Quaker,
The reason I said what i said is that I have yet to play a game where Japan does not strike Russia in the first round. It costs the Axis nothing because the current Russian NO is countered by the loss of the territories in (-3 in round one and -1 in round 2 so the Russian not at war NO goes to 1 ipc). Plus the Japanese if waiting till round 3 to attack UK/ANZAC/US have an overwhelming force to both crush China with and the Russian far east with a modest setup to attack the DEI. Maybe if I played different people the result would be different but I always see Japan striking Russia early, and I would do it myself. Any NO would have to be a penalty to Japan to prevent it, such as giving Russia offensive pieces in the far east or some such.