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Japan eyes bigger military as tensions rise

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posted on Jun, 21 2009 @ 03:32 AM
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Japan eyes bigger military as tensions rise


uk.news.yahoo.com

The draft, obtained by Kyodo, says Japan needs to reverse its policy of reducing its defence budgets in light of North Korea's missile launches and nuclear tests, as well as China's rise to a major military power, the news agency said.

The document urges the government to raise the number of Ground Self-Defence Forces troops by 5,000 to 160,000, Kyodo said.
(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.washingtonpost.com



posted on Jun, 21 2009 @ 03:32 AM
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You can understand this move from Japan. With North Korea constantly threatening them with missile launches and Japan and China hardly seeing eye to eye over the past 100o years, they feel they need to protect themselves independently rather than solely relying on the U.S.

An increase of 5000 to 160,000 over a five year period is a pretty big leap comparitively and may lead to an arms race, but a nation must protect its citizens, right?

uk.news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)



posted on Jun, 21 2009 @ 04:45 AM
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It's about time Japan started shouldering more of it's own defense burden.

The World-at-large always whines about the size of the American defense budget, then cuts it's own defense spending and says defend us.

I wonder how much money we actually spend on foreign garrisons, like the Korea DMZ, NATO, and Japan.



posted on Jun, 21 2009 @ 04:48 AM
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That's nothing. 5000 more soldiers in 5 years? Ooooo... not a big deal.

If they were to increase to 400.000 and nuclear weapons, THEN it would be a big deal.



posted on Jun, 21 2009 @ 05:05 AM
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Originally posted by Vitchilo
That's nothing. 5000 more soldiers in 5 years? Ooooo... not a big deal.

If they were to increase to 400.000 and nuclear weapons, THEN it would be a big deal.


Er, don't you mean 155,000 in five years?
If they're deadly serious about this, looks like conscription may be around the corner...



posted on Jun, 21 2009 @ 05:09 AM
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reply to post by purehughness
 


No... from wiki:

The JSDF numbered 239,430 in 2005
Important Topic Updates
with 147,737 in the Ground Self-Defense Force, 44,327 in the Maritime Self-Defense Force, 45,517 in the Air Self-Defense Force, and 1,849 in the Joint Staff Office. Reserves numbered 57,899.[5]

So they already have about 160.000... so no big deal. extra DIV



posted on Jun, 21 2009 @ 05:26 AM
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reply to post by War Otter
 


Come on!! Give that a rest please.. every second US person on this site is spouting this garbage.. its getting harder to listen to.. especially seeing as you all seem to believe it.

After your country Nuked Japan (after instigating the original act of war through sanctions etc btw) and rewrote their constitution to include that they must keep their forces below a specific strength.. You cannot complain that they do not have a powerful military/defense force and a mindset for war.

Also, US exports of war ties up many of your country's largest industries and is a major element of your economy. Its not the rest of the world that wants to keep their militaries weak.. its that the US didn't want the rest of the worlds nations to have powerful forces for decades.. Now that the US is broke, spread thin and has a hugely receding empire, you are now complaining the the rest of your allies are not up to scratch..

You cant have the best of both worlds..

Now that the US power is receding at the rate it is, there will be a vacuum that will eventually have to be filled by the EU/China/Russia.. thankfully these three actually get on with each other pretty well.

Until then, the US has to either become isolationist or wage war on multiple fronts to keep some level of global stability in order to keep the mess it has created (followed on from the british empire - who also went broke trying to do the same) somewhat stable until the other emerging superpowers can control their regions of influence.



posted on Jun, 21 2009 @ 05:42 AM
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It is probably in the best interest of the Japanese government to increase the size of their military at this juncture in history. You have the North Koreans ready to launch ICBMs and the new elephant in the room (China) out for payback from Japans' actions in the second world war. It is only a matter of time before China fulfills their vendetta against Japan.

Plus the US is running out of money and continued involvement over seas is going to have to be curbed greatly. If the US does in fact go bankrupt I can see them walking away for their security partnerships worldwide. If you don't have the money you have no choice.



posted on Jun, 21 2009 @ 06:03 AM
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reply to post by Jakes51
 


I dunno man, the Chinese are too used to making money and too happy getting rich to care about petty vengeance's. The Japanese got raped in WW2, whether or not their relationship with China is that great.. noone wants war.

Im sorry to say it but its us, the West, headed up by the US of A that are the main war monger's on this planet.



posted on Jun, 21 2009 @ 06:20 AM
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reply to post by Vitchilo
 


Aaah, with you. Yeah sorry, I'd just woken up.


Still, it looks like Japan, despite its economy being in the toilet, could become a major player in that particular hotspot of the world, even if they remain purely a self defence force.



posted on Jun, 21 2009 @ 07:08 PM
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Originally posted by Dermo
reply to post by War Otter
 

...After your country Nuked Japan (after instigating the original act of war through sanctions etc btw) and rewrote their constitution to include that they must keep their forces below a specific strength.. You cannot complain that they do not have a powerful military/defense force and a mindset for war....

...Also, US exports of war ties up many of your country's largest industries and is a major element of your economy. Its not the rest of the world that wants to keep their militaries weak.. its that the US didn't want the rest of the worlds nations to have powerful forces for decades.. Now that the US is broke, spread thin and has a hugely receding empire, you are now complaining the the rest of your allies are not up to scratch...


Prior to the Japanese suprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the US did impose sanctions and embargoes on Japan. Japan had, in 1937, attacked China and was engaged in a brutal war of conquest and occupation. (see Wikipedia - Nanjing massacre). The war in China was not proceeding as rapidly as the Imperial Army had planned and Japan was not acheiving the autarky which had been the objective of the war.

The Imperial Navy, political rivals of the Imperial Army, advanced a plan to capture resource rich areas of the South Pacific, which at the time belonged to the Nederlands, United Kingdom and France, as well as the Phillipines, a US ally.

The original plan did not include a direct attack on American territory. However, Admiral Yamamoto insisted that if the overall plan was to succeed. The US Navy would have to be crippled.

America did not instigate the War in the Pacific. The embargoes against Japan were an attempt to avoid war with Japan in defense of China.

As for nuking Japan, Japan was not going to surrender with out being occupied. The U.S. War Dept. estimated that an invasion of Japan would mean 1,000,000 additional US casualties, not the mention the complete destruction of Japan. Or destroy a city with an atomic bomb. Do the math.

(BTW, I consider the act of dropping the Bomb on Nagasaki to be a war crime, as it has often been alleged that we merely did it to test a plutonium bomb as opposed to the uranium bomb we dropped on Hiroshima.)

As for the US defense industry, many Americans, myself included, have been opposed the size and power of it for years. I have been tear-gassed and arrested for peacefully protesting the construction of nuclear weapons.

Many things are done in the country that I am not proud of, but am powerless to prevent, so please don't dump my opinions in with those other posters.

Rambling on, I would just like to add that Japan spends less than 1% of it's GDP and about 6.5% of it's total budget on defense spending. It could spend more so that US could reduce our military spending.



posted on Jun, 21 2009 @ 07:43 PM
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Even with that troop increase it would still be modest in size to China's and N.K.'s armies though.



posted on Jul, 28 2009 @ 07:52 AM
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Japan can never hope to match China in a conflict. Mabye its just to show the Chinese that they are watching them...



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