Yes, "Island Hopping" was a central feature of US Strategy against Japan: it allowed the US greater concentration of the forces it had to deploy against Japan at a time when "Germany first" was the priority...The US Navy had MORE than enough forces against the Japanese after July 1943 (when the first Essex-class carriers finally emerged from production and deployed to the pacific), but it was LAND forces (army & marine formations) that the US had to be choosy with as to where and how they were deployed in the Pacific, since taking AND occupying even small islands and the bases they maintained required a lot of people.

Japan's strategy sucked, simply because, as Frederic the Great said "He who defends everywhere defends NO WHERE", and Japan would have done better to pick and choose where it fought and to CONCENTRATE its forces there, once they lost the initiative and were decidedly on the defensive. But they never had a chance, once they failed to put Pearl Harbor out of action (i dont mean the ships, i mean THE HARBOR and its facilities, which they largely ignored.) The fact was, the original Japanese battle plan at Pearl harbor was, if surprise was achieved, to launch 4 (FOUR) waves of attacks from their 6 carriers, which would have totally demolished the port facilities, the huge oil storage area, dry dock and MOST IMPORTANTLY, destroyed the Pearl harbor SUBMARINE base/pens. It was actually the US Submarine fleet, during the course of the war, which did the MOST damage to Japan's fleet and commerce and which effectively ISOLATED Japan by mid 1944...why Admiral Nagumo, the Jap commander quit after only 2 waves of attack planes were sent is a subject of great debate, but essentially, he became chicken and was incredulous at the extent of how completely they had surprised the US forces and routed them so thoroughly. The US Carriers were not in Pearl, so perhaps Nagumo was afraid they were now seeking him, but the fact remains, after the second wave struck Pearl, the Japs had acheived local air superiority and could have remained there and kept peppering away until their ammo and fuel were exhausted.

Of course tactically, aFter the Battle of Midway, Japan's hopes for a draw (settled peace) were gone.

But regarding Stalin and Russia, since the first Russo-Japanes war in 1905 the Japs had long regarded Russia as its traditional enemy; while its true, Japan could not have CONQUERED Russia, it actually only wanted certain far east possessions of Stalin's, and to keep the Soviets from interfering with Japan's plans for China and the area; from 1931 through 1939, border clashes in Manchuria and along the Russian / Mongolian border between Soviet and Jap forces were common, and it was the 1937 clash at Kalkhin Gol (look it up) where Soviet forces under Zhukov routed the japanese force in the skirmish. This left a bad taste in the japs mouth and did influence them from turning their attention away from Russia and mainland Asia to the southeast Asian countries and resources. But again, IF Japan had supported Hitler and attacked the soviets along their border when Germany invaded in June 1941, history would be totally different ....