For Japanese, August is a gloomy month. In the Pacific War, which ended in August 60 years ago, more than 3 million Japanese troops died. In the final days of the war, U.S. forces dropped history's first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki following indiscriminate carpet bombings of Japanese cities from B-29 superfortresses. About 100,000 people perished in just one night in a Tokyo air raid. Several million Japanese lost their homes in the war.

Nevertheless, many Japanese are troubled by feelings of guilt as aggressors in the war. The 1931 Manchurian Incident touched off a series of battles that Japan fought for 15 years until its 1945 unconditional surrender in the Pacific War. Japan had kept ramping up its military aggression on China. In 1941, it started the Pacific War against the United States and Britain. Militarism led to the collapse of the Japan that had been built up since the Meiji Era.

Emboldened by its victories in the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War and the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War, Japan was afflicted with tunnel vision as it began to expand its interests and control of new territories in the 1930s, eschewing cooperation with Asian and Western countries. Political leaders who lacked the will and power to stop the military adventurism should be held responsible for the expansionist policies.