He says the same approach would not work because Axis nations were far more and you because they were far LESS devastated than Afghanistan or Iraq.

My bet is the relative level of devastation is irrelevant to how effective complete martial law would be, that it would be equally effective in any nation conditioned to obey whomever has the most guns. Exterminating or expelling most minorities does not mean post-war Germany had LESS ethnic strife than Afghanistan or Iraq, only that they had run out of targets. I do not think Afghans or Iraqis would be any more (and probably far less) difficult to re-educate than war-time Germans or Japanese were, because they have not been as systematically indoctrinated against peace, democracy and human rights. They do not need to be taught not to send entire races to death camps or conquer an entire continent seeking lebensraum, only to run a democracy and not relegate fellow citizens to second class status.

I think you underesimate how completely Geobbels and the Hitler Youth indoctrinated Germans, and Tojos militarists the Japanese. Twelve years is a LONG time, particularly for those who grew up during that period. How much can twelve years change people, especially the young? Ask Afghans, Iraqis, Americans or most of the world: Twelve years ago the WTC was still intact, and would be for another year. I guarantee the intervening time fundamentally and drastically altered most peoples worldview, that a 20 or 30 year old today has a completely different perspective than one in 2000. Maybe folks in Southeast Asia have been isolated from it (outside Indonesia anyway) but few others. How well do you think a 30 year old German in 1946 remembered the democratic institutions that died before they were 18?


Indeed, there is little reason for Afghans or Iraqis to feel culpable for war but, once again, post-war Germans and Japanese felt little either, yet pacification and reconstruction worked phenomenally well in both. There is no collective guilt to instill, because one cannot hold all Afghanistan or Iraq accountable for a Taliban and Bath Party they were powerless to resist. I speak of imposing martial law it is as temporary remedy, not punishment.

Maybe it was just Allied propaganda, but all those Time magazines I have from the mid-forties do not suggest either Germany or Japan had many civil institutions left intact by 1946: The military had completely controlled society far too long. Compared to the Germany where children turned parents over to the SS as enemies of the state, rehabilitating and democratizing Afghanistan or Iraq would be a cake walk. However, we can no more expect them to develop and administer democratic institutions utterly foreign to them than we could the post-war Axis countries where they were novelties prior to the fascist ascent and dismissed after it. Until/unless they have an adult population educated and experienced with democratic government they cannot implement it, so nation-building demands an entire generation be intensively educated in democracy while an equally aggressive and pervasive military presence keeps the peace necessary both to foster that education and convince people they need not constantly be armed and ready to fight.