on economic restraint instead.
At the same time, American Political Development’s focus on specific institutions does a better job of understanding military government than another recent development among scholars: the turn to the idea of “empire” to explain the way the United States functions in the global context.24 While “empire” as a theoretical construct has advantages, it holds a number of disadvantages for understanding military government. The better rubric comes from the political theorist Robert Latham, who has suggested scholars focus on America’s “external state”—those institutions functioning outside the formal boundaries of the United States, while still tied to it. The external state sometimes fills the space between “flag and Constitution”—what the Supreme Court (in the Insular Cases) identified as American possessions not incorporated into the United States proper.25
For Latham, the external state expresses more than “an external face to the state”; it refers to “the organs that are literally situated and deployed in the external realm” and distinct not only from “the internal state,” but also from “those institutions which command authority over the deployment process itself, the state center.”26 Latham’s terminology fits here because the military did more than simply express the desires of the American metropole. “I had too much flexibility,” Clay complained later of his time in the occupation. “I had—there were many times when I would have loved to have had instructions.… What the hell do you do when you don’t get any?”27 Oftentimes, the external state made policy directly, for example, when Clay unilaterally stopped reparations to the Soviet Union from the American zone.28 In that case, the external state bound the metropole, which found itself compelled to support Clay. Particularly in the aftermath of World War II, when “administrative disarray and domestic constraints” inhibited clear instructions from flowing to Germany and Japan, decisionmaking lodged “itself in the field,”29 where military governments functioned as distinct institutions, developing their own policy pathways and capacities.30
Thinking of military government as an external state also allows for a fresh take on the vast literature already written on this topic. In general (and with exceptions), scholars have taken three broad approaches in explaining the occupations. The first approach argues that a group of American elites in government or business (or some combination of the two) pursued policies to reshape the globe in their interests. Whether in response to Soviet provocations, or “to restructure the world so that American business could trade, operate, and profit without restrictions everywhere,” or to provide national security, or to impose a “corporate” reconstruction of the international economy, or to provide a New Deal for the world, or to Americanize the world (culturally or otherwise), these scholars see the United States as the hub around which the wheel of the rest of the world revolved.31 While scholars in this group have disagreed (sometimes vehemently) over the motivations of American political and business elites, and have similarly argued over which group, ultimately, had the most influence in policymaking, they nevertheless privilege the “metropole” in telling the story of the occupations. The occupations simply expressed the broad geopolitical aims that began in Washington (or sometimes New York).
The second approach usually comes from German and Japanese scholars who have raised the possibility that Washington did not have as much power as once thought. One version of this story argues that a brief window of opportunity existed to genuinely remake the German and Japanese political economy along progressive lines; tragically, however, the advent of the Cold War shut that window as Washington essentially relinquished the reform agenda, allowing conservative German and Japanese elites to reassert their authority.32 A different version of this story argues that the Germans and Japanese managed to cleverly undermine, thwart, or work around the occupation. Using cultural misunderstanding to their advantage, they limited the occupations’ overall influence, often to their ultimate benefit.33
Finally, a new set of scholars has taken both a more global and a less state-centric approach. Sometimes called “transnational,” “America in the world,” or “New International,” this group exhibits skepticism toward the idea of “the unitary state, nation, or nation-state as an ontological given,” noting that states are often comprised of competing institutions with different agendas.34 They have also looked at institutions functioning outside of official state lines (such as nongovernment organizations or the United Nations) as well as culture and cultural transmissions across borders.35 These scholars see in the early Cold War “complex circuits of exchange” rather than a wheel revolving around Washington, D.C.36 The idea of an “external state” fits best within this final approach because it speaks to the odd configuration of institutional power, neither national nor hegemonic, true of military government.
With the recent experience of Iraq and Afghanistan in mind, it is much easier to appreciate how precarious the entire project of rehabilitating Germany and Japan was. Both countries lay in ruins, their economies devastated by war and their people moribund from defeat. Both populations lived on the edge of starvation. Each seemed susceptible to growing resentments and (particularly in Germany) the call of communism. Moreover, each country faced rampant inflation, nonexistent financial markets, and little economic activity. For the generals who took power at the end of World War II in Germany and Japan, success seemed uncertain and failure likely. Yet they largely succeeded in bringing both countries back from the brink of chaos, a testament to the governing abilities of these soldier sovereigns.
Chapter 1
When the Military Became an External State
Douglas MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lucius Clay, the future military governors in Japan and Germany, entered the United States Military Academy (West Point) at a pivotal time in the development of the army—a moment when the military fundamentally shifted its focus from regional skirmishes to global power. A “regular” army had always fit uncomfortably within the republican framework that followed the American Revolution. The Bill of Rights aimed to prohibit the abuses perpetrated by King George III’s army during the Revolution. The country’s subsequent federalist structure and republican ideology made the hierarchical nature of the military seem out of step with the fabric of American life.1
Thus, it is hard to understand today, from the vantage of the “militaryindustrial complex,” exactly how parochial the nineteenth-century army was. A few combat units functioned as an example for the many state militias which provided the bulk of America’s fighting force. The professional army mostly battled American Indians on the frontier. The state militias, in the meantime, remained accountable to individual governors who could form, staff, and disband them based on their own priorities, rewarding friends and supporters with appointments.2
Similarly, the army’s non-line bureaus—its Corps of Engineers, for example—often served as a source of federal patronage where various congressmen worked hand in glove with bureau chiefs to ensure and protect each other’s prerogatives. A particular congressman would secure appropriations for a particular bureau, and the bureau chief would ensure that the majority of the appropriation went to improvements in the congressman’s home district. Thus, while the Constitution theoretically made the president the “commander in chief,” in reality he had little to do with a military that functioned through states, Congress, and individual bureau chiefs. This kept the army tightly within the spirit of nineteenth-century republican ideology, but hardly an effective fighting force compared to the world’s best militaries.3
Surprisingly, the Civil War did not alter this pattern. The federalist spirit that dominated the antebellum period shaped military organization during the war for both the Union and the Confederacy. Each formed state militias led by officers elected by their troops or chosen by the governor. Many members of the regular army, who might have otherwise provided professionalism
