“The Japanese persevered after the war despite horrible food shortages.”
I think we had something to do with their comeback.
The one thing MacArthur did right was run Japan after the war.
Eventually, yes.
But there were horrible food shortages before that happened. The Japanese rice crop failed in 1945. Between 1945 and 1946 Urban Japanese were trying to survive on 800 calories a day. Japanese in the countryside did only a little better.