Big Think: International Prejudices

It's undeniable: some countries just hate each other.
On Big Think today, there was an article on the tense relationships between Japan and China, fueled by a long history of mistrust and resentment:
http://bigthink.com/dragons-and-pandas/if-all-chinese-go-to-the-coast-and-spit-japan-will-drown
Of course, as the article explains, this is quite the powerful feud, going back to the second World War. But this is a much broader phenomenon, one that applies to most of the world's nations. Conflicting ideologies and past strife lead to mistrust between nations that can last years, decades, or even millennia. Even as countries rise and fall, these divisive factors may remain in place. Take America's relationship with Russia - today, we're walking on thin ice. Our two nations have been at each other's throats a great deal, what with Syria, human rights issues, and diplomatic tension. This is a continuation of the tension that's been present since the end of the second world war. I likened the current state of Russo-American relations to "thin ice." If that's the case, as we all know, our relationships during the cold war were akin to walking on a tightrope made of dental floss over a tank of starving tiger sharks. Such tensions don't always apply to enemies, either - take America and its so-called ally, the United Kingdom. On the political and military level, our two nations are allies. On the individual level...not so much. The British people, as a group, tend to view Americans as snobbish, rude, stupid, and overweight. Americans fall into two camps: anglophiles, and those who see the British as weak, pathetic, pompous cowards who would be speaking German if not for the good ol' Yankees. But, as in the case of our dysfunctional relationship with Russia, things were much worse in the past. For those of you who think that the U.S. and the U.K have been the best of friends since the first world war, look up a little something called "War Plan Red." Better yet, I'll tell you what it is: it was an American plan to conquer Canada (then a British dominion) and assault Great Britain with the full force of our navy. Want to know when this plan was approved? In the year 1930, less than ten years before the start of World War Two. Top officials only scrapped this plan because they recognized Germany and Japan as bigger threats. But even though most of the American people have never even heard of War Plan Red, many of them feel the resentment its writers felt, less than a century ago. And if history has taught us anything, it's that wounds of this sort heal slowly, if at all.