Events have moved much more quickly than the Japanese had anticipated and responsible opinion in Japan appreciates that defeat has become a matter of time and degree. Japan is now strictly on the defensive, awaiting invasion of her home islands. She has already thinned out on the left and left centre of her perimeter, but still covers certain main approaches to the inner zone, notably the MALACCA and the SUNDA Straits. The problem that faces her now is how best to dispose for the defence of Japan proper, North China and MANCHURIA, the forces still available in the outer zone, and to what extent, by imposing delay on the Allies in their advance towards the inner zone, she can influence, by military and/or political means, the degree of her ultimate defeat.