Change policies, not states

The differences between the US occupation of Japan and Iraq are suggestive. The US fought Japan in exhausting war and had every reason to hate its government. Democratic America detested Japanese monarchy. The Western Christians were xenophobic about very strange customs of the Japanese. Yet the US was wise to change none of that.

America strengthened the very Japanese institutions that underpinned the war, and only eliminated Japanese army, the direct threat. Then the US used those institutions to change the Japanese outlook from within. The mid-term result was hugely successful: Japanese ambitions were channeled in the economy, and the economy directed outward. The long-term change in mentality is unlikely, and Japanese imperialism would re-surface, reinforced by economic successes. Hardly any policy, however, could provide more than mid-term results.

Contrast the American policy in Iraq. The US destroyed the institutions such as the strong government and police which cemented the multi-ethnic religiously diverse Iraq. Reforming a failed state is impossible; only strong states survive the reforms. America made the situation still worse by directly enforcing the law and pushing for the unwelcome political changes like democracy and Westernization. No people would accept new ideology force-fed to them by hostile outsider. They will fight or, at best, remain contemptuously passive. Once the occupation force withdraws, locals will run for the golden old values in their most extreme form. Population will firmly connect the resistance fighters with idealized old values, and elect them to power.

America could follow the Japan example in nuclear Egypt, Iran, and North Korea. All of them still have strong security apparatus and reasonably conformant population. America may concur their capitals, install acceptable rulers without damaging the security framework of the countries, and have the new rulers brainwash their citizens with local variety of the Western ideology, from schools to mass media. Ataturk was almost alone when he started secularizing Turkey. Totalitarian governments plus the Western ideology could solve the problem of nuclear rogue states.

Whats up with new members talking about politics before even being inducted into Blue Blood office?

The text is just extracted from another blog and posted, in the hope it looks like a human typed it. Welcome to a world where even the spam is recycled.

I'm not going to link you to the place it was posted originally, as the website in question is politically not the sort of place that's going to get any publicity from me. Easy enough to extract a sentence and google it though.

I really think it's time for Forrest to bring in border guards.

"Are you, or have you ever been, a member of a political party promoting or financing the use of Sugar Gliders as a weapon of mass destruction?"

"Are you, or have you ever been, stupid enough to believe your spam will pass a Turing test?"

- these questions will of course be asked by someone wearing a latex police officer's uniform and carrying a vampire Pomeranian.

mG

awwww sugar gliders are CUTE!! cute enough to be weapons for damn sure :D

mmmm latex... vampire pomeranian would be AWESOME...

political spam.. what's next? nevermind. I don't want to know.

The Occupation of Japan by the U.S. government was a scenario and situation unique in the timeline and I dont think you can say that the policies constructed in Japan can be applied to any other situation to get the same results.