eli5: How Did Japan and America Go From Enemies to Allies So Quickly?

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I’m trying to wrap my head around how the USA and Japan shifted from being fierce enemies during World War II to becoming close allies in just a few decades. It seems like a huge turnaround in international relations from an American perspective. What happened and why this dramatic change?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s hard to do a proper ELI5 on subject matters like this, since there’s alot to unpack, not just what they did during and right after the war, but also what what was before the war. Japan and the US have history.

But basically it boils down to this:

“Hey, we will let you off pretty much scott free if you take some democracy and capitalism and let us use your country as a base of operations against the commies (Who the Japanese didn’t like, so free protection). We will even give you alot of money for it!”

The japanese who didn’t really hate the Americans, but took on the US because they were on the other side of Emperialistic Japans goals saw it as a good deal and flourished because of that deal. And eventually they went from an occupied territory to an allied country, and a US base of incluence in the region.

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