Did the allies disband Japan's military after WWII?

[ladybugg33]

Why did the US disband the Iraqi military instead of keeping them as prisoners of war? Bad decision?

[lil-petunia]

1. The navy forces were used

as police and for internal security. much of the army forces were decimated or stuck in islands away from the homeland. the navy also was deemed (correctly) concerned with Japan's post-war survival and civilization.

Not so in the army leadership. remember, the army killed a PM, assassinated all non-pro-war leaders in the 30s and continued with attacks even when all other prudent leaders said no.
but in answer to your question, no they were not disarmed; they were used to maintain authority, get food, medicine and water moving, and to rebuild the country. Their ships were taken out of service, though.

[BJ]

2. In some areas of Southeast Asia Japanese troops, under British....

...command were retained as the only viable force to maintain order until allied troops could take over.

The Iraqi Army should have been retained. Disbanding was not only a bad decision but a stupid one.

[lil-petunia]

3. exactly. Ooops, I forgot about the question. so BUSH of me.

Why did we do that in Iraq? Because of politics.

Shrub's team wanted to erase Baath orgs as soon as possible, giving no thought whatsoever about replacing them. To the contrary, we sent in several dozen junior neocons who had NO EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER. By all accounts, they were so incompetent and insulting to the Iraqis, that they made things much worse, much faster.

In germany after WWII, same thing. We maintained the german military to provide security, food, water, medicine and to police the streets. Why? they obeyed orders, they did what was expected, and they wanted the best result for their own country.

Do recall that the Brains at State had plans, massive, detailed, intelligent and experience-borne plans. Post invasion plans. Reconstruction plans. Plans deliberately written for Iraq. Those plans predicted what would happen should we underfund and understaff the post war Iraq.

Cheney (my hero) personally shit-canned the materials and insisted that reconstruction could be done on the cheap. The shithead.

Which, after 16 months, brings us to "Catastrophic victory".