Tripartite Pact: ARTICLE 3 and ARTICLE 5
ARTICLE 3. Japan, Germany, and Italy agree to cooperate in their efforts on aforesaid lines. They further undertake to assist one another with all political, economic and military means if one of the Contracting Powers is attacked by a Power at present not involved in the European War or in the Japanese-Chinese conflict.
and
ARTICLE 5. Japan, Germany and Italy affirm that the above agreement affects in no way the political status existing at present between each of the three Contracting Powers and Soviet Russia.
could be interpreted so many ways, that only one sense to formulate defensive military alliance such way is "we need to have an option to do not follow it".
But may be those phrases was absolutely clear for those time diplomats since those formulations were widely used in other pacts? Did they had any precedents?
E.g. "The Triple Alliance" (1882) didn't contained anything like this, all formulations were absolutely straight forward.
What is "uclear" in Article 3:
"Triple Alliance" instead of "assist one another with all political, economic and military means" uses much more direct "assistance with all their forces" and "casus foederis will arise simultaneously"
Tripartite Pact uses "by a Power at present not involved in .. war" - what is "involved in war"? I've expected there to find "at present not in state of war". Where meaning of "involved" was defined? Why list of countries "at present involved in war" left open? I understand that we can't name USA, but what was a problem to name the GB and China (define the list involved at present by enumeration)?
Article 5 text I can understand as "if Soviet Russia attacks you - it is not our common problem". But the same can be stated much more direct way. And the presence of such phrase is very surprising. Do we have any precedents in past of such articles in other pacts?
And also why "Soviet Russia" (Sowjet-Rußland) name was used instead of Soviet Union or USSR (germ. Sowjetunion) ? E.g. Ribbentrop-Molotov pact was singed with Union der Sozialistichen Sowietrepubiken.