"Most dangerous of all, it was the product of a leadership where the military focused on winning battles and the civilians had given little thought to what happened after that. That limited vision is more common in war than one might think. The Germans in 1914 had not worked out their war aims or what they would do if France and Russia sued for peace. In September 1941, as Japan moved closer towards war with the United States, a high-level imperial war conference took place in the presence of the emperor, key civilian and military leaders and elder statesmen. The military, which by now dominated policy-making, produced a document of breathtaking vagueness on its goals in the coming war. ‘We cannot exclude the possibility,’ it said, ‘that the war may end because of a great change in American public opinion … At any rate we should be able to establish an invincible position … Meanwhile, we may hope that we will be able to influence the trend of affairs and bring the war to an end.’ The Japanese prime minister, Tojo Hideki (who was later tried for war crimes), shortly afterwards compared the decision to jumping off a cliff with one’s eyes closed. ‘There are times when we must have the courage to do extraordinary things.’ Asia, the Americans and the Japanese people paid a heavy price for that sort of courage."