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Why was nation building so successful in Japan after WWII, where virtually every other time the US tried it it failed miserably?
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Mar 17, 2018 00:00
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I'm no expert, but I think it's a couple of things. Japan was still comparatively industrialized and stable after the war (I think that members of the old government stuck around after reconstruction) so there wasn't a need to build everything from from the ground up. Also the US wanted to stop communism in the Asia-Pacific region so it wasn't like the Middle East where the main goal is to plunder it for resources rather than ensure a functioning society.
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Mar 17, 2018 00:20
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Yeah. Like Germany, it wasn't really nationbuilding so much as enforcing a US-friendly foreign policy on an existing bureaucracy and political class while simultaneously propping them up with unheard-of largess to beat out Soviet influence. Nowadays, even when the infrastructure existed (say, Iraq), we're both more vengeful and less interested in rush-rebuilding a pseudocolony which could hypothetically support a land war nearby. (Perhaps Iran was saved by the sheer bloodthirsty incompetence and daddy-complex of the second Bush administration?)
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Mar 17, 2018 00:54
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Japan was an industrialized, Westernized society, it came on the heels of a massive and ultimately disastrous war, there was no foreign interference or proxy war, nor were there ideological or religious movements in Japan that could motivate an insurgency. Essentially everyone in Japan was mainly interested in picking up the pieces and moving on with their lives.
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Mar 17, 2018 00:58
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punk rebel ecks posted:Why was nation building so successful in Japan after WWII, where virtually every other time the US tried it it failed miserably? The US put competent people in charge of the rebuilding effort and didn't just hand it over to the first guy who promised to keep the Soviets/communists out. They waited until 1948. I'm not talking about MacArthur by the way but people like Beate Gordon, idealistic people who believed they could make Japan a better place. The Japanese people were all for it too because Japan before WWII was unstable and constantly on the verge of starvation. It's not like the war was the first indicator that their nation was on the wrong path and that there were better avenues to take. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Mar 17, 2018 |
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Mar 17, 2018 04:31
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Also there was no region- or world-wide network of Glorious Nippon Empire fanatics funneling in money and troops to back an insurgency.
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Mar 17, 2018 13:18
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punk rebel ecks posted:Why was nation building so successful in Japan after WWII, where virtually every other time the US tried it it failed miserably? MacArthur allowed competent, sane people (some of whom spied for America and China) to run poo poo. They did a full redistribution almost all land in Japan before breaking up the Big 4 and throwing in some pretty hefty anti-trust legislation. So basically, he did the opposite of every American occupation and client state since. Big Hubris fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Mar 18, 2018 |
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Mar 18, 2018 00:35
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Also remember that early middle eastern democracies were heavily disrupted by the Cold War and constant foreign intervention. You have successive failed governments and states where people do not believe in government institutions anymore. Religious fundamentalism really cranked up After Arabia got pumped with a lot of money to fight their proxy war with Iran.
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Mar 18, 2018 01:47
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https://twitter.com/shingetsunews/status/975283729986764800?s=21
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Mar 19, 2018 04:11
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Oh man, now the LDP will only win 55% of the seats in the next election instead of 60%.
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Mar 19, 2018 04:20
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Badger of Basra posted:Oh man, now the LDP will only win 55% of the seats in the next election instead of 60%. LDP may cling to power, but Abe is more vulnerable. LDP has a leadership election this year.
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Mar 19, 2018 05:58
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How strong is the consensus behind Abe’s economic policies within the LDP? Are full-blast money printing and at least a nominal commitment to the structural reforms demanded by global financial capitalism things that a post-Abe LDP would realistically deviate from, or are they on this train till it crashes? I feel like changes to the underlying political-economic equilibrium of Abenomics could have pretty volatile electoral effects, especially when half of the eligible voters haven’t been showing up and are up for grabs to whoever can convince them to vote. It could open space for the CDP to offer a genuinely different economic platform if Abenomics peters out icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Mar 19, 2018 |
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Mar 19, 2018 08:43
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icantfindaname posted:How strong is the consensus behind Abe’s economic policies within the LDP? Are full-blast money printing and at least a nominal commitment to the structural reforms demanded by global financial capitalism things that a post-Abe LDP would realistically deviate from, or are they on this train till it crashes? No idea how that will shake out, but I feel this tweet is relevant: https://twitter.com/observingjapan/status/975471080113614848
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Mar 19, 2018 09:16
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https://twitter.com/Thoton/status/975681780614221824
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Mar 19, 2018 20:31
