Decisions in Tokyo were controlled by the Army, and then rubber-stamped by Emperor Hirohito; the Navy also had a voice. However the civilian government and diplomats were largely ignored. The Army saw the conquest of China as its primary mission, but operations in Manchuria had created a long border with the USSR. Informal, large-scale military confrontations with Soviet forces at Nomonhan in summer 1939 demonstrated that the USSR possessed a decisive military superiority. Even though it would help Germany's war against the Soviet Union after June 1941, the Japanese army refused to go north.