China shows military might in victory over Japan celebrations

telegraph.co.uk ^

[kearnyirish2]

The Red Chinese took appalling losses (in the first winter more died from the cold than combat) and they never showed signs of slowing down; the Manchukuo government could be set up only because the area was the traditional homeland of the Manchus, the last dynasty, that could be used against the republic.

We don’t have enough people to conquer Afghanistan TODAY; what was Japan going to do in China 70 years ago?

[roadcat]

We don’t have enough people to conquer Afghanistan TODAY; what was Japan going to do in China 70 years ago?

You can't compare the Japan of 70 years ago with the USA today. We are not an empire. Japan was an empire. You hold together an empire with brutal dictatorship and a fanatic military beholden to the ruling group. Japan was willing to do whatever it took to build empire and try to keep it. A far cry from our military and our "leadership". In the USA, we didn't do what empires do; the Japanese were surprised that we didn't incorporate Japan into a USA territory after conquering them. We did so with Hawaii but it wasn't very much of a "conquest".

As for Afghanistan, no invader has known what to do it. It's an anomaly that has seen numerous invaders give it up. Better to use Iran as a comparison, except we aren't at war with them (yet).