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I don't know how significant this is, because according to the linked article MLIT didn't actually rewrite the documents. The LDP's current strategy is to blame everything on a desire on the part of the MoF and the Kinki Financial Bureau to make the documents consistent with Sagawa's statements to the Diet. I guess if MLIT didn't report this to anyone until now, that in itself might be an issue, but more evidence of additional attempts on the MoF's part to conceal the issues doesn't necessarily really make much difference at this point. What's really needed is solid evidence that either 1) the original sale of the land or the rewriting were motivated by actual political pressure, or 2) even if there was no actual pressure they were based on the belief within the MoF that this was what prime minister Abe or his wife wanted ("sontaku"). The LDP is currently taking the (somewhat ridiculous) position that the original versions of the documents prove that Abe wasn't involved, and that therefore the rewriting was contrary to what Abe wanted and was performed by the MoF for its own purposes (to make itself look better or something) at the expense of making the administration look bad. Unfortunately, this position won't be undermined by any additional evidence of issues purely within the MoF. If MLIT had actually rewritten the documents that would have been pretty bad for the administration, because it would undermine the story that the problems were all within the MoF and it would pretty strongly suggest the possibility of coordination at a higher level. I guess this could still develop into evidence of some sort of malfeasance on the part of MLIT, though. mystes fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Mar 19, 2018 |
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Mar 19, 2018 22:35
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Sagawa's testimony before the Diet was pretty useless. He refused to answer anything except to say that there was no involvement from Abe or the administration. As some people have pointed out it's a little bit weird for him to say on one one hand that he can't even say whether he was personally involved, who gave the instructions, or what the reason were, and on the other hand that there was definitely no political intervention from the administration. If you might not have had anything to do with the falsification of the documents how do you know whether or not there was political pressure?! The only basis for refusing to testify when you're summoned before the Diet as a sworn witness is self-incrimination, so it's super convenient for Sagawa to be able to act like any politically inconvenient questions might be within the scope of the supposed investigation by the Osaka prosecutors' office. On BS Fuji's Prime News show on Monday, they had the LDP's Shoji Nishida on and he was saying something like, "Why are we wasting time on this in the Diet?! This is a matter for the Osaka prosecutors office to investigate. That will answer all the questions." Yeah right. I highly doubt anything will actually be explained even if Sagawa is indicted, but that is a very nice way to try to get people to set aside the issue until they forget about it. This is similar to how the LDP was trying to redirect people's attention to the investigation of Kagoike for subsidy fraud last year as if that was the real issue that anyone cared about. Moreover, it's not even clear if the rewriting is even illegal because they only deleted things, and some people have been suggesting that might actually be something of a loophole. The rewritten documents aren't actual false on their face and it turns out there is no law specifically designed to prevent this; it is not clear if this falls under "forgery of official documents" or one or two other crimes that might be applicable. The overall impression is that this was all carefully orchestrated by the LDP: by agreeing to summon Sagawa they could prevent the opposition parties from holding up the Diet, now they can point to Sagawa's testimony as having proven that Abe wasn't involved, and probably no actual charges will be filed against Sagawa or anyone else. This probably isn't going to satisfy anyone who believes there is more to the scandal, though. mystes fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Mar 28, 2018 |
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Mar 28, 2018 02:58
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Theead https://twitter.com/americas_crimes/status/981003885044170757
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Apr 3, 2018 04:34
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The poor Japanese Empire....
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Apr 3, 2018 20:24
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Grapplejack posted:The poor Japanese Empire.... lmao
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Apr 3, 2018 20:50
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While I can find assertions by presumably credible historians that rapes by US forces occurred (and they undoubtedly did) I haven't been able to find any support for the some of the more grand claims aside from second-hand accounts combined with estimates that sound pretty incredulous, like quadruple digit incidents of rape that have no supporting documentation from either Okinawan or US Military sources. In fact, the working assumption seems to be that if there was a bi-racial birth or an abortion, it's put in the "most certainly rape" category which isn't helped by the fact that there were incidents of Okinawans murdering African-American servicemen and justifying it with them definitely being rapists. Anyway lol at that tweet. "Proving my left-wing credentials by concern-trolling for the Axis powers"
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Apr 4, 2018 02:02
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Fojar38 posted:While I can find assertions by presumably credible historians that rapes by US forces occurred (and they undoubtedly did) I haven't been able to find any support for the some of the more grand claims aside from second-hand accounts combined with estimates that sound pretty incredulous, like quadruple digit incidents of rape that have no supporting documentation from either Okinawan or US Military sources. Presume you're already looked, but for the sake of others as well the wikipedia actually has a lot of sources published by NYT etc. The highest of claims are likely kinda high, the lowest claims are definitely way low. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Japan
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Apr 4, 2018 02:15
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LimburgLimbo posted:Presume you're already looked, but for the sake of others as well the wikipedia actually has a lot of sources published by NYT etc. Well, it has a source from the NYT from 2000, and links to that one non-academic source a whole lot. There are some books on there as well but I can't look at them.
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Apr 4, 2018 02:44
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Okinawa should be independent and the military bases bulldozed.
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Apr 4, 2018 03:00
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Charles 2 of Spain posted:Okinawa should be independent and the military bases bulldozed. I mean, I don't disagree (presuming that's what the Okinawans want), but I don't really see a truly independent Okinawa happening. It's sorta doomed to be a region that's stuck in one sphere-of-influence or another without the means to play the powers against each other.
