Regarding the article, before and after pictures of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria to name a few places are the same.
Prosperous sovereign nations outside Western Europe and North America are bad for business.
Poland has been around over a thousand years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianization_of_Poland
Show me where Poland was on the map before the Western powers drew it on the map after WW1.
Much like Lebanon which has cultural heritage going back, so does Poland. But maps might not reflect that.
Sure parts of what is now Russia have been part of Poland before, but the center is surprising stable.
Maybe because they don't have the oil.
Japan was not made by Meiji, it was transformed but foundation of the "miracle" was there. During sengoku it created and armed with locally built firearms armies that dwarfed that of any European state of the time in one generation.. from bows to hundred thousands of muskets
Culture >> everything. In 1945 Beirut was a paradise compared to burned to the ground Tokyo and every other major city. In few decades it had built dams like Kurobe, challenged and beat American car manufacturers.. resources, colonialism.. right. Whoever was running the place knew how to do it, they do not know now and very unlikely to learn in the next 100 years.
Those prosperous states in South Asia, outside mainland China, do seem to have lots of American troops stationed in them.