 Of course, this proves that a tactically decisive victory is no substitute for a decisive victory on a larger scale, since the strategic issue of control of the Pacific remained very much in question, and the war was later resolved decisively in the Allies's favor (see above) via aircraft carriers and bombers instead of battleships.Writing in "Military Review", Thomas Goss attributes the popularity of the closely related term "decisive battle" to Sir Edward Creasy and his 1851 book, "The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World".Goss recounts a variety of different definitions for the term used by historians and military leaders (neither of which typically define the term before using it)