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Essay on Douglas MacArthur: A Strong Military Leader

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Douglas MacArthur was one of the greatest military leaders ever. He has helped many people such as the Filipinos, Japanese after the atomic bombs were dropped, and the Koreans during the Korean War. On March 11th, 1942, President Roosevelt ordered General MacArthur to retreat from the Philippines to Australia, because the Japanese were about to take the Philippines. He told the Filipinos,” The President of the United States ordered me to break through the Japanese lines and proceed from Corregidor to Australia for the purpose, as I understand it, of organizing the American offensive against Japan, a primary objective of which is the relief of the Philippines. I came through and I shall return.” In order to return, he had to get past …show more content…

The planning for the foundation of the demilitarization of Japan started before the war was over. The United States appointed MacArthur to head up the reconstruction. The reconstruction is divided in three phases with the first being the reformation and punishing of Japan. This phase helped Japan develop a free enterprise capitalist system of democracy and took away power form the emperor. They also took apart Japan’s military and did not allow any officers to take part in the new government. They also had a land reform, much like Tiberius and Gaius in Rome, to let the farmers have more land take away the wealthy landowner’s power. A new constitution, sometimes called the MacArthur constitution because of his influence on it, was written in 1947 for Japan, which gave the parliament more power and the emperor less, and took away their power to wage war. The next phase was the economic revival of Japan, which started in early 1948 when the United States realized the threat of communism to Japan. The United States was worried that communism would easily be able to take over Japan because their economy was so weak. In this phase, reforms on taxes and control of inflation were made. However the worst of all the problems was the shortage of materials. When the Korean War broke out, the United States used Japan to hold supplies. This then allowed Japan to have enough supplies. The breakout of the war also kept Japan safe because

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