What you're about to hear is part four of a multi-part series on the war in Asia and

the Pacific area between about 1931 and 1945.

If you like your stories in some sort of linear order and you haven't heard the earlier

segments, you might want to catch up by checking those out first.

If you don't care or you heard those already, well, then this is Supernova in the East,

part four.

It's history.

It's hardcore history.

There is a very wonderful and squishy question in play in both world wars, especially.

I can hear some people in the back of my head saying it's always been in place at the

beginning of time, but certainly because of maybe the increase in the pace of change

and what.

You see it in stark relief in both world wars, but it has to do with the difference between

quantifiable war elements versus unquantifiable war elements.

This is not to say that one is more important than the other, but one is much more subject

to proof and testing than the other.

We had said earlier that the early parts of this conflict are the acid test of combat.

The rubber meets the road moment for a lot of the pre-war promises about these ships

and these aircraft and all these land-based systems and ideas, both tactics and strategy

and equipment where we get to see if all the hype before a conflict breaks out lives

up to it once conflict does.

The good news about something like that is that it is quantifiable evidence.

...