Now that the United States has had a few years to conduct its grand experiment in the Middle East, I think enough time has elapsed so that we are able to do an analysis of the US occupation and figure out where there were successes or missteps.

Now in the case of Germany and Japan following WWII, the US along with the Allied powers were able to successfully turn two fascist, authoritarian nations around in a matter of years and create true democratic states. Even more dramatic in Japan which had denounced war altogether. Obviously these are huge successes relative to our president day situation in Afghanistan and Iraq where these two nations are having a difficult time with a transition to democracy.

US Occupation of Japan
History of Germany since 1945
Occupation of Iraq Timeline

Questions for Debate:

1) What are the similarities and differences of the US occupations of Japan/Germany and that of Afghanistan/Iraq?
2) Why has it become conceivably more difficult to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan then it was to these other fascist nations?
3) Is there anything we can learn from our past occupational exploits that can aid us in the present and future?

People don't realize how close of a comparison Germany and Iraq are. The 5+ years following the defeat of Germany were intensely bloody. The Wehrwolf group planted explosives, sniped US and coalition troops and assinated key heads of the new state.

There was a long rebuilding phase in Germany with a painstaking and arduous task of reuniting Germany under their new democratic government.

I don't want to sound like I'm being anti-American here, but you're focusing exclusively on the experience of Americans in these occupied countries, which is pretty naive considering that there are 160,000 U.S. troops and approximately 28-30 million Iraqis (and a similarly lopsided disparity in Afghanistan between foreign troops and residents.) If you move the comparison beyond those terms, you'll find a MUCH bigger gulf. There was no "sectarian" pseudo-civil war movements in Japan or Germany, both countries were comprised of a single national group (as opposed to three in Iraq and a tribal diffusion in Afghanistan), and both Axis nations peacefully surrendered from a declared war.

Of course, there were distinct differences between Japan and Germany that demand some consideration. For example, Germany's industrial capacity and existing infrastructure were completly annihilated, whereas Japan didn't have this same experience, although her economy struggled immediately post-war.

Are the lessons of the post-war reconstruction being learned? That is hard to say; the strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan were both different, neither has worked very well, and neither case had a great deal in common with the ww2 occupations. America supposedly learned from the Marshall Plan that a generous and well thought-out post-war reconstruction was the avenue towards stability; but this effort was nonexistent in Afghanistan, and so poorly carried-out in Iraq that it's hard to find any connection to past experience.

What we can say for certain is that generalizations are running rampart. It is easy to say that all four nations in question are "fascist", and a bit simplistic. While all four fit approximately within the dictates of fascism, the political, social and economic reality of each nation is so drastically different that attempting to lump them all together is self-defeating.

1) What are the similarities and differences of the US occupations of Japan/Germany and that of Afghanistan/Iraq?
We occupied all four countries yet there weren't large-scale insurgencies in either Germany or Japan.
2) Why has it become conceivably more difficult to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan then it was to these other fascist nations?
Japan and Germany had previously been Republics whereas Afghanistan and Iraq had not. Japan and Germany had previously been first-world industrialized nations whereas Afghanistan and Iraq had not. Japan and (West) Germany were driven to the US side of the Cold War out of fear of Soviet communism whereas Afghanistan and Iraq have no shared enemy with America. The US leadership in WW-2 was capable and efficient whereas the current US leadership is incompetent and belligerently ignorant. In WW-2 the US had the moral high ground and was looked at as a savior whereas in the War on Terrorism we torture people and are looked at as the Great Satan.

The two situations couldn't be more different and comparing the two, like Rumsfeld and Rice have, and just shows how little we understand history. We're not repeating the history of victory in World War Two; we're repeating the history of defeat in Vietnam, the American Revolution, Athens' invasion of Sicily, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Comparing Hussein's Iraq or the failed state in Afghanistan to the Weimar Republic or Imperial Japan is just completely delusional.
3) Is there anything we can learn from our past occupational exploits that can aid us in the present and future?
We can't really learn anything from Germany or Japan that would be useful in Iraq because they're just too different. The "occupational" exploits that are more applicable are the Philippines and Vietnam. If we look at those to conflicts we can see that there isn't a military solution we can impose on Iraq and that we just have to leave as quickly and safely as possible.

