The Allied Occupation of Japan Essay Example for Free

The Allied Occupation of Japan Essay In 1945, to end the Pacific war, Operations Olympic and Coronet, America’s proposed landings on Kyushu and the Tokyo Plain were the largest amphibious invasions ever planned. Thomas M. Huber: Pastel: Deception in the Invasion of Japan Command and General staff college, 1988 {www-cgsc. army. mil/carl/resources/csi/huber2/huber2. asp} The allied forces successfully invaded Japan and imparted values and ethics of democracy in Asia. The success measure is evident, exemplified and argued through various contexts. One it stopped the creation of a Draconian empire in Asia whose onset was the 1937 invasion of China. Shillony 1981: p 87. Brute force and escalation due to self atonement and belief that supremacy through war is power doomed the Japanese and was what the allied forces sought to destroy. Japan was defeated militarily. There deaths of over one and half million soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilians were a blow to the empires magnum strength in Asia. Bailey, Paul J. 1996 Post War Japan: 1945 to present: The American interregnum p 22 . Though an atrocity to human life, militarily and as per the objectives of the allied invasion, this was a successful war. They won it and Japan when it withered to the onslaught conceded defeat and called on to the forces for a truce. ‘Japan was the only major nation in the world which had never been invaded’ Russell Brines: Macarthur’s Japan, 1948. p 13 It is within this context refutation of the win is made subjective. Within the Japanese empire, there was collective rebellion and repulse to accept defeat due to the implications. A split is seen to have emerged and a struggle to stop the emperor speech by some of the generals is indicative of the remaining strength of the Japanese army. By the end of 1941 Japan had completed a decade of planned industrial expansion and could look back upon a period of considerable achievement. Industrial output had risen from six billion yen in 1930 to thirty billion in 1941. To destroy this and that, was heavily demoralizing and they were defeated not due to the military power but the loss of kin and gains they had made. Jerome B Cohen: Japans Economy in War and Reconstruction. 1995 {pg1} it is arguably correct, that the success was only based on the physiological within the leadership structure of the empire. ‘The army insisted on the continuation of the war while prime minister Suzuki advised acceptance of the surrender terms†¦. Despite a desperate attempt by a few middle ranking officers from the imperial guards division in Tokyo on the night of 14the august to destroy the recordings of the emperors surrender speech, the broadcast went ahead. Bailey, Paul J. 1996 Post War Japan: 1945 to present: The American interregnum {pg 25} This proves, there was still military might in Japan and they would have escalated but a demoralised leader and generals due to the human suffering and loss of lives by innocent humans caved in to the terms of the surrender. However, this cannot be vilified since, it seen from the assertions and collective analysis by the context of Nakamura, Takafusa. 1990. The Post-war Japanese Economy: Its Development and Structure, the Americans, a key player in the allied forces, made the breaking up Japanese economic structures through the principals of Zaibastu dissolution. ‘The purpose of the Zaibastu resolution†¦. Is to destroy Japans military power both physiologically and institutionally’ this dimensional perspective is proving of political weakening and infiltration of Japans key and integral structures. It is indicative of a successful defeat. Nakamura, Takafusa. The Post-war Japanese Economy: Its Development and Structure: Economic democratization 1990 p 25 The principal objective of the Allied forces was to stop and reform the Japanese escalation. They made it possible and due to diversified interest, the objectives of the allied forces shifted based on each country’s policy on the war and Asia. It within this context the split of economic policies between the Union Soviet Socialist Republic and the United States is offset. USSR was instrumental in creating a Korea issue as its interest while from the spoils of Japan, the Americans made economic and military positions in Asia. Japans recipient nature after the war is indicative of its dissolved might and its pro United States policies. The recipient nature developed from the brute force of the American forces in the war and the final blow that was the atomic bomb that led to deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. This also signifies that, the Japanese had gone further in the war to form a formidable force whose strength could not be eased and only a political demoralization strategy within military options would create that opportunity, hence the brute action by the United States. Subsequently, the post-war Japan policies and principals all correlate with assertions which deem the allied forces won the war ‘the externally imposed occupation reforms greatly changed the fixed system of the pre-war Japanese economy and ended by preparing a rich soil not only for democratization but also for economic growth’ Nakamura, Takafusa. The Post-war Japanese Economy: Its Development and Structure: The post war Japanese economy1990. p 48 . Based on this fact, the essence of the invasion and its effectiveness in imparting or rather inducing policies and structures of the allied forces political and economic systems is within this context then. Beyond reasonable doubt, this was a complete and successful invasion. Factual evidence of the invasion and its extremes of success are seen in the Japanese leaders acceding to American war demands and surrender instructions. Based on the President Truman and the great general, in the Asian conflict General McArthur, principles on the Japanese escalation, prowess and economic structures, the Japanese had to go into the sea, board the US naval ship USS Missouri and sign the peace accord that made them safe than sorry in the naval ship. H. Passin, The Occupational: Some reflections, in C Gluck and S Graudbard, Showa: the Japan of Hirohito, 1992 p 108 In his explication of these events Passin is emphatic about the brute of the Americans. They assume the polity of the Japanese who had imbued themselves with extreme gusto, gist and were drunk with power. According to Passin the Americans showed off during the signing of the treaty. The subsequent course of events led to demilitarization of Japan, an ethic fact that shows Japan had been incapacitated and completely taken over. Further economic restructuring using America policies and reforming the country political and judicial system is indicative of the vast influence and filtration of the Japanese by the Americans deep in to their social economics, tradition and religious structures. The question of how long the American occupation and restructuring of the Japanese socio-political- economic structures would last was ambiguous then as Passin implies. It is long term and this often spells the question of whether these American policies are a continuation of the occupation. Seen from his virtues, Passin seems to admit hypothetically that the occupation was a long-term one and that the effects and the continuity was not parametrical hence no projections would ratify nor assume the end of the era. ‘Will the reforms last or will they disappear as soon as we leave? ’ this is and was then a fair question, but is it answerable? Despite all the fanfare and futurology we cannot really predict the future in any degree of complexity. H. Passin, The Occupational: Some reflections, in C Gluck and S Graudbard, Showa: the Japan of Hirohito, New York: Norton 1992 pg 125 . Another agreement with the purge is seen within the Robert Wolfe context. ‘In the interim, the basic policies regarding the removal of Japans wartime leadership had been translated into a far-reaching directive to the Japanese Government entitled Removal and Exclusion of Undesirable Personnel from Public Office’ Robert Wolfe, Americans as Proconsuls: United States Government in Germany and Japan, 1944-1952 p 188 Passin revisits the Zaibastu issue sceptically and quite emphatically. The Zaibastu principle is a proliferation like principle. All the structures of the economy and the legislative structures are brought to their knees through disintegrating them and making military and economic stability not to withstand any slight implication. According to Passin, the dissolution was controversial. ‘The dissolution of the Zaibastu remains the most controversial of the occupational measures with respect to its desirability and its effectiveness’ H. Passin, The Occupational: Some reflections, in C Gluck and S Graudbard, Showa: the Japan of Hirohito, New York: Norton 1992 pg 117 He is empathic in context. He is seeking to moralize the Zaibastu as a structure which was not only an integral Japanese economic and social stability pillar but also the basis of both. Evident is the aspect of powerlessness of the Japanese in this comment. It is practically impossible to bring about Japan based policy within this conflict period and the Americans and their allies are not only prejudiced against the structures that supported the brute Japan but also ready to destroy them. Japan within this context is displayed as a nabbed culprit who has no choice but to tow the line to get any reprieve or empathy but first has to undergo phases of self realism and reconstruction of moral authority over his self. The profoundness of the wining and the success is measurable within this perspective. What Passin implies is that Japan was now a pawn, a completely incapacitated nation. ‘The occupation penetration into even the most intimate of Japanese institutions, the family, parental authority†¦. was no mere exercise of missionary impulse’ H. Passin, The Occupational: Some reflections, in C Gluck and S Graudbard, Showa: the Japan of Hirohito, New York: Norton 1992 pg 117 What would further clarify the porous-ness of the Japanese nation under the American and allied forces? Within this ethical projection of the penetration, Japan is merely under the forces, rule and legislation of the occupier. It is not refutable, it is factual, the truth. Japan was conquered and it surrendered and it then caved in. Its structures were destroyed and the occupier built his within and made them the Japanese institutions which had and still use the same values and ethics to run. Without making the war the basis of success, it’s the objectives of the war that vilify the win. The draconian Japan was contained. The allied forces stopped the emergence of an Asian kingdom led by the Japanese and their ruthlessness. A regional conflict then was ensuing and the Japanese were instrumental in stifling and frustrating efforts of all well wishers. Containing Japan was moral and loosing the war would have led to regional imbalance. The discourse is contextual and this is seen through Robert E Edward variable assertions about American policies or post war Japan and the quite intricate policy administrations to avert shift of Japanese community trust on the new structures of peace, democracy and political inclination and stop possible uprising to oppose these new structures. To justify and prove that the allied forces won the war, Edwards says ‘American victory was a vindication of their own political institutions and ideals’ Ward, Robert E. 1987. Conclusion, in R. E. Ward and Y. Sakamoto (eds), Democratising Japan: the Allied Occupation {pg 397} , it is a case of proving the war was won and that there was escalation in the win and this was incorporation of the American policies into the Japanese system. The perspectives of the Japanese were and have been an Asian economic progress. As seen in the context of, Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. Invisible countries: Japan and the Asian dream {online} Japan sought to have an empire that would make it to the realm of military and economic strength and prowess. However it was the principles and modus that contradicted and dissented with the international community then hence the successful invasion of Japan by the allied forces to stop its escalation in principal. Sources Thomas M. Huber: Pastel: Deception in the Invasion of Japan Command and General staff college, 1988 {www-cgsc. army. mil/carl/resources/csi/huber2/huber2. asp} -Shillony 1981:87