"Education leads to enlightenment. Enlightenment opens the way to empathy. Empathy foreshadows reform." - Derrick A Bell, Faces at the Bottom of a Well What do you think he means?

Derrick A Bell is likely explaining the following rationale:

As you educate yourself, you get to know many other realities, from social realities to economic realities, to political realities. This increased knowledge makes you more informed and critical, in other words, makes you more enlightened.

Because of this knowlege of other realities, you also become more empathetic, because you acquire the capacity to put yourself in other people's situations. And finally, empathy naturally leads to desires to reform the negative policies that negatively affect the people you are empathizing with.

by 1890, the united states had by far the world's most productive economy. american industry produced twice as much as its closest competitor--britain. but the united states was not a great military or diplomatic power. its army numbered less than 30,000 troops, and its navy had only about 10,000 seamen. britain's army was five times the size of its american counterpart, and its navy was ten times bigger. the united states' military was small because the country was situated between two large oceans and was surrounded by weak or friendly nations. it faced no serious military threats and had little interest in asserting military power overseas.

the fact that could also be added to column b is that during world war ii, specifically between the years 1941 and 1945, japan expanded its territory towards the indonesian territory in what was known later as part of the "pacific war". in that time, japan could conquer the philipines, singapore,   borneo, central java, malang, cebu, sumatra and various other islands of the area, therefore expanding its territory for a brief period of time.