I think everyone here agrees that a J1 DoW forces the US into a nearly 100% Kill Japan First strategy, and even then, they won’t see the fruit of their labor for what is a very long time in terms of game rounds.
What I am claiming is that I myself don’t know how best to respond to this as America. I came here to hopefully have people enlighten me, because it seems, to me, that the US is forced into simply waiting, take little to no direct action to slow down Japan until at least A5, if not 6 or 7, and even then the odds are still not that great for you (I think I said ~70% earlier).
The following statements are not new to this board, so feel free to skip reading them:
I am 100% saying that if Russians retreat those inf, then Japan should absolutely do a turn 1 DoW. I think this is clearly superior to any situation where they wait until J3, and very probably superior to any J2 play.
That’s not to say sending the 18 ruskies back west is bad, it definitely is a very viable decision and will probably lock Germany out of Moscow (or allow the russians to actually push back if they built enough artillery and Germany is overextending itself).