For people and nations, a dividing line is whether anything is learned by an experience, good and bad. That Japan has been a peaceful nation, and a valued ally of the US, since World War II, demonstrates that both nations learned from that terrible crucible, and it began with General MacArthur before the surrender documents were signed in Tokyo Bay:
We are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored.
The issues involving divergent ideals and ideologies have been determined on the battlefields of the world, and hence are not for our discussion or debate.
Nor is it for us here to meet, representing as we do a majority of the peoples of the earth, in a spirit of distrust, malice, or hatred.
But rather it is for us, both victors and vanquished, to rise to that higher dignity which alone befits the sacred purposes we are about to serve, committing all of our peoples unreservedly to faithful compliance with the undertakings they are here formally to assume.
It is my earnest hope, and indeed the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past — a world founded upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance, and justice.
