THE UNITED STATES AND NATION BUILDING
It became a commonplace because of Vietnam to say that no matter what, America should not engage in nation building. It was thought to be an expression of hubris. No matter our intentions, nation building is costly and, worse, unworkable. Americans believed we could not change Vietnam into a democratic, modern, progressive country by war. We cannot transform African states.
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In fact, we have done more than any other country in bringing democracy, a free economy, and progress to Japan, Germany, and South Korea. Rather than taking a negative historical lesson from Vietnam, we should take the positive lessons of World War II's aftermath.
So, what happened in Japan, our most hated enemy?
In September 1945, American occupation troops began to move into and take control of Japan. The country had been a feudal monarchy for more than 1,000 years. The Emperor was worshipped. Young men flew kamikaze, sacrificing their lives for the Emperor. The country was ruled by the few families that owned the major business, held the largest farms, ran the military. Women had no rights. No Japanese worker or serf had ever voted in a meaningful election.
In 1945, the Americans determined to change the system. General Douglas MacArthur wrote Japan's new constitution, basing it on the Americans'. Under his efficient and autocratic direction, the occupation, which lasted until 1951, officially eliminated militarist, unltranationalist, and feudal vestiges. Japan's political system, its economy, labor relations, society, public health and welfare programs, and educational structure were reformed. Its Emperor was no longer divine. The new constitution included land reform and women's rights to education and the vote and provided for Japan's demilitarization. Amicable relations between Japan and the United States were established.
In less time than the Second World War lasted, MarArthur transformed Japan from a feudal totalitarian state into a modern, progressive, democratic country. . . .This was nation building such as had never before been seen, anywhere. It brought immense good for Japan, for Asia, for the world. From his headquarters in Tokyo, MacArthur ran a large bureaucratic structure, composed of U>S> armed forces, State Department and Commerce Department personnel, and other civilian Americans, effectively. There was freedom of political association to the point that, in early 1950, the Japanese Communist Party staged a series of violent demonstrations against American military personnel in Tokyo.
MacArther did not do it all along. What made the American occupation of Japan a success for the Japanese and the Americans was all the more remarkable for the hatred between the two countries between December 7, 1941, and September 1945, and before.
Here is one story, among scores. A young GI in the American occupation force came ashore in early September 1945. He was stationed in a small village in the countryside. His unit's job was to protect the police station and city hall. The next morning, he saw not one Japanese. This went on for two weeks and he was getting bored, as his unit was never allowed out of its headquarters in the police station. He had a baseball glove and a ball with him, and he began throwing the ball against a wall in the courtyard, then catching it on the rebound. One day he saw, on the other side of the wall, a Japanese teenager watching him. The Japanese youth had an old, badly battered softball and a stick for a bat. The GI invited the boy by sign language to play catch. The boy did. The next day, the GI found a glove for him, and the next week a bat and more gloves and some balls. Soon the courtyard was filled with Japanese boys and GIs playing catch. After a few days they all moved into the street. A few days later they had laid out a baseball field and were playing the game.
I know that nothing like this ever happened when German troops occupied Russian villages, or when Red Army men took over German villages, or when Japanese troops invaded China, the Philippines, and elsewhere. MacArthur did not order this done. It just happened because that is the way Americans acted.
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Korea had been for most of the first half of the twentieth century a Japanese colony, with most Koreans serving their Japanese masters as slaves. In 1945, American troops occupied the area south of the thirty-eighth parallel and the Soviet Union the area to the north. In 1947, the United States submitted the Korean question of unification to the United Nations General Assembly for disposition. The Soviet Union refused to cooperate in this effort to unify the country. Elections held in South Korea in May 1948, under the U.N. supervision, led to Syngman Rhee becoming President of the Republic of Korea. The Soviet Union set up a comunist puppet government in North Korea under Kim Il Sung--whose son, Kim John Il, more than a half century later, still rules.
In June 1950, with Soviet prodding and weapons, the North Koreans invaded South Korea. President Truman immediately went to South Korea's aid, with MacArthur in command. A long, costly war ensued, not finished until the summer of 1953. More than a half century later, American troops are still in South Korea, helping to defend it. Further, thanks to the efforts of the South Koreans and extensive American reconstruction aid, South Korea became one of the most progressive, productive democratic nations in Asia. North Korea, still under communist rule, remains just about the poorest nation in the world.
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In his Farewell Address as President, on January 17, 1961, Dwight Eisenhower declared: "We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease, and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all people will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love."
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My faith is based on what happened in Japan, in Germany and South Korea after World War II, and what is happening today in Bosnia. The American Spirit. By no means are we as a people all that special, or all-embracing, but we are part of a country that outshines those that have gone before us and most of those in existence today.
America sent her troops overseas, around the world, in the Second World War. She kept them there through the second half of the twentieth century. American troops ended up spreading democracy wherever they were.
(The paragraphs quoted above are from the book, TO AMERICA:PERSONAL REFLECTIONS OF AN HISTORIAN, by Stephen E. Ambrose, Simon & Schuster, 2002)
Today, the United States is engaged in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and still in Bosnia and remain in Korea, in an historic effort to bring a better life and a better way of life to millions who have never experienced the benefits of freedom. It took us a long time in Japan, in Korea, in Germany. It is taking a long time in Bosnia. It will take a long time in Iraq. But the future of these countries as free countries with a citizenry free to choose their own destinies is well worth the effort. Our continuing peace and prosperity dictates that we succeed. |
