In May 1984, the publisher Diamond brought out Shippai no honshitsu: Nihongun no soshikironteki kenkyū (The Essence of Failure: An Organizational Study of the Japanese Military). Its six authors include Nonaka Ikujirō.
The description of the 2024 Chūkō Bunko edition says the book brought social science analysis into the study of war history for the first time. It examines six operations as cases of failure: Nomonhan, Midway, Guadalcanal, Imphal, Leyte and Okinawa.