Sarah Paine

So they're not thinking of planning in terms of branches of sequels and there'll be unexpected events that take place you'll adapt to.

None of that, you're a failure.

Funny that stuff happens to you.

So there's a real insensitivity to risk and there's no grand strategy.

But if you believe these things, you will be lethal in warfare.

You're not gonna give up easily at all.

And so you look at the Japanese at the end of the war and go, why don't they quit a lot earlier?

Well, it's because in a way they're already dead men.

They suffered social death.

And so they're going to keep on until the very, very end of all of this.

And it's a great sin of omission, this absence of grand strategy.

The Japanese aren't the only ones to have done this.

The belligerents on all sides in World War I were thinking all in terms of using the military instrument and got themselves into trouble.

So if you look at what the Japanese are doing, they had some vague ambitions and wanted to take advantage of opportunities.

But there's no definition of what win in this war is.

How much territory should Japan take and then call it a day and say, done?

or it's been successful here.

Rather, their territorial acquisitions are really a function of what they were able to take and what in anger they did take, but also a function of strategic failure.

No matter what they did, it never pacified the China theater.

Problem for them.