They have????? Just like the Japanese after WWII, they fought on a different front - economically. Now, the poor Japanese didn't fare too well. What they could do well could be done in numerous other places. So the Nikkei index is at 40K. In 1989 it was at 35K. That was the all-time high until last January. 35 years of zero growth. Because other SEA nations ate it's lunch.
The Germans have done a better job. They spent decades building an industrial infrastructure. Now they economically tower over Europe. They haven't changed.
Some of our national traits are. . . ingrained in our DNA.
Your Mediterranian countries tend to be lax. Long vacations, early retirements, short work days. Germans? Win at any cost. Scots(Irish)? Feud until dead. (Hatfield & McCoy is one Scottish clan against another - generations removed from being in Scotland!)
Americans? What is in our DNA? Freedom. Some day read about the Mohawk and other Upstate tribes. Their sense of "government" and "individual freedom" rings through the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Whole concepts that were foreign to Europeans ruled by a controlled nobility. It's almost as if freedom is in the water supply or something. (It's also why non-Americans can't understand 2A. It's about freedom. Freedom over all. That is just confusing to someone born elsewhere.)