If the Pacific War had been a game of chess, played between grandmasters, there would have been no endgame. With the outcome no longer in doubt, neither grandmaster would have felt the need to play to the end. Foreseeing that his king was soon to be checkmated, the Japanese player would have laid it down on the board and shaken hands with his opponent. But this was war, not a board game, and conditions in Japan did not allow for the possibility of a negotiated truce until long after defeat had become inevitable.
