Many other countries have struggled to reconcile their differences after lesser conflicts, so what events and policies made peace among us something we most take for granted?
In: 25
You don’t blame an entire people for a madman. We don’t blame the Russian public for BabyKiller Putin.
There was a problem, it was fixed, now the people who were subjugated and simply trying to live get to rejoin the rest of the world.
Only stupid people carry hate past where it is due.
It helps that the Axis powers were completely pulverized after WWII.
The two sides didn’t agree to a ceasefire and go home butthurt and resentful for next time, the Allies dominated the Axis, annihilated their militaries and government, and had the opportunity to reshape them entirely.
Post war, the western allies had learned from their mistakes after WWI and went to great lengths rebuilding the infrastructure and economies in the conquered nations.
When the occupation ended, Germany and Japan had been extensively rebuilt with allied help and had become significant trade partners with their former enemies.
A lot of other historical conflicts don’t have that make-good type of resolution – one side screws the other and they hate eachother forever.
How long would you spend punishing them, OP?
Because the US colonized them (look up how many military bases are in each of those countries)
One of the reasons is the lessons learnt from WW1. After WW1, the allies placed massive punitive measures on Germany. This led to hyperinflation and destroyed the economy. The resulting massive social unrest contributed to the rise of the Nazis and ultimately WW2.
After WW2, the US (primarily) provided assistance to all the economies damaged by the war. Over the course of the Cold war, both Japan (somewhat forced) and Germany (somewhat popular) adopted very pacifist attitudes.
The anti communist stance of the US and allies in the Cold war also made it rather easier for countries like Germany and Japan (bordering the Warsaw Pact countries and Russia) to integrate with the new order.
As rapid industrialization took place post WW2, it became pretty evident to Germany and Japan (both with highly educated and homogenous populations) that they needed trade to prosper. Neither of them are resource rich and military expropriation was no longer feasible given the outcome of WW2 and the rapid breakup of colonial empires.
To have trade, it was always more reasonable (aided no doubt by the thousands of US troops stationed in their country) to align with the biggest economy at the time.
I think the most important thing is that those countries (and their people) reconciled the fact that they played a major part in the cause for those wars. And when the Allies won, the Allies worked to rebuild those countries without blaming the people for the war.
At the start of WWII, you had three anti-Communist, white supremacist states go to war with each other (France, UK and Germany). Once the US joined the party we had another one of the same (Nazi Germany wanted to model their Lebensraum after US Jim Crow laws etc).
It was only due to Nazi hyper-aggression that these states came into conflict with each other (all three Western Allies tried to forestall war as long as possible). So they had a lot in common with Germany after the war, especially after they shaved off a superficial layer of Nazism from the German state.
This is in contrast with the Western Allied relation to the USSR and the PRC, where the ideological differences ran deep, and the wartime partnership was a temporary alliance of convenience. In Japan and Germany the wartime states were rebuilt by the US as a bulwark against communism.
You can’t blame an entire nation for the ideals of a mad man, his followers & a small number of the population that believe in him.
The Truman doctrine was important in helping countries against authoritarian nations. And the USA was richer than any other nation after WW2, and I think that through history we’ve learned that after war, we don’t just leave enemies hanging to burn, we help them and lift them up because they could prove to be a positive relationship in the future, like we have today.
Let’s see we unleashed the power of the sun on Japan twice don’t think anyone wants that to happen to them
Latest Answers