At the risk of being controversial, the decision to go to war with the West was the Japanese' biggest mistake they could have made. Surely it would have made more sense to have maintained an uneasy peace, and/or aligned itself with Britain and declared war against Germany in 1939. Japan's defeat in 1945 enabled countries in the Far East to seek independence from former colonial masters and to take their own path, but it did enable a greater American presence in the region and all that that entailed with the threat of communism. Japan today would be a different country if it hadn't gone to war - and without MacArthur, of course.