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strangattractor
Maybe North Korean will reconsider the wisdom of shooting missiles over them.
sorokod
There is a non negligible probability that Russia will fracture.

It is good to be prepared for the shit storm that follows.

missedthecue
I think the biggest problem for a credible japenese military build up is getting enough young men. Isnt Japan the oldest country with one of the lowest birth rates?

And aside from the demographic problem, I've read that they have a real cultural social stigma attached to military service.

kmlx
Percentage of population over 65 years:

Japan 29%

Italy 24%

Finland 23%

Greece 23%

Portugal 23%

Germany 22%

France 21%

Canada 20%

from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264729/countries-with-th...

europe is getting old. i remember some political leader over there saying something along the lines “europe’s share of wealth and youth will keep decreasing”

credit_guy
You don't need to be that young to push a button to launch a missile.
chinabot
You dont even need to be Human !
bradhe
Japan has historically had a culture of waffling between being extremely open to the outside world and being extremely insular. The period is measured in decades, probably up to 100 years. Wonder if this is correlated with a cultural shift that peaked in the 1980s?
brutusborn
Or it’s simply correlated with China becoming more powerful?
ashwagary
Japan's last suicidal pursuit was supported by western countries for the sake of suppressing China. I don't know if anyone in the west has learned or remembers the actual lessons as they position themselves for round two.
brutusborn
How did western countries help Japan? I thought Western countries would have had all their effort focused on Hitler in Europe?
Leary
This has been years in the making. Not surprising after they built 2 carriers with F-35s on them and called them "Destroyers"
yucky
More evidence every day that the unipolar world of the last 30 years is splitting into a multipolar world. This will only give more reason to China to sidle up closer to Russia. Here in the West we have this impression that it's essentially The World vs Russia but when you look at a map of who is actually siding with the US/NATO there are a