The battles at Khalkhin Gol greatly influenced the strategic situation faced by the Soviet Union during the course of the Second World War, and by extension the western front. (I’m assuming the western front from the Soviet perspective.) The Battles of Khalkhin Gol were the climax of a long standing, slowly escalating Soviet-Japanese border conflict which started over the vaguely defined Manchukuo-Mongolia-USSR border (Manchukuo which was a Japanese puppet state established after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the Mongolian S.S.R. which was a Soviet puppet state). The confrontational ambitions of the semi-independent Kwantung army and its backing “Strike North faction” and the uncompromising Soviet stance towards its own claims resulted in an ever escalating series of violations, incidents and clashes. These border clashes gradually escalated to become large clashes between regular military forces (more or less corps level on either side at Khalkhin Gol) of the two states.

The outcome of Khalkhin Gol influenced later events on the western front. On the strategic level it changed the Soviet situation in a potential Soviet-German conflict from that of a two front war against Germany and Japan to a single front war on the western front against Germany. This freed Soviet forces in the Far East to act decisively as part of the nation’s strategic reserve and perhaps even more importantly created a safe space for the evacuation of crucial war industries beyond the reach of enemy interference (the Strike North faction envisaged expansion into the Soviet Far East as far as Lake Baikal). The battle provided vital experience for the slowly rehabilitating Red Army as well and while much emphasis has been placed upon Zhukov’s use of massed armor, airpower and the double encirclement tactics in the offensive which would become emblematic of late war deep operations and his operational art. The Battle at Khalkhin Gol also provided sorely needed lessons in the conduct of defensive operations as well. Khalkhin Gol provided a case study for the fluid integration of defensive and counteroffensive operations to enable decisive results in the offensive, an especially useful lesson for a Red Army which had been for so long ideologically rooted in the cult of the offensive, and was forced to relearn during 1941 and 1942 as it fought on the strategic defensive. Khalkhin Gol also pioneered the method of command and control organization of operations by STAVKA Representatives which would become commonplace during the Great Patriotic War. Then Komkor Zhukov was brought in as a trusted, independent representative of the Soviet high command to oversee the operation and given the independence and latitude to achieve the results desired by the high command. To achieve this, Zhukov was then, in a style typical of the later war in the west, provided lavish logistical and material support from high command reserves to create an independent force (57th Special Corps then 1st Army Group) tailored for the requirements of the operation. In many ways Khalkhin Gol was a prototypical glimpse of the conduct of later Soviet operations, especially those conducted in the Second and Third Periods of the War.

The decisive victory achieved by the Soviets at Khalkhin Gol changed the potential nature of the Soviet-Japanese border conflict, making the next escalatory step for the two actors limited if not outright state conflict in lieu of a negotiated settlement. The nature of the Battles at Khalkhin Gol, as well as concurrent global and domestic developments greatly influenced the Imperial Japanese Government’s decision to resolve the conflict diplomatically. The resolution of the battles by the Soviets roughly coincided with the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, this left Japan with the prospect of fighting an undistracted Soviet Union alone and without allies. Secondly the vagaries of the Soviet-Japanese border and the Soviet resolution of the battle largely within the disputed border area left Japan with a way out while saving face, Japanese sovereignty over Manchukuo remained unchallenged and the Imperial Japanese leadership were left convinced that there was no immediate Soviet designs on the territory. This, Japan’s ever increasing entanglement in China, and the reckless insubordination of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria led to the ascendence of the Southern Strike faction in the Imperial Japanese Government and the turning of Japanese expansionary ambitions southward into the Pacific and confrontation with the United States. With the full strength of the Imperial Japanese state involved in the war in the Pacific and the quagmire in China, there would be no forces capable of significantly threatening the U.S.S.R. in the Far East for the rest of the war.

Edward J. Drea "Nomonhan: Japanese-Soviet Tactical Combat, 1939," Leavenworth Papers Combat Studies Institute (January 1981)

Fugate, Brian I., and L. S. Dvoretski, Thunder on the Dnepr: Zhukov-Stalin and the Defeat of Hitler’s Blitzkrieg. Presidio Press, 1997

Bellamy, Christopher D., and Joseph S. Lahnstein “The New Soviet Defense Policy: Khalkhin Gol 1939 As Case Study” (September 1990) http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a517710.pdf

Jansen, Marius B. The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002 https://books.google.com/books?id=3bf4g447YdcC&pg=PA627&lpg=PA627&dq=northern+strike+faction+kwantung+army&source=bl&ots=G4tY5mMjBF&sig=iyE4LEqIvYuOVM9HY8U2rRM9LAc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjyz6jk04zOAhUCx2MKHaf0CoYQ6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=northern%20strike%20faction%20kwantung%20army&f=false

Joseph Miranda, “Strike North: Japan vs. the Soviet Union, 1941,” World at War Magazine April-May 2014 http://worldatwarmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/WW35-leadarticle.pdf