As many of you know, I am an amateur military historian with special interest in WW 2 in the Pacific. Japan's defeat in WW 2 had its roots in the early 17th century expulsion of the Europeans. While defeat was probably inevitable, there were a number of contributing factors, besides the obvious paucity of industrial capacity, that I haven't seen discussed. This article, which I have recently written, gets into some of them. 

This is a rather lengthy article (as you might imagine) and is available upon request. I think my website host would consider me a rude guest if I posted the whole thing here. Call me at 310 265-2141 or e-mail at danahgraham@cs.com and I'll be happy to furnish a copy.