That's a fine argument but that never happened. Do you know how many US combat casualties there were in the post-surrender occupations of Japan and Germany? Zero. The Nazi resistance to US occupation amounted to the murder of the mayor of Aachen and some very isolated sabotage. Germany realized the war was over long before the US occupation and partly because of the threat of the Soviet Union West Germany was very cooperative with the Allies.

Falling back on my history and the books that I have read about the Wehrwolf movement, is that no comparison can be made whatsoever. Aside from some scattered sniping, a few derailed trains and one or two assassinations of Mayors and other low level officials, post war Germany is nothing like Iraq. Based simply on numbers of casualties alone, no comparison can be made, let alone the number of daily occurrences of violence.

1) What are the similarities and differences of the US occupations of Japan/Germany and that of Afghanistan/Iraq?
The citizens of Germany and to a lesser extent, Japan........were fairly welcoming to allied occupation troops. So much so that a anti-fraternization decree had to be issued in Constabulary Germany. The differences are overwhelming without even scratching the surface.

2) Why has it become conceivably more difficult to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan then it was to these other fascist nations?
Islam is the main obstacle in my opinion. Even our cultural differences with the Japanese people were overcome by the un-deification of the Emperor. But the vast chasm that exists between modern western culture and (what I consider) medieval middle eastern is wide and likely impassable by way of occupation and pacification.

3) Is there anything we can learn from our past occupational exploits that can aid us in the present and future?
As quick of a civil handover to indigenous authorities as soon as possible.

Thats not quite true, but pretty close. The Wehrwulf killed about two dozen Allied troops over the space of about 18 months, if that many. The numbers are not always counted because of the fact that the deaths were unattributed, but the most common method was to string wire aross roads at neck hight for jeep drivers.

Still, overall, the Wehrwulf experience in the west was a total non-event, most of the young men trained for this resistence simply went home, while those few who did take up arms were rounded up quickly enough. The force (such as it was) had ceased to exist within a year and a half of the end of the war.


In the East, the Wehrwulf force was a bit more substantial, several soldiers killed in Eastern Germany and poland, though it is difficult to determine wheither these were Wehrwulf attacks, attacks from groups of straggling SS or German troops, or simply local racial based attacks. In either case, by mid 1946 the Wehrwuf movement on both fronts had all but vanished. It had never been an event of the slightest significance, and to call the post-war years 'intensely bloody' because of Wehrwulf activities, which averaged maybe 2 deaths a month for 18 months, is completely false.



AMNYways...

The Major difference is twofold:

-The 'Defeat' of Germany as opposed to the 'occupation' of Iraq,

-The commitment of personel and resources to the Post-War German nation.


Germans had pretty much already shot their bolt in terms of resistance by the time the Allies arrived. There was no mincingof words or error of intent, this was an occupation of a defeated power, a nation which had just lost about 8 million people, and had almost all of its 100 largest cities bombed into bricks and rubble. Having resisted the Allies for 6 years, they had run out of men, run out of guns and run out of will.

The Allies made sure this was understood as well, they took over industry, commerce, politics and so on, allowing Germans back in slowly, and under supervision. They forcibly denazified the nation, making the people come to face with the horrors their government had committed. In Iraq, the US came under the guise of being there FOR the Iraqi people, freeing them from an evil government, Yet when the post-Hussein years turned out to be far worse than the Hussein years, and the US was unable to do anything about that, they became impotent occupiers. Worse, they were impotent to stop the violence, but they still mnaged Abu Graib, gang rape of civilians and murder of Iraq people. Sure these may have been minoritarian incidents, but they received wide publicity, and soon the US became associated with inability to do good, but lots of ability to do evil.


Secondly, In germany there were, what, 1 million Americans, British, canadians, French and Soviets occupying the country in the first few post-war years? For a population of 65 million? And THAT was a pacified nation.

There was an actual effort put into planning and strategy of poat-war Germany, as opposed to in Iraq. Enough men and materiel were committed to post-war Germany, as opposed to Iraq. In Iraq there is no real plan, no real agenda, and not enought troops on the ground to allow for an agenda even if there was one.