Dear god, considering the way things start out in europe, with France STILL ON THE BOARD G1, I’m assuming Japan doesn’t want to upset the applecart the first round. At least not in Global. Too many things Germany/Italy need to do to get setup the first few rounds; not to mention a possible Sealion/Baltic fleet strategy. And clearing out the Med.
Germany could still get a lot done with US activating round 1; but they’d better start hauling ass towards Russia ASAP if Japan attacks J1 anyway. Russia won’t be setup very well yet on the first round; but with troops stationed in Siberia he’ll have nothing better to do with them but invade Manchuria.
Hell, keeping US neutral till round 3 is probably going to be the best strategy in Global from here on out; nothing the Axis can take in the first three rounds is going to be equivalent to 2 rounds of +30 war income NOs for the US. Axis is going to need any bit of help it can get once the US is able to place 80 IPCs worth of units on the board each round.