Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

The book’s final chapter discusses Japan’s economic recovery and the Cold War within the context of ending the formal American occupation. Initially, Americans assumed that their occupation would only take about three years. Lasting into 1952, the Japanese were tired of being managed by a foreign power, which “had begun to be regarded as just one more interest group in a crowded Japanese political landscape” (525). Furthermore, as the American rule turned increasingly anti-Left, they began to be associated with right-wing elements, some of which had a direct relationship to militarism and war. The Americans even dropped charges against some arrested for war crimes. Dower calls this phenomenon “de-purging,” while the political Left, in the context of the Cold War, was being purged (525). The Japanese media referred to a course reversal in light of these events, wondering whether a true democracy was even possible.

Cold-War developments, “in which the former Allied powers appeared to be at each other’s and everybody else’s throats,” made peace seem temporary (527). It was these developments that, in part, allowed the Japanese to participate in the some industries that had direct military purposes even after the end of the Korean War (1953).