Posted by David Sherman on Wednesday, September 12, 2001 at 12:40PM :
In Reply to: 1945, 1946, 1947.... posted by Clint Dixon on Wednesday, September 12, 2001 at 12:10PM :
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but power and respect do not automatically go together. I think a good part of the reason the US gained so much respect in those years was that after defeating our enemies we engaged in the largest foreign-aid program in history to rebuild Japan and Germany, rather than lording it over them and subjugating their people like victors normally do. This made it clear that although we crushed their armies in battle, we had no quarrel with their people. In the following decades both countries became great trading partners and sometimes commercial rivals but both have remained peaceful democracies. I think we gained a lot of respect because we were willing to build up our former enemies even to the point of allowing them to compete with us commercially. That showed that we were more than just a man with a big gun, but a man who was strong and confident enough that he could work with a former enemy and put the past aside. A weak country would have continued to fear its former enemies and would thus keep trying to grind them into the mud. This is what was done to Germany after WWI and it led to the rise of Hitler.
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