By the way...we did that in Japan and in Germany and in South Korea.
Why oh why did we stop having that policy?
Let me answer that myself...
It is because of Vietnam.
The left’s ability to control our media began in earnest with Vietnam. After Cronkite and co. They salivate every time we send troops to a foreign land. They don’t like the military of anyone that makes use of it for anything more than about 3-4 years.
After that....if you don’t get out, win,lose or draw, they attack any politician inn favor of staying. And that usually is republicans.
So we stopped doing it right, so that we could do it politically correct.
First, we did it because it was in our national interest. It was part of our containment strategy of Communist expansion. We didn't rebuild China (PRC). We didn't rebuild East Germany or Eastern Europe.
And during these times, the US was the unquestioned world leading economic power. We were untouched by the devastation of WWII. The Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine gave us a world view and strategy. And we occupied Japan and West Germany giving us the needed control. We helped draft the Japanese constitution including Article 9. There was unconditional surrender.
We don't have the money to invest in nation building. And the growing welfare state will further limit our ability to project power globally. We are now experiencing the classic Guns vs Butter battle and butter always wins because it has more constituents. The sane thing happened to the UK.
Because in the 60s, the communists took control of the US and they didn't like the policy.