“Are our methods interchangeable across nations? I doubt it.”
who cares? The Japanese are as foreign to what we are as anybody in the world.
The point is use our power to hold them off, rather than let them internally subvert us(as well as killing our kids with new diseases, cocaine, rape and murder, etc.)
My point is we pacified Japan due in part to the general discipline their culture inherently practices, particularly in defeat.
Should we even attempt to pacify Mexico? Or invade and seize their resources? Or just smash them and keep a big wall between us with the promise to return later if needed?
What worked in one place isn’t guaranteed to work in another, so we would likely need to pursue a different course of action.