Hirohito of Japan

Like Italy and Germany, Japan was a dictatorship, in which only the views of the Emperor Hirohito and his military advisers counted. Government policy was also dominated by militarism - the idea that military might is the best way to achieve your political ambitions. Japan's ambition was to dominate South-East Asia and the South Pacific. By doing this she could acquire all the raw materials she needed to become the region's dominant power.

Japan's invasion of Chinese Manchuria in 1931 was the beginning of this strategy. The League protested about this unprovoked attack on one of its members. Japan left the League and then went on to invade the rest of China in 1937. The United States woke up to the fact that Japan now threatened its role as the dominant power in the Pacific area. War was just four years away.

Neil Demarco: The era of the Second World War; Oxford University Press, 1993/2000, page 16