Why did America invest so much in Germany and Japan after WW2?

Because they were our proxy states/buffers/etc. against the reds. Germany kept the USSR from yurop and Japan stopped the commies from establishing a real foothold in the Pacific.

>>2294511
you can't get better trade terms than from someone you just beat the shit out of.

where do you suppose American wealth after the war came from?

>>2294519
This
Also the war proved being vindictive to defeated enemies leads to bad shit happening again

Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.

So the saying goes.

This is the same reason America funds Pakistan.

>>2294511
That isn't Germany

>>2294521
I would say that WW2 proved that being too soft on your enemies ends up backfiring. All that allied powers had to do at the end of WW1 was to let France finish castrating Germany and it all could had been avoided.

>>2294521
Their problem was not killing all of them

>>2294511
It didn't.

>>2294549
>>2294556
*tips katana*

>>2294519
>foothold in pacific
>NK, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, FUCKING EAST RUSSIA

And no, The Soviets never had any hope of conquering any part of mainland Japan

>>2295056
China was not friendly to the USSR.

>>2295064
they were for a time, Mao outlawed all social sciences as rightist in favor of a marxist view of history/sociology/anthropology/etc in 1952 at the suggestion of his soviet advisors

>>2294511
How much? I havent seen any impressive figures and comparison with local resources, have you?

Fun fact: Germany paid more in occupation fees than it ever received under the Marshal Plan.

>>2294511
To turn them into their little bitches, which they are now

>>2295064
Except they were 1945-1955.