[littlestymaar]

> I'd be willing to bet that the Japanese would have been willing to pull out of Manchuria

Given the success of Soviet's new combined arm doctrine (later called “deep battle”), I don't think “pull out of Manchuria” would have been a possibility, as the Japanese force there would very likely have collapsed to a point where getting back to Japan would have been impossible (think Dunkirk but with much more land to leave behind you and with an enemy moving even faster and where you don't have neither air or sea superiority).