I'm watching the World War II in Color series (it's fantastic) on Netflix, and while it touches on a lot of areas, it does so briefly and leaves me questions sometimes. A major one is Operation Barbossa and the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. My question is why the Japanese attacked the US and drew in another combatant instead of coordinating with Germany to attack the USSR (whom they each border). And obviously, the Soviet Union is huge, but it seems like they drew in two major powers into a conflict in such a way that wasn't necessary or forced upon on either of them.
Now for the timeline, the events are separate: Japan declares war on December 7th, 1940 and Operation Barbarossa is six months later, with Japan's impetus as needing supplies to continue their conquests (which they attain from the Philippines if I'm understanding everything right) and Germany attacks the USSR for well, I'm not quite sure. I get that the eventual plan was create a massive German state through Eastern Europe but I don't understand why they chose 1941 to attack (after they declare on the United States). The Japanese attack makes some sense, because they needed the resources, but all indications show that Stalin was pretty comfortable with the Nazis diplomatically at least, and didn't pose a threat to them.
I guess, what I'm asking is, did Japan coordinate with Germany in any way prior to Pearl Harbor in the strategic decision to attack the United States or was Germany as surprised as the US was? And vice versa, did Japan know that Germany was planning to attack the USSR and if so how early did they know? Could the resources they needed from Micronesia have been obtained from the USSR instead?
And did Italy do much of anything in all of these major operations listed above?
Your timeline is off. Japan didn't declare war until December 7, 1941, almost five months after Operation Barbarossa commenced on June 22, 1941.
Japan had not notified the other Axis powers of the impending attack, but when news of it reached Berlin, Hitler took the news very well, expecting that it would tie up the US and the UK and reduce logistical support for the USSR, and ordered a declaration of war in line with Germany's responsibilities under the Tripartite Pact. That war happened wasn't really a surprise; negotiations between Japan and the US were clearly going badly, and most people in both countries expected war to occur at some point, and probably sooner than later. However, Hitler may have badly miscalculated, as Congress might not have declared war on the European Axis powers (they were viewed negatively by the US, but not nearly as much as the Japanese), but Hitler's declaration of war settled that question for them.
Similarly, Hitler didn't notify its Axis allies about Operation Barbarossa, at least not explicitly. Efforts to gauge support from at least Japan in case war with the Soviets happened appear to have taken place, but the Japanese signed a neutrality agreement first and ended up maintaining it when things started getting complicated in its claimed territory (more on that below).
The Japanese goal was to knock out the US fleet in the Pacific long enough to ensure its own success in the Pacific. While many people think of the US as being isolationist up until Pearl Harbor, FDR had been quietly and not so quietly providing support for those fighting the Axis for some time. The Lend-Lease Act is the most well-known of this support (and it went to many more nations besides the UK and USSR), but Claire Chennault had been directed in 1940 to begin quietly organizing a volunteer air force to fight against the Japanese in Southeast Asia. This group, which would become known as the Flying Tigers, first saw action only two weeks after Pearl Harbor was attacked, and became known for their ferocity in combat over the next year or so.
Japan's need for resources drove its conquest, especially once the US stopped oil exports to China in the summer of 1941. The US clearly stood in the way of that, having one of the larger navies in the world and the only major navy that wasn't somehow tied up in the war. If the US could be eliminated as a threat, at least for a couple of years, then maybe Japan could gain enough territory to make a strategic battle result in a Pyrrhic victory at best and sue for peace. There were those in the Japanese military who disagreed with this idea, Admiral Yamamoto being one of them, believing that bringing the US into the war was very likely to go badly as the entire country would begin working toward victory. They were right, of course, but were overruled by superiors, and just did the best they could under the circumstances. Yamamoto's attack plan on Pearl Harbor was very nearly the master stroke that was needed, except that it left dockyards, fuel tanks, and munitions depots largely unscathed, allowing ships to be replenished. Yamamoto would come to regret this soon after, citing it as perhaps the biggest mistake of the war.
Had the Japanese succeeded in knocking out the US Pacific fleet, it might have been able to participate more actively against the Soviets, perhaps removing some of the pressure from German forces in the western Soviet Union. However, the Japanese weren't terribly keen on fighting the Soviets after being badly defeated at the Battle of Khalkin Gol in 1939, and had a neutrality pact with Moscow from April 1941 (until Moscow withdrew in 1945 so it could declare war on Japan). So keen were the Japanese to preserve this status that they largely left alone US ships providing aid to the Soviets transiting through the Pacific, an action that greatly displeased Hitler. Had the US not spun up the war machine so quickly--the Battle of Midway took place a mere six months after Pearl Harbor and permanently put Japan's military on its back foot--Japan might have had the time or inclination to change this practice, but by the end of 1942, everything was being thrown at defending existing territory.
Compounding this was the situation in China. Japan held territory there (most notably Manchuria and much of the coast with some inland territory), but it wasn't a stable situation, with Chiang and Mao both fighting the Japanese where they could (when they weren't fighting each other). If Japan started fighting the Soviets, it would drain resources from stabilizing China, possibly providing a foothold for the Allies to assist in fighting (like the Flying Tigers I mentioned above).
Besides, the Japanese power was in their Navy, and not so much their ground and air forces. By the middle of the war, its planes and tanks were looking obsolete, with even the vaunted Zero being outperformed in many ways by enemy aircraft, and efforts to field better designs weren't panning out well (though some of this was stress from the Pacific War as resource streams started to dwindle). Still stinging from the defeat by the Soviets just a few years before, and most certainly seeing how the Soviets were doing against German armor and aircraft, they may have been unlikely to violate the neutrality pact with Moscow even without having to fight the US.