Fighting for Japan

[Russell]

Japan plans to draw Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and the Philippines into its war with China

Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba proposed Wednesday that Japan might consider finding other collective self-defense partners in addition to the United States, its closest security ally.

“We must discuss whether the United States should be the sole option or if the scope should be widened to include many other countries,” Ishiba, the No. 2 man in the party, told an event in Washington.

“Some say the possibility should be limited to the United States,” Ishiba told a symposium hosted by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.

“But there is an idea that we can create such a security network with countries with which we can share a set of values such as freedom, democracy and respect of human rights,” Ishiba said, citing Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Malaysia.

Ishiba said that a minimum use of arms should be allowed regardless of whether action is taken individually or collectively “to secure the independence and peace of Japan, as well as the peace and stability of the international community.”

More

[JAVGOD]

All of those countries have a dog in the fight. China needs to be contained. Crippled is fine. They are a nuisance.

[matsuki]

“But there is an idea that we can create such a security network with countries with which we can share a set of values such as freedom, democracy and respect of human rights,” Ishiba said

[Coligny]

And if all countries join in, we can call it the Society of Nations... Or even better... Thr United Nations...

Meanwhile, not sure there was all this in the Nato charter... Have to dust it off someday...

[Russell]

In my opinion the Nato should have been abolished within a few years of the fall of the iron curtain, but unfortunately it wasn't. There may have been a strong fear in eastern European countries for their former "ally", both grounded in the communist era and in tsarist times, like the invasions of Poland by Russia.

However, NATO has become a tool that the USA uses for its own purposes. There was no freaking reason why Europe should have been drawn into the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Even a worse consequence of the continuing existence of NATO is the current situation in Ukraine. There was an interesting article about this in the Japan Times a couple of weeks ago.

How U.S. worsened its Putin problem

In September 2001, as the U.S. reeled from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Vladimir Putin supported Washington’s imminent invasion of Afghanistan in ways that would have been inconceivable during the Cold War.

He agreed that U.S. planes carrying humanitarian aid could fly through Russian airspace. He said the U.S. military could use air bases in former Soviet republics in Central Asia. And he ordered his generals to brief their U.S. counterparts on their ill-fated 1980s occupation of Afghanistan.

During Putin’s visit to President George W. Bush’s Texas ranch two months later, Bush, speaking at a high school, declared Putin “a new style of leader, a reformer, a man who’s going to make a huge difference in making the world more peaceful by working closely with the United States.”

It seemed the distrust and antipathy of the Cold War were fading.

Then, just weeks later, Bush announced that Washington was withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty so it could build a system in Eastern Europe to protect NATO allies and U.S. bases from an Iranian missile attack.

In a nationally televised address, Putin warned that the move would undermine arms control and nonproliferation efforts. “This step has not come as a surprise to us,” Putin said. “But we believe this decision to be mistaken.”

The sequence of events early in Washington’s relationship with Putin reflects a dynamic that has persisted through the ensuing 14 years and the current crisis in Ukraine: U.S. actions — some intentional and some not — sparking an overreaction from an aggrieved Putin.

More

Now on to China. In itself it is not a bad idea that Japan aims to become more independent of the USA. Both inside Japan and the USA there are voices in favor of this, and it is better to be prepared. Less dependence from the USA means of course more involvement of other countries in the region, but it also means that Japan should be more sensitive to emotions among populations in the region (including China's) to avoid armed conflicts. The massive visits to Yasukuni shrine are not conductive in this context. So, if Japan really wishes military alliances with other countries, it had better tone down its provocations. It can not be expected that countries like Australia would be willing to defend Japan against China if Japan is perceived as unable to resolve its historical issues.

[Buraku]

Mining Rights from Jihadi Asscrackistan Gone?

Nato planning to open Japan office to deepen Asia-Pacific ties – report
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... ies-report

and you have the talkers
George Friedman guys
Clownshow speaker Stratfor type think tanks say on Japan's Future It's going to be scary, then ok then more Doomsday scary again