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Apr 4, 2018 03:45
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Annex it to Taiwan
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Apr 4, 2018 04:09
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icantfindaname posted:Annex it to Taiwan 
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Apr 4, 2018 04:32
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Fojar38 posted:"Proving my left-wing credentials by concern-trolling for the Axis powers" lmao, imperialist whitebros have literally one talking point https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/01/world/3-dead-marines-and-a-secret-of-wartime-okinawa.html quote:Still, the villagers' tale of a dark, long-kept secret has refocused attention on what historians say is one of the most widely ignored crimes of the war, the widespread rape of Okinawan women by American servicemen.
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Apr 4, 2018 05:34
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Fojar38 posted:"Proving my left-wing credentials by concern-trolling for the Axis powers" Yeah that's my primary issue with the account; they gloss over a lot of poo poo and phrase things to remove sovereignty from other nations that are involved. Like I get that the point is to highlight American war crimes but come on. Okinawa was a hot bed of poo poo from both sides, if you look into it it's kind of wild; forced suicides, conscription of child soldiers, the whole thing with comfort women from SK / Taiwan, US flamethrower squads/bombings... Mr. Fix It posted:I mean, I don't disagree (presuming that's what the Okinawans want), but I don't really see a truly independent Okinawa happening. It's sorta doomed to be a region that's stuck in one sphere-of-influence or another without the means to play the powers against each other. Grapplejack fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Apr 4, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 07:57
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Chomskyan is not a person who argues in good faith, the last time they posted in the Korea thread they unironically argued that the Jeju massacre was organized and carried out by American forces. My suggestion is to never engage with them.
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Apr 4, 2018 08:46
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Grapplejack posted:Yeah that's my primary issue with the account; they gloss over a lot of poo poo and phrase things to remove sovereignty from other nations that are involved. Like I get that the point is to highlight American war crimes but come on. Why is a twitter account dedicated to criticizing US imperialism not criticizing Japanese imperialism?? 
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Apr 4, 2018 16:52
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Chomskyan posted:Why is a twitter account dedicated to criticizing US imperialism not criticizing Japanese imperialism?? US "imperialism" by way of defeating Imperial Japan. It's almost like by posting those statistics devoid of any context, it's effectively fascist propaganda!
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Apr 4, 2018 19:02
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Yes, killing 1/3 of the population, raping thousands of women, and essentially colonizing Okinawa in the aftermath of the war, were all necessary and justified in order to defeat the fascist government that Okinawans had also suffered under. Let me propose an alternative: that none of those things are justified, and the "context" you claim to be interested in doesn't exist. That fighting a war with an unjust government doesn't give carte blanche to commit horrific crimes against a civilian population. And that your brain is so diseased by an imperial mindset, you literally can't separate the victims of the U.S.'s warcrimes from the government that held them captive. Probably because to do so would mean relinquishing that idea of the US as a benevolent imperial force which is so central to your worldview. Red and Black fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Apr 4, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 19:25
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ITT the tankies are surprised to learn that war is violent and generally bad.
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Apr 4, 2018 19:36
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Another canard often recited by morons. I never said I was surprised
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Apr 4, 2018 20:34
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-shakes-up-army-to-tackle-rising-threats-1522837264quote:ASAKA, Japan—For the first time since World War II, Japan’s army is a unified fighting force. Looks like Abe has started getting his wishlist checked off.
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Apr 4, 2018 21:03
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Grapplejack posted:https://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-shakes-up-army-to-tackle-rising-threats-1522837264 It recently looked like he might at least be able to make a small change to article 9, but then the administration's approval ratings went down again so who knows if that will actually happen (all signs point to no).
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Apr 4, 2018 21:15
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Chomskyan posted:Why is a twitter account dedicated to criticizing US imperialism not criticizing Japanese imperialism?? I don't think a pro-Imperial retelling of the invasion of Okinawa as an American imperialist crime does anyone much good.
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Apr 13, 2018 18:33
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Thug Lessons posted:I don't think a pro-Imperial retelling of the invasion of Okinawa as an American imperialist crime does anyone much good. It does you a ton of good if you are an authoritarian with Stalinist/Fascist sympathies.
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Apr 13, 2018 22:00
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Thug Lessons posted:I don't think a pro-Imperial retelling of the invasion of Okinawa... It's anti-imperial dude. Sorry you can't read?  Speaking of Okinawa though, let's take some time to remember that it is in many ways still colonized. https://twitter.com/themainichi/status/986475427848794112 quote:GINOWAN, Okinawa -- At an elementary school here where a window from a U.S. military chopper flying overhead fell onto the school playground in December last year, students were forced to evacuate the playground 216 times due to approaching U.S. military aircraft in the month or so when use of the playground resumed and the school year ended, a survey by the Defense Ministry's Okinawa Defense Bureau has revealed.
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Apr 18, 2018 06:49
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Chomskyan posted:It's anti-imperial dude. Sorry you can't read? If it's pro-Imperial, why do I keep insisting it isn't?
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Apr 18, 2018 06:53
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