“Anxieties,” wrote Alfred Thayer Mahan, “are the test and penalty of greatness.” On the cusp of a smashing victory, a commander must keep his nerve or fail altogether. According to that great American naval strategist, who had found an attentive readership in Japan: Strenuous, unrelaxing pursuit is therefore as imperative after a battle as courage is during it. Great political results often flow from correct military action; a fact which no military commander is at liberty to ignore. He may very well not know of those results; it is enough to know that they may happen, and nothing can excuse
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