It may seem impossible, but Japan and the United States went from bitter enemies during World

War II
to close allies during the Cold War and beyond. How did they make such a dramatic transition?

In 1941, Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into the war. Four years later,
the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively ending the
war. After the war, the U.S. occupied Japan for seven years and dismantled its military and drastically
changed its political structure.

However, the U.S. goal was not just to establish peace and rebuild Japan. With a new world order, the
U.S. aimed to turn Japan into its Asian ally to counter the spread of communism. To achieve this, the
American occupiers learned from the aftermath of World War I and used Japan's dire economic situation
and disillusionment with its government and military to promote democracy and rewrite the
constitution. They also employed thousands of Japanese American military intelligence linguists, who
were as crucial to the post-war transition as they had been during the war.