No matter how bad you say a country's foreign policy today..

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...is. Nothing compares to the massive foreign policy failure of Japan in the early to mid-1940s. By August 1945, Japan was completely isolated diplomatically, having made an enemy of most other nations on earth, and was fighting a disastrous losing war against said countries, resulting in great destruction for the country.

No wonder the militarists ended up becoming so discredited after the war!

its a fairly awful way to guage your own foreign policy if you say "Oh well, at least we aren't as bad as imperial Japan".

Japan under the empire was probably one of the cruellest societies that mankind has ever seen.

True. I wasn't attempting to justify any country's foreign policy by this (i.e. I did not intend to engage in the fallacy of relative privation), but I was just wanting to look at how bad a country's foreign policy could get.

And yeah, Japan did not do itself any favors by treating the people in the regions they occupied like crap, when they were supposed to be liberating them from the Western imperialists and helping to form a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."

Japan's recovery and record breaking growth between 1950 and 1973 is the ultimate proof of capitalism's excellence.

Actually, Japan had more of a mixed economy.

Not really. It was no different than European nations towards each other in the middle ages and towards outside of europe during their age of empire. No different than China as it ravaged the different kingdoms in the today Chinese mainland for centuries. No different than Koreans fighting within their own kingdom-states and later dealing with the mongol/chinese.




I would say that is more the result of not having to keep a standing military, receiving full protection and insane investment from the USA coupled with Japanese cultural mentality of working collectively rather than individually. Those are very good conditions in which to rebuild a nation. West Germany did just as good.

^this