With a decisive election victory, hawkish Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to follow through on his ambitions to dramatically bolster the nation’s military capability, with an eye on launching offensive attacks abroad.
Since WW2, the Japanese Constitution renounces the nation having a “standing army,” though in practice the “Self-Defense Forces” are a standing army, and one with considerable defense capabilities and a budget rivaling France or Britain.
But defensive capabilities aren’t what Abe wants, and his upcoming proposal is said to focus on “preemptive strike” capability, allowing Japan to theoretically launch attacks on North Korea or China at will.
The practical ability to ever attack either of those nations is likely to be limited for a long time to come, but will serve as a justification for bigger and bigger military spending in Japan, threatening an arms war for the region.
Japan is not to have any army after Second World War, but they changed that soon as USA could see a potential partner in Iraq war, now they have a demand to act preemptively, but off course with USA knowing about where they are going to hit and they will guid them.
It is funny how those Charley lived under American thump for decades now decide to have balls, go bark under another tree loser.
Hey buddy, you need to spend the money sorting out the mess from Fukushima, not in a d*ck waving exercise.
When the Far East goes up in a puff of smoke, I think we can look back and send Bush 43 and his supervisor Darth Cheney thanks. There were a couple of people who objected when they pulled that rabbit our of the hat – but the majority went along…just as they're going along with the NSA spying policy. Too lazy to complain.
Japan and China war = Iraq and Iran war. The deadliest the better. That is what U.S. wanted.
Aggression, even though it is classified as the worst crime in the world and encompasses within it the gravity of every other crime against humanity, is fine as long as it is done by the US or a US ally. All good, Japan!! 🙂
From the wonderful folks that brought you Pear Harbor, The Rape of Nanking, The Death March and other odious deeds and adventures….
The problem of course is that Japan would rely on its mutual defense treaty with the U.S. as a backstop and also a club in any preemptive action, and as with Israel, the U.S. would be there to protect Japan even though I don't think the defense treaty contemplates protecting Japan in the event Japan initiates an aggressive act of war, but we know how these things are interpreted appear as defensive moves.