, the POD sets up a scenario where you could see the East/West fight that Hitler always thought would happen, especially if the UK stands up for the Free Poles and the U.S. backs them. IOTL this was moot point since the Red Army was already thick on the ground across Poland; something that is far from the case here.
No, but then the USSR won Nomonhan at its worst against Imperial Japan, and here you've got millions of Soviets who were dead IOTL to throw against Japan and extract everything from the USA as far as that war as possible. If the war ends in 1943, the democracies have no leg to stand on. They've *just* gotten to
Sicily and for 1941 and 1942 the only Ally fighting the Nazis on European soil was the USSR.
Most people would assume the peace has more to do with Kursk than with Husky. At this phase in the war, after the defeat in France, in Greece, in Crete, and the long, tedious struggle to bag 250,000 Axis troops in North Africa, the Western Allies finally get onto real European soil again just as the war closed. Why are the Soviets or the Nazis going to take that military might seriously again? While the Red Army is not the one of 1945, the democratic armies are also not the ones of 1945. They've been curbstomped by the Nazis, struggled to defeat two divisions while the Soviets have been the driving force behind this peace at Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk. They've managed after several months to finally invade European soil while the Stalinists have completely ground Blitzkrieg to a halt. The democracies have proven able to defeat two divisions, the Soviets are the ones who've wrecked the German army.
Would the Soviets really care what the democracies, unable to withstand as yet the shock of fighting more than 2 Axis divisions successfully all that seriously without the nukes? Would the forces which went into trench warfare in Italy do better in Burma? If not, why's the USSR any more likely to take the democracies seriously? At the point of Operation Husky democratic armies have finally re-appeared in Europe. In the ATL they do so right as the war closes.