[NT: I know these geopolitical issues are sensitive (especially the real-world ones), but, well, this is a kingdom-building novel. Geopolitics is part of the package.
Sarah Paine is the primary source for my statements regarding the difficulty of creating a nation from scratch versus rebuilding a fallen one.]
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In defeated Germany and Japan, modern institutions already existed. Damaged, yes, but still standing.
All it took was aligning those institutions, investing, and making sure every penny of that investment landed in the right place.
That was one of the reasons the German and Japanese reconstructions worked so well while Afghanistan failed completely, collapsing the very moment U.S. forces left the country.
Even devastated after World War II, Japan and Germany had preserved almost everything that characterized a modern state: a civil service, national security forces, an established national identity, banks, businesses, and courts.
