Posted on 07/08/2012 4:32:31 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has managed to hold revanchist Japanese military aims in check while the Japanese pursued economic success. The rise of China, however, poses a threat that Japanese militarists believe requires a response. Would a military build-up be what’s needed to jumpstart the stagnating Japanese economy? …
Then there’s the historic question of the era of Japanese colonialism and militarism. Those days may be long gone, but the memory lingers on. Fears of a Japanese renaïssance as an aggressive imperial power won’t go away. Under the circumstances, it’s easy to understand widespread worries in South Korea about the negative implications of a pact under which Japan and South Korea would exchange military intelligence information. …
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearworld.com ...
Yes. But at the same time we bailed on South Vietnam...
But I see your point and Thank your dad and uncles.{My Dad was a WW2 vet also}
With the totally corrupt democrat control of Hawaii now, takeover by Japan may be a good thing.
Japan would have to enlist South Korea to have any force that could project power. There simply isn’t enough young Japanese men to fill the ranks.
“Japanese militancy ranks right up there with Christian terrorists - BS.”
Too much History Channel, or, as my ex used to call it, The Hitler Channel. A lot of people get stuck in the WWII glue and think EVERY historical event/trend relates to the war. It can be tedious.
Japan is one of the most pacifistic societies in the world. They have moved on from their past. Too many WWII buffs haven’t.
Heck, even my uncle, a Bataan survivor, managed to forgive the Japanese before he died. Learn from it, but get over it!
One final question: if Chiang had won the Civil War instead of Mao, would China still be our enemy?
“The reason few of the tests had much of an EMP effect is NONE of them were detonated in the outer stratosphere. For an EMP to be a worst case scenario it needs to be 20 megaton and detonated about 300KM in space.”
Yea, I didn’t know enough to get into specifics, but since those earlier tests were not intended to test for EMP, in most cases, they probably took steps to protect whatever might have been in the path of the pulse. Let’s do an above-ground test specifically for EMP and see what happens - even a small bomb, nothing like 20 MT, would teach us a lot. I think we should get with Russia and simply do a joint test - they’re as hooked on computers now as we are, so they might just be game for it.
I have long thought that it was over for Japan becoming a warlike entity again, because of their men becoming wusses playing games and such. But Germany bounced back from the ruin of WWI because Hitler became a father figure for disenchanted youth, and led Germany to prosperous growth and a strong military. All it would take is the appearance of a strong Hitler-type charismatic figure to rally the youth of Japan. Not likely to happen but possible. (Heck, we need someone other than Obama to rally our youth.)
More likely for them to fall under the influence of a strong China, while having an alliance with India and South Korea. The USA is weakening while India gets stronger, and India becomes important for Japan.
I don't think the Chinese are our enemy. We can choose to be their enemy if we oppose their territorial expansion, assuming they resume the patterns of antiquity. The real question is whether our interests in Asia outweigh the potential cost of a clash in China. A big part of the decision is determining whether it is feasible to have our regional allies bear a big part of the burden, given that the primary beneficiary of our defense of their territorial integrity isn't Uncle Sam, whereas the primary cost of stopping the Chinese might fall on us.
If Taiwan and the South China Sea were the limits of their territorial ambition, I suspect most strategists of any stripe would say that those aren't excessive, assuming that this held for the rest of time. But since there's no way to tell for sure, why hand anything over for free? Deter them by making them pay a heavy price in men and equipment. As to whether Chiang would have been satisfied with China's boundaries, let me point out that Taiwan shows Mongolia and parts of Siberia, in addition to the South China Sea, as part of the territory of Kuomintang (Nationalist) China.
Are you sure Germany really has faced its past? A recent poll found that well over 60 percent of Germans regard Israel as an aggressive nation.
Compared to Japan they did. Unfortunately anti-Semitism is making a comeback, and this time it's "politically correct."
The comeback of antisemitism has been happening for longer than you might want to acknowledge, even before the big influx of Muslims there. And the European Union is proof that Germany never faced its past.
I will grant everything you have said. My original point was simply that Japan has never faced its past as much as Germany has, however insufficiently it has done so. My post was actually about Japan, not Germany. I regret my flawed comparison.
Well, Japan really has not faced its past either. Guess that’s just human nature. (Their turning of cannibal murderer Issei Sagawa into a celebrity was something I found unforgivable, for my part.)
Society’s view of history is not so much the question of who have you raped, but rather, who have you raped lately?
Japs at Nanking is the freshest memory in that theater.
Japan building a few more ships, some subs, and modernizing its air force, is having it start to carry its weight. Japan going nuclear would be “playing the Japan card”.
Ask if your Chinese friends know what the ChiComs did to Tibet, East Turkestan, Manchuria, and Mongolia not to mention Chinese who didn’t tow the party line. The Japanese should but do not necessarily know the crimes of a previous regime. Chinese will justify the crime so of the current regime.
The japanese becoming what the French allies were during the American Revolution.
Sounds like a winning combination.
Obama hates the Japanese. They in turn know he is a man of no honor, no face. The man with no face is destroying America, Japan needs an America that is strong economically so that they in turn can repair their own damaged economy.
However I would also accept British warships steaming towards Washington DC in aide to the Continental Militia.
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