In understanding the aftermath of World War II and all of the activity that surrounded it, it is important to think of the concepts of rebuilding versus replacing. To rebuild is to “build again after being damaged or destroyed” while replacing is to “take the place of something old, broken, or inoperative”. While many cities and countries in the aftermath of WWII simply wanted to go back to the way their infrastructure and ways of living by rebuilding what had been destroyed, more often than not their lives and the environment around them was replaced with something newer, different, and inherently political, deliberate or not. Historian David Sterlin in his chapter “Reconstructing the Hiroshima Maidens” argues that the Hiroshima Maidens’ (Japanese women who underwent extensive plastic surgery in the United States after being badly disfigured by the atomic bomb) existence was inherently political, even if the United States’ reasoning for offering them facial reconstruction was altruistic and a sort of peace offering. In their article “Warfare Ecology,” Conservation biologist Thor Hanson and science advisor of the National Parks Service Gary E. Machlis argue that although the environmental impacts of war are far-reaching and long term, “environmental research related to warfare is limited in depth and fragmented by discipline” and that by using ecology during military planning and “improved rehabilitation of postwar ecosystem services” will increase peace and prosperity across the globe (“Warfare Ecology”, from the NATO Science for Peace and Security Series C: Environmental Security, page 33).
Although these articles do not seem inherently connected, they carry common themes in their discussions. In the heat of armed conflict, militaries are more focused on the immediate consequences of their actions and not the long term. They are looking to resolve the conflict with force because of sometimes dire circumstances without looking past the actual warfare, as that will be a problem for the future. Sterlin argues that “Urban renewal… often erases local history privileging political and economical alliances between local government and corporate interests over the civic rights of its inhabitants” (Hiroshima Maidens, 73). He also argues that while ‘rebuilding’ Hiroshima post-atomic bomb, both Japanese and Western officials were trying to replace the landscape of Japan with a more “global” architecture instead of coming up with something that was both new and inherently Japanese.
This idea that postwar replacing, just as military leaders do in the heat of war, do not think about the innocent bystanders who have lived in that place their whole lives. The same thing could be argued from an ecological standpoint. Rich ecosystems, important not only to the health of the earth as well as the economy and well-being of a country, have been destroyed with only shallow attempts at bringing back what was once thriving. Not only just helping the ecosystems affected by war, studying the ecology of a landscape before engaging in warfare is important, Hanson and Machlis argue because “agricultural output, energy and natural resource production, and availability of potable water typically suffer significant declines in war-dominated landscapes, while the needs of refugees and displaced persons for food, fuel, and shelter exacerbate both humanitarian aid requirements and environmental impacts” (Warfare Ecology, page 38).
Thinking about the long term effects of warfare is both difficult to see into the unknown future and can be morally-contradictory to the goals of war between two countries, but, as the authors argue, the effects of war are both hard to quantify because of how far-reaching they are. War is almost always fueled by political reasons so the postwar decisions about how to rebuild or replace are also political, whether planned that way or not.
I like how you look at the ecological aspect of war and its effects on rebuilding post war societies. It is obvious that new Western ways replaced old Japanese tradition when it came to the rebuilding of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although some Japanese welcomed these changes, believing the old tradition was now something to be ashamed of, I find it hard to believe that everyone felt this way. This leaves the question as to what history was forgotten during the rebuilding of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Did the new Western-style buildings take away from the cities which were steeped in Japanese culture and history?
You did a good job on differentiating reconstruction and construction. These two concepts had widely varied meanings to both the Japanese and the occupying Americans, both of which has completely opposite agendas. On one hand, the US wanted to rebuild Japan, but they wanted it done in a mirror image of their own society. This modern example of a conquering power imposing their will on a defeated nation truly went to show the mental affect that defeat costs a society and also the reactions that these people have. One thing to improve on would be to put in an image that would compliment your post, but overall it was well written.