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I'll also submit that The Powers That Be have learned it sucks to create a power vacuum and deal with the fallout (see: Iraq, Afghanistan for examples) The dev

I'll also submit that The Powers That Be have learned it sucks to create a power vacuum and deal with the fallout (see: Iraq, Afghanistan for examples) The developed nations' abilities to crush a military opponent doesn't solve all problems, something we've been aware of for a long while and had recent reinforcing lessons. I know the US had strong roles in rebuilding both Japanese and German governments post-WWII, but those were both circumstances that were dramatically different than this. (And, since HN has lots of informed people, some of whom are doubtless facepalming at my statements, I'd love to see some resources that describe those efforts with some depth and hopefully not a one-sided view of things, just for my own enlightenment)

DougWebb 11y ago
During WWII, we engaged in all-out war against Japan and Germany, and devastated both countries to the limit of our technical ability. Had the Japanese government not surrendered after the atomic bombs, we would have continued dropping them until there was no one left. We were already fire-bombing cities at that point, despite the huge number of civilian casualties. After the war, Japan still had a functioning government which the US had a stranglehold on for years during reconstruction. Germany's government was wiped out and replaced with two puppet states for a long time as well. We were truly imperialistic then, having invaded and taken control of those countries until they were stable enough to run themselves. (Or couldn't be held anymore, in the case of East Germany.) We didn't do it that way in Iraq and Afghanistan. Years of bad outcomes with cold-war-era puppet governments got us away from that approach, and instead we tried to set up locally-run governments that were allies but not subservient. But that didn't work so well either. Maybe we let them go too soon, or maybe the population wasn't beaten down enough by the war, the way Germany and Japan were, to just accept any government so long as it stops the devastation.
bzbarsky 11y ago
Just to put numbers to this, sickening as that is... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War estimates between 150k and 1 million dead. That's out of a total population of 32 million or so according to <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Iraq> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Iraq>, so somewhere between 1 in 200 and 1 in 30 killed. For comparison, the population of Germany in 1939 was about 70 million according to <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany#Statistics_since_1900> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany#Statis.... And according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War... there were somewhere between 4.3 to 5.3 million military deaths, somewhere between 500k to 2 million civilian deaths due to some of the Soviet end-war and post-war shenanigans, another 350k to 600k civilian deaths due to Allied bombing. Let's call it 5 million all told on the low end. That's 1 in 14. And due to the fraction of this that were military, the resulting demographic distribution has some interesting features. See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Germany_sex_by_age_1950_12_31.png> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Germany_sex_by_age_1950_1.... In particular, note the deep notch in the 30-35 demographic that would have been born during World War 1 and the large differences between numbers of males and females in all the 20-30 age group. So one difference is that a larger fraction of the population was dead, and a significantly larger fraction of the "young male" demographic that tends to do things like fight back against the occupier as opposed to going on with life. People were just _tired_ of fighting, effectively. Another difference was the massive aid/rebuilding program financed via the Marshall Plan. And I suspect a final difference was a much smaller feeling of "us vs them" or "we're fundamentally different", on both sides....

DougWebb 11y ago

During WWII, we engaged in all-out war against Japan and Germany, and devastated both countries to the limit of our technical ability. Had the Japanese government not surrendered after the atomic bombs, we would have continued dropping them until there was no one left. We were already fire-bombing cities at that point, despite the huge number of civilian casualties. After the war, Japan still had a functioning government which the US had a stranglehold on for years during reconstruction. Germany's government was wiped out and replaced with two puppet states for a long time as well. We were truly imperialistic then, having invaded and taken control of those countries until they were stable enough to run themselves. (Or couldn't be held anymore, in the case of East Germany.) We didn't do it that way in Iraq and Afghanistan. Years of bad outcomes with cold-war-era puppet governments got us away from that approach, and instead we tried to set up locally-run governments that were allies but not subservient. But that didn't work so well either. Maybe we let them go too soon, or maybe the population wasn't beaten down enough by the war, the way Germany and Japan were, to just accept any government so long as it stops the devastation.

bzbarsky 11y ago

Just to put numbers to this, sickening as that is... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War estimates between 150k and 1 million dead. That's out of a total population of 32 million or so according to <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Iraq> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Iraq>, so somewhere between 1 in 200 and 1 in 30 killed. For comparison, the population of Germany in 1939 was about 70 million according to <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany#Statistics_since_1900> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany#Statis.... And according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War... there were somewhere between 4.3 to 5.3 million military deaths, somewhere between 500k to 2 million civilian deaths due to some of the Soviet end-war and post-war shenanigans, another 350k to 600k civilian deaths due to Allied bombing. Let's call it 5 million all told on the low end. That's 1 in 14. And due to the fraction of this that were military, the resulting demographic distribution has some interesting features. See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Germany_sex_by_age_1950_12_31.png> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Germany_sex_by_age_1950_1.... In particular, note the deep notch in the 30-35 demographic that would have been born during World War 1 and the large differences between numbers of males and females in all the 20-30 age group. So one difference is that a larger fraction of the population was dead, and a significantly larger fraction of the "young male" demographic that tends to do things like fight back against the occupier as opposed to going on with life. People were just _tired_ of fighting, effectively. Another difference was the massive aid/rebuilding program financed via the Marshall Plan. And I suspect a final difference was a much smaller feeling of "us vs them" or "we're fundamentally different", on both sides....