Analysis/perspective: Why Japan succeeds: A unique capital investment technique, a dedicated labor force, and a knack for backing the right "technological horse" make Japan "go"

Twice this century Japan has emerged on the global scene as a major power. The first time, after its exclusion from world markets and access to raw materials, it sought its place in the world through military prowess, only to find itself engaged in a suicidal war with the United States and the whole of Asia. Incendiaries and then two atomic bombs reduced the grandiose Empire it had built to the pile of ashes that was Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki in August 1945. At Potsdam, the victors decided that Japan should rise again only as a peaceful democracy without arms and without an armaments industry.