Going into the war in Iraq, President Bush invoked the
American occupation of Japan after World War II, an occupation that transformed
a feudal society into a democratic nation:
America has done this kind of work
before. Following World War II, we lifted up the defeated nations of Japan and
Germany, and stood with them as they built representative governments. We
committed years and resources to this cause. And that effort has been repaid
many times over in three generations of friendship and peace. America today
accepts the challenge of helping Iraq in the same spirit -- for their sake, and
our own. (September
7, 2003)
Now, historian Takeshi Matsuda presents a vivid description
of the American occupation of Japan in Soft Power and its Perils
(2007). He explains why the Japanese consented to the changes the American
occupation brought, while we have seen the Iraqis become increasingly hostile
to an American presence in their country.
One of the primary differences, in his view, is that the
United States approached Japan with a genuine interest to understand Japanese
culture and to create mutual understanding between the two nations. Matsuda
argues that, while the American occupation was certainly geared toward a
certain level of cultural imperialism, the US also prepared huge reserve of
knowledge about how Japanese and American cultures would interact well before
the occupation began:
“In contrast to the current situation in Iraq, the U.S
occupation of Japan was a democratic experiment supported by American soft
power, as well as hard power…U.S. preparation for the occupation of Japan began
immediately after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941—that is,
four years before the actual occupation of the country.” In addition, “intergovernmental
agencies in Washington also spent a great deal of effort defining the general
objectives of the occupation of Japan and formulating programs need to meet the
specific objectives of the United States.”
Matsuda argues for the importance of academics in shaping
the perceptions of both countries of one another. Following World War II, there
was an explosion of Japanese Studies in the US and American Studies in Japan,
the latter often heavily subsidized by the US. According to Matsuda, this
facilitated understanding between the two cultures, such that “U.S.-Japan
cultural relations flourished and became full blown in later years in ways that
few people would have ever dreamed.”