Unlike the USA (which is following a policy of educational mediocrity) Germany and Japan have high-quality seconday school educational systems. The USA spends a fortune on education (chiefly brick and mortar, and administrative salaries), but has one of the worst records in the world.
This is revealed in world-wide testing-the USA consistently ranks below nations like Germany, Japan, Switzerland.
This is intentional, as the ruling elite(in the USA) wants a dumbed-down electorate, who will vote for “bread and circuses”. One could even argue (with success) that education expenditure and results are negatively related (in the USA). 
Because you didn’t bother to look at the next table down in your own cite? You aren’t seriously contending that they don’t rely heavily on the fact that the US military acts as a shield for both countries…are you? Or that if the US didn’t have such a large and powerful military that was tied to both countries defense by treaty, that they wouldn’t have to spend more than they current do…or are you so contending?
Well…they don’t get into them any more, ehe? 
Why not? Well, I’m sure a large part is because having gotten their asses kicked so hard and long the last time, they aren’t too keen to repeat the process. Another reason is that the modern, post-WWII countries both grew up in the US’s shadow, and under the US’s protection. Not only did this allow them to spend a lot less on defense than they would have had to if this weren’t the case (which let them spend more on other things), it also would have dissuaded them from even trying to get back in the game at all.
-XT
My history may be fuzzy on this, but I seem to recall that Japan was forbidden from establishing a standing army and air force after WWII. If that was so, most of their post-war energy could be directed into manufacturing.
Japan does have a standing army and air force – the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The deal after WW2 was that the JSDF could not be deployed outside Japan.
Pretty much what Giles said. They have both an army, navy and air force, but it’s a local defense force. I didn’t click on Giles link, but there have been efforts (vigorously resisted by the Japanese) in the past to change this, mostly because the US has wanted Japan to take a more active participation in regional defense.
-XT
That would explain why I saw jets with Japanese markings landing at Misawa AFB back in the late 70s. Very old jets that I think were F-100 Super Sabres.
Not sure about Japan, but West Germany was also forbidden from rebuilding their army and only established the Bundeswehr in 1955.
But that’s true for a whole lot of other countries as well, and is really only relevant in a comparison vs. the US, not vs. other countries in the world.
Part of the reason I asked this question is that it, on the surface at least, seems like such strong evidence of “national will” or “national character”, all of which teeter precariously close to things like racism.
Why is it racism? Different cultures value different things more highly, and some of those cultural variations can contribute to a more productive economy. For example, being on time for appointments is valued more highly in Germany and in Japan than it is for some other countries. That might contribute to greater productivity. Is it racist to suggest that?
In general terms I’m puzzled by Germany’s success as well. They export more than any other country (in the world, IIRC, not just Europe). Trade surpluses abound, while German workers seem to have hours and pay that most American, non-unionized manufacturing workers can only dream of. They have (along with the rest of Europe), a strong currency, instead of a sagging one; in regard to our declining dollar the positive spin is that it supposedly will aid our exports, yet that never seems to happen. It’s honestly hard to see what we get for our extra two weeks and more of work in the year.
It is true that Germany does have some regions that aren’t doing so well, but the overall import/export numbers look a lot better than the U.S.'s, and that seems to be the single most looked at metric.
The US actually has the worlds best tertiary educational system though. As far as our primary/secondary system, we are tied with other nations during primary school, only in secondary do we fall behind.
And according to Fareed Zakaria our ranking with other nations is more an issue of poverty than US education. In the US people who are not poor do as well or better than European nations, and the poor do worse and when you average it the US is below average. The discrepancy within the US is greater than the discrepancy between the US and other nations according to Zakaria.
After WWI there was the Treaty of Versailles, which almost mandated WWII.
After WWII, to prevent that blunder, there was the Marshall Plan.
You also need to factor in that Japan’s high economic water mark was 1991. When the bubble economy burst, the country languished with 1% growth annual for a decade. After it’s peak in 1989 property in Tokyo’s financial districts sank to less than 1 percent of its peak. Tokyo residential property fell 90%. The slump was so severe that for a period Japanese overnight interbank interest rates were negative. After some recovery begining in 2003, then the GFC hit them hard again.
From once looking like they could challenge the US, Japan is now 20 years growth behind and the window is closing. From now on they will steadily lose prominent to the Chinese.
I took a Cultural Geography class where we saw a video on education in Germany and Japan. Someone asked why it was better than the US. Your response was my answer to her.
Having gone to university in both the US and Japan, I can safely say that, for the most part, Japanese universities are a complete joke. I went to one of the top five universities in Japan, and while my major courses were relatively robust, overall the level was well below what would be covered in a US or UK university.
To give you an example: back in the mid-1980s, national universities in Japan were still teaching Keynesian economics as an ‘alternative theory’…
Japan does have a very strong research infrastructure, but most of it takes place at companies, not necessarily universities.
Japan succeeded specifically thanks to the Korean War, which was a massive boon to Japan’s rebuilding effort. More generally, Japan had a relatively well-educated, a highly literate work force, and a culture based on rule of authority - I would not say that Japan has a strong ‘rule of law’ ethos at all. Instead, Japan’s citizens by and large are taught essentially from birth that others will make decisions for them. Before the war, that mean, if you’re told to go fight, you go fight. After the war, that mean you join a company and HR will tell you what your job will be, and they’ll shift you around every couple of years. If you’re a department head, you’ll be told how many new hires you will get, and you will not meet them beforehand - they’ll just show up the first Monday in April. Your teachers will tell you what high schools and universities you should apply to. Your older relatives would arrange your marriage for you. The government would tell companies what their sector strategies should be, and would tell banks where they should be lending their money.
While still present in Japan, this ‘rule of authority’ way of thinking has weakened a bit in recent years. I suspect the younger generation has seen two generations of workers in Japan completely give up their family life in return for being a ‘corporate samurai’, and they see little reason to follow in their parents’ footsteps.
I would add, however: I think Japan is in a far worse position than the US. I could go in to really really gory detail, but just the highlights: Japan’s population is both aging the fastest and has one of the lowest birth rates of any industrialized nation, the ratio of pensioners-to-workers is going to go from 4:1 to 10:1 in the next 15 years, Japan’s healthcare/nursing care industry faces a worker shortage of over a million people in the next 10 years, it has a very illiquid labor market that reduces incentives for new job/industry creation and job training, education standards have gotten worse (and as I noted above, tertiary education standards are very low), the national debt situation is even worse in Japan (170-190% of GDP in 2008) than in the US (60-70%), Japan’s workers are anywhere from 10% to 30% less efficient than workers from the US, UK, Germany - even Italy! - return on assets is more than double in the US vs Japan, there is almost no support for women in the workplace or for working mothers, due to the illiquid labor market workers avoid changing companies mid-career (and those that do at the bigger companies almost never make it into senior management), etc etc etc.
‘Rich’ is a relative term; I personally think the future of Japan is extremely bleak, unless the country is willing to look at one of the few real options that would really help solve these problems: immigration. So far, however, the country seems to be preferring a long, slow slide into oblivion and economic growth on par with Paraguay before allowing foreigners in.
Interesting observation-a few years ago, the media in Brazil reported on an interesting story. The Japanese Government decided to offer cash incentives to Brazilians (of Japanese ancestry), to move back to Japan.
The idea was, that as ethnic Japanese, these folks would inject some new blood into Japan.
The results? Most of the Brazilains left Japan-they found the culture not to their liking.
Clearly, Japan has its own culture-which outsiders cannot fit into.
The GDP per capita in the US is $48k vs $35k for Germany. If you go to your boss and ask for an additional 2 weeks of vacation in exchange for a 30% paycut, you too could work like a German.
Since most of wealth is now human capital it is very easy for lesser developed countries with good institutions to copy better developed countries and catch up very quickly.
You can’t make such a quick comparison between GDP per capita and standard of living. GDP numbers depend on market pricing - if something is provided as a state benefit, it is under included in GDP numbers. Longer working hours also artificially boost GDP. For example, I work such hours that I do not have time to tend to my garden. I therefore pay someone $60 a week to mow my lawn and do some odd work around there. This boosts GDP by $60 a week. Were I to do that work myself, the overall level of work in the economy would be unchanged, but because I would not be paying someone to do the work, GDP would be lower.
People in American work longer at work, people in Europe work more at home. The GDP in the US is higher, Adam Smith in action.
Is that in someway a refutation of the argument that GDP numbers are notoriously inaccurate measurements of wellbeing, even in a truly financial sense?
But I imagine you are paying the $60 because while the person is mowing your lawn, you are doing something that makes more than $60, and you are not willing to do both. So if you mowed the lawn yourself, the economy would lose the benefit of your other presumably more specialised and valuable skills, and the GDP would accordingly be lower.
On another note, someone much earlier in the thread gave some credit for Germany’s relative success to the Marshall Plan. No doubt it helped them, but France and especialy Britain got far more per capita from the plan, and yet didn’t do as well in the 30 years after the war, especially not Britain.