There are other bad examples from WW2 besides Nazis. Case in point: the Japanese.

The history of the (war in the Pacific) is the chronicle of Japan's lost opportunities...As the war went on, Japan allowed it to become plain that it was bent on a simple predatory enterprise of the kind which was supposed to have passed out of fashion with the passing away of the nineteenth century. It failed to disguise in a plausible way that its interest was no higher than the transfer to itself of the benefits enjoyed by western countries in the South Seas and in Asia. The gloss which it sought to put on this - the ideology of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which its picture of an eastern world finding harmony under the protection of the Japanese armies - was too perfunctory to carry conviction.

In three years, japan, by a series of blunders, disappointed the hopes of Asia that it was the liberator. By extraordinarily insensitive action it convinced Asian nationalists that Japan offered little or nothing to the peoples struggling to be free; and satisfied national leaders that far more was to be had from western imperialists than from the victory of Japan. For this result, a part of the responsibility was due to the conduct, the repeated blunders, the arrogance and stupidity, of the Japanese army. Japan's imperial adventure was always associated with the Japanese army: Japanese diplomats, civilians, and captains of industry were of secondary importance. The opportunities for a genuine new era in the region, which were at first made available by the daring and glittering achievements of Japanese arms, were flung away because the Japanese army went in the teeth of the inhabitants of the region, and came to be oidous throughout Asia. It was defeated by Anglo-Saxon powers in military combat, but when this came about, few tears were shed by Asian nationalism because of the result.

- P. Calvocoressi & G. Wint, "Total War: The Story of World War II" (1972)

Gee, doesn't that sound familiar? We are doing in the Middle East (ME) what Japan did in Asia, being a resource predator.

Due to the lack of resources in Japanese home islands, raw materials such as iron, oil, and coal largely had to be imported. The success of Japan in securing Taiwan (1895) and Korea (1910) had brought Japan primarily agricultural colonies. In terms of resources, the Japanese military looked towards Manchuria's iron and coal, Indochina's rubber, and China's vast resources.

- Wikipedia, Japanese Militarism

Foreign Policy

In today's Peak Oil fever, the US is intent upon dominating every oil-producing country on the planet. We destroyed Iraq and Libya so we could grab the oil, and in Libya's case, the stash of gold. Syria has some oil as well, although we looked the other way when ISIS was shipping it through Turkey. The Syrian War was started because of an oil pipeline route. We hate Iran and try to subvert it, because Iran has oil.

Like Japan, our foreign policies are dominated by the military. That is now clear to everyone. After 16 years of post-911 war, nobody buys our bullshit about "bringing democracy" to the region; not when our biggest ally is the fundamentalist theocracy, Saudi Arabia. Not when our other ally is the Arab-despising Israel. Our propaganda for our presence in the Middle East is even more hollow than the awkwardly phrased (and completely disingenuous) Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere that Japan propagandized about while it stripped East Asia of anything valuable that it could carry.

Today's overall ME scenario parallels that of WW2 in Asia. First, weak Western colonial powers were pushed out by the Japanese military. But the Japanese policies were horrible (see above). So, in the end the locals supported the colonial powers for the duration of the war.

The same thing happened in the ME. Countervailing Russian influence evaporated after the collapse of the Soviet Union; and the US moved in. But we have trashed the ME for nothing more than our own (and Israel's) gain. So, the ME now trusts and supports the Russians and their bigger partner the Chinese. That combination is sort of like Britain, and its bigger partner, the US, in WW2.

When the dust settles, and the US has been evicted from the ME, the Islamic states may decide they can do a better deal with Russia/China than the US. Russia trumpets its support of Islam, while the US trashes them as "ragheads".

Nationalist Religion

Just like the Japanese had State Shinto, the US has some warped nationalist/militarist religion. This is on display at any football game, where the national anthem, military flyovers, salutes to the troops, and praying players and coaches are mixed together into a stew of "exceptional nation"-ism, with a heavy dose of fundamentalist Christian-ism thrown into the pot.

Shinto elements came under a great deal of overt state influence and control as the Japanese government systematically utilized shrine worship as a major force for mobilizing imperial loyalties on behalf of modern nation-building."...In 1890, the Imperial Rescript on Education was issued, and students were required to ritually recite its oath to "offer yourselves courageously to the State" as well as to protect the Imperial family.

- Wikipedia, Shinto

State Shinto refers to...the mixture of state support for non-religious shrine activities and immersive ideological support for the Kokutai policy in education, including the training of all shrine priests.This permitted a form of traditional religious Shinto to reflect a State Shinto position without the direct control of the state.

The "State Shinto" ideology presented Shinto as something beyond religion, "a unity of government and teaching ... not a religion." Rather than a religious practice, Shinto was understood as a form of education, which "consists of the traditions of the imperial house, beginning in the age of gods and continuing through history."

- Wikipedia, State Shinto

In a parallel fashion, the US military is infested with fundamentalist Christianity. The nuclear-armed Air Force takes first place in the number of religious commissars monitoring everyone for deviance from Christian-ism in a supposedly religiously neutral military. Gaffes by generals of all services about "defending Christianity" have to be regularly apologized for.

As for the civilian population, America is awash in subliminal messages that we are fighting for a good cause - don't look to closely at who our allies are in this cause. We are awash in messages that fighting, as opposed to negotiating, is the only way to relate to the rest of the world. We are awash in wall-to-wall media violence with cartoon good guys and bad guys. We are awash in demonization of the "other", read as anyone who does not slavishly follow the state religion of exceptional nation warmongering and Islamophobia.

Militarism

Most Americans decry militarism; even as they fail to notice, we are following the same arc as Imperial Japan, only over a longer period of time. It's taken us longer because, when we started down the road to militarism in 1941, we had a 150 year history of democracy, with a Bill of Rights and everything. (Yes, I understand Howard Zinn and many others on how it is a sham. But it used to be better than anything else on offer.)

Miliitarism deserves its bad reputation. Whenever a democracy is murdered from within, it is always internal or external security forces that are the murder weapon. Take a look at the topic outline for Japanese militarism

1.1 Rise of militarism
1.2 Economic factors
1.3 Independence of the military
1.4 Growth of Ultranationalism
1.5 Growth of Military Adventurism

Once again, sound familiar?

Japanese militarism (Nihon gunkoku shugi) refers to the ideology in the Empire of Japan that militarism should dominate the political and social life of the nation, and that the strength of the military is equal to the strength of a nation.

Independence of the military

Also forming part of the basis for the growth of militarism was the freedom from civilian control enjoyed by the Japanese armed forces. In 1878, the Imperial Japanese Army established the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff office, modeled after the Prussian General Staff. This office was independent of, and equal (and later superior) to the Ministry of War of Japan in terms of authority. The Imperial Japanese Navy soon followed with the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff. These General Staff offices were responsible for the planning and execution of military operations, and reported directly to the emperor. As the Chiefs of the General Staff were not cabinet ministers, they did not report to the Prime Minister of Japan, and were thus completely independent of any civilian oversight or control.

The Army and the Navy also had decisive say on the formation (and survival) of any civilian government. Since the law required that the posts of Army Minister and Navy Minister be filled by active duty officers nominated by their respective services, and since the law also required that a prime minister resign if he could not fill all of his cabinet posts, both the Army and the Navy had final say on the formation of a cabinet, and could bring down the cabinet at any time by withdrawing their minister and refusing to nominate a successor.

- Wikipedia, Japanese Militarism

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Clearly, the neocons/militarists wanted HRC to be President, as she was 100% behind their Military Adventurism - right up to threatening nuclear war with Russia. Trump has pre-emptively met the fate of anti-war Japanese Prime Ministers. His government has been brought down before it was even started. He is thrashing about in an aligator pit. Each appointment of a general to his personal staff is the aligator taking another bite of a foreign policy independent from militarism.

If political maneuvering was not enough to get a miltiaristic policy, the Japanese rightwing had no problem with assassination. In fact, the early 1930s were referred to as Government by Assasination.

Government by assassination has been used to describe the political situation in Japan in the 1930s. Most notably, it refers to the death of Inukai Tsuyoshi in the May 15 Incident of 1932, as well as the February 26 Incident of 1936, in which Saitō Makoto and Takahashi Korekiyo were killed. The period saw the rise of Japanese militarism and can be seen as leading to Japan's involvement in World War II.

-Wikipedia, Government by Assassination

Since our recent history is littered with so many corpses (JFK, RFK, MLK) and near misses (Reagan - via the son of a Bush Crime Family associate), TPTB prefer media assassinations to real ones. Trump has turned out to be so weak that such an option was all that was needed.

The bottom line is that militarism (including CIA, NSA, DIA and all the other spy shops) has dictated the direction of US foreign policy for 50 years. The CIA was up to its eyeballs in whatever happened around JFK and RFK. Allen Dulles was lurking in the background of the MLK killing. The CIA hated Carter for appointing Turner to clean house, and repaid him with the sabotage of the hostage rescue mission and with the treasonous double-dealing with Iran to postpone the handover. The whole Iran-Contra nightmare was run by spooks; ex-CIA/Air America cowboys. At the end of Iran Contra, the rule of law was dead as G.H.W. Bush pardoned everyone. I don't think I need to continue past the First Gulf War to demonstrate that our foreign policy is not in the hands of diplomats at all. It is in the hands of mlitarists.

Economic Factors

Japanese militarism went into high gear after the 1929 crash.

the apparent collapse of the world economic order with the Great Depression starting in 1929, coupled with the imposition of trade barriers by western nations and an increasing radicalism in Japanese politics including issues of domestic terrorist violence (including an assassination attempt on the emperor in 1932 and a number of attempted coups d'état by ultra-nationalist secret societies) led to a resurgence of so-called "jingoistic" patriotism, a weakening of democratic forces and a belief that the military could solve all threats both domestic and foreign. Patriotic education also strengthened the sense of a hakko ichiu, or a divine mission to unify Asia under Japanese rule.

Those who continued to resist the "military solution" including nationalists with unquestionable patriotism, such as generals Jotaro Watanabe and Tetsuzan Nagata and ex-Foreign Minister Kijūrō Shidehara were driven from office or an active role in the government.

-Wikipedia, Japanese Militarism

We had an election just as the 2008 crash happened. People voted overwhelmingly for Obama, in large part because he was seen as a "peace" candidate. He was seen (laughably so to anyone who noticed who was backing him) as someone who would discipline Wall St. Once again, we see how little voting matters. Obama bailed out Wall St., thereby prolonging the economic crisis while further cementing the domination of finance.

Military Adventurism

As for militarism, he appointed HRC as Secretary of State, and the rest is horrible history. In addition to not getting out of Iraq, the US destroyed Libya. It attacked Iran with the Stuxnet virus. It continues to hemorrhage money and troops in Afghanistan. It promoted coups in Honduras and the Ukraine. It backed the crushing of the democratically elected Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt. It allowed KSA to instigate the Syrian civil war (over a pipeline route) and to attack Yemen. It continues to saber-rattle against Iran, North Korea, Russia and China. It is a record of increasing military adventurism.

When an actual diplomat (John Kerry) tried to negotiate, the military disobeyed the chain of command and bombed the Syrian Army in order to sabotage any cooperation with Russia.

Adventurism is actually too polite a word for the Empire of Chaos and its smash-and-grab policy.

In conclusion

As I mentioned at the start, one could argue that all this military action is driven by economic fear - fear the West will run out of oil. The sad thing is, the West largely buys its civilian goods from China and from Third World sweatshops like Bangladesh. However, the biggest consumer of oil in the world is the US Military.

We have come full circle. We engage in military adventurism to secure supplies of fuel for our bloated military. Turn out the lights. Our civilian democracy is dead.

I have drawn enough parallels to stripe a football field. All I can say is that history is repeating itself. Except, this time the players have nukes. This time America is the aggressor. This time the prize being fought over is not worth having. Oil is going to kill the planet in a few decades.