According to military historian Cristopher Bassford this confounding of the best laid plans of military strategists is "what Clausewitz called 'friction,' stemming from war's uncertainty, chance, suffering, confusion, exhaustion, and fear. Friction stems from the effects of time, space, and human nature; it is the fundamental and unavoidable force that makes war in reality differ from the abstract model of 'absolute war'" (Bassford 1).

In order to understand what led the Japanese to expand from their islands out into the surrounding countries of Asia and engage in the fateful attack on the United States that eventually brought about their own downfall, it is necessary to consider what their history, interests, and intentions were.

"Japan entered World War II with limited aims and with the intention of fighting a limited war" (Matloff 499). It's goals were similar to, and perhaps modelled on the colonial conquests of the European nations which originated from the voyages of discovery in the 15th century and continued well into the 20th century. It wanted to secure the resources that it sorely lacked on its island chain by militarily dominating its Asian neighbors.

Matloff, Maurice, ed. World War II: The War Against Japan. www. Ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AMH/AMH/AMH-23.html

By early 1942 America and Australia had begun to launch retaliatory raids against some of Japan's newly acquired Pacific possessions, and later in the year General Doolittle led a small squadron of bombers on a mostly symbolic, but psychologically potent attack on Tokyo, Japan's capital, which was immortalized in his book Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. The United States began to strengthen its bases from Hawaii to Alaska to India, and from there sent out forces to harass and interdict the Japanese perimeter at a variety of points throughout the theatre of war, which the enemy was too widely dispersed and thinly garrisoned to be able to protect completely.

The Japanese forces were well trained and equipped, with a fanatical discipline, and were willing to sacrifice their lives for the emperor. This was demonstrated repeatedly in countless kamakaze raids and last stands to the death as the war moved from island to island. But after a shaky start marked by numerous tactical blunders in the unfamiliar jungle warfare of Oceania, the Americans began to coordinate air, land, and water resources with greater effectiveness, especially when a new generation of technologically advanced aircraft carriers were deployed in 1943. Their strategy was to soften up the Japanese positions by air raids of land or sea-based planes, followed by artillery barrages (sometimes from neighboring islands), and finally culminated by amphibious assaults.