Durations of Military Occupations

[m1911owner]

In connection with those that want a timetable for us to pull out of Iraq over the next fifteen or twenty minutes, I started thinking about WW II, and Germany and Japan.

It seems to me like we occupied those countries for a long, long time.  If fact, does anyone know when we formally ended the occupation of those countries?  I'm not at all clear that we're not still occupying them.  It seems that we still have a very large military presence in Germany, and I do believe that we still don't allow Japan to have a military, or at least not a substantial one.

Does anyone here know the legal history of our occupation of those countries?

[K Frame]

American, British, and French military occupation of Germany formally ended in 1949 with the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Formal military occupation of Japan ended in 1952 when the San Francisco treaty went into effect.

The Japanese Constitution that was, in large part, drafted with MacArthur's personal approval, limits the Japanese military to a self-defense force status. During the run up to Gulf War II there was a lot of debate in Japan about whether the Constitution allowed them to send troops of any kind at all to the Persian Gulf. I believe that they finally sent medical personnel.

The US military maintains military installations and personnel in Germany and Japan, but they are not an occupying military force in that they play absolutely no role at all in the internal political life of the nation.

[m1911owner]

Thanks, Mike.  That's what I wanted to know.

Doing a little math, that means that we occupied Germany for about four or five years after "Victory in Europe", and Japan for about seven years.  That's a useful framework for comparison.  And, as you point out, we've never actually "pulled the troops out" of Japan or Germany.

It's interesting that those who want us to immediately pull our troops out of Iraq aren't also screaming for us to pull the troops out of Japan, Germany, Cuba, Korea, Guam, etc., etc., etc.

[K Frame]

Military occupation in Japan probably rolled on a bit longer for a couple of reasons...

1. Outbreak of the Korean War.

2. Strong Japanese Communist movement.

3. Fall of China to the Communists.

[garrettwc]

t's interesting that those who want us to immediately pull our troops out of Iraq aren't also screaming for us to pull the troops out of Japan, Germany, Cuba, Korea, Guam, etc., etc., etc.

They do. It's just not as loud since Iraq is "top of mind" with most people.

[Perd Hapley]

we still don't allow Japan to have a military

I think it is the Japanese who don't allow themselves.

[K Frame]

As I said, the Japanese have a military. They even have a Navy. It's not big, and is designed only to defend Japanese soverignty from an invader.

That's the legacy of the Imperial Japanese military that caused such problems in the first half of the 20th century.

[Art Eatman]

The style of our Iraq deal is much different from how we treated Japan and Germany.  In WW II the deal was to subjugate an enemy nation and then set up some form of government acceptable to us.  In Iraq, the target was the leader and his relatively small group.  The Iraqi people have far more choice as to how their government will be organized.  More problems, of course, due to the artificial political boundaries set up Back When.

IMO, our goal is to end any form of military occupation ASAP, meaning when the Iraqis themselves can control the violence.  I think what we want is some base(s) to allow projection of force at a lesser cost and lesser political problems in such places as Saudi Arabia--and getting the Fleet out of the Persian Gulf.

$0.02,

Art

[Lo.Com.Denom]

The style of our Iraq deal is much different from how we treated Japan and Germany.

I agree. There's not really much of a comparison between the two. Remember, when Germany and Japan were occupied, their armies had been soundly crushed and their countries carpet-bombed to all Hell. In Iraq, we smart-bombed only the strategic sites to avoid civvy casualties, then charged in straight for the capital, leaving their ill-trained troops floundering around without a leadership (for all that was worth). Iraq, by WW2 standards, was left in a pristine state, compared with Japan and Germany. The average Iraqi citizen was probably told that they were at war with America one day, then told that they were defeated the next, without ever even seeing a coalition soldier. The seeds were already sown for insurrection before the last shell-casing hit the ground.

Plus there's all the fundamentalists sticking their oars in, the swiss-cheese borders and foreign powers with a vested interest in making life difficult for the occupiers, none of which were happening in Japan/Germany... Regrettably, I don't forsee a happy outcome for the people of Iraq if we pull troops out in the near future. It seems to me that sooner or later there's going to be a civil war over there. Hope I'm wrong.