What is the purpose of wasting allied lives taking the Solomons, New Guinea, and the Philippines when you can just take pooly defended Marshall, Marianas and Iwo Jima islands and then maybe Okinawa, to straightaway launch bombing campaigns and invasion into Japan.
Can some strategy expert explain to me the idea behind this? Like, if you threaten Japan, wouldn't they pull their navy back to defend? Without the IJN, the SEA holdings of Japan would disintegrate on its own or are just out of the picture.