“Seven hundred million brethren in India and China cannot gain their independence without our protection and leadership.
“The history of East and West is a record of the unification of feudal states after an era of civil wars. The only possible international peace, which will come after the present age of international wars, must be a feudal peace. This will be achieved through the emergence of the strongest country, which will dominate all other nations of the world.”

Japanese reaction, of course, was quick and bitter. “Japan is expanding,” retorted Yosuke Matsuoka, a diplomat whose sharp tongue and ready wit was winning him many followers. “And what country in its expansion era has ever failed to be trying to its neighbors? Ask the American Indian or the Mexican how excruciatingly trying the young United States used to be once upon a time.” Japan’s expansion, like that of America’s, was as natural as the growth of a child. “Only one thing stops a child from growing–death.” He declared that Japan was fighting for two goals: to prevent Asia from falling completely under the white man’s domination, as in Africa, and to save China from Communism. “No treasure trove is in her eyes–only sacrifices upon sacrifices. No one realizes this more than she does. But her very life depends on it, as do those of her neighbors as well. The all-absorbing question before Japan today … is: Can she bear the cross?”

Naval warfare has only four principal aspects, viz:

Invasion, and counter invasion;

Attack of trade, and defence of trade.

These ends, which loom behind every naval operation, can only be completely achieved by the destruction of the enemy’s forces. The struggle may be spread over long years of suffering and uncertainty, or it may be greatly abbreviated by battle.

There has been a tendency in recent years to depreciate the function of the battle in naval strategy, but it must always play an essential part in the economy of war, for it embodies two great principles of war – concentration, and the economy of the decisive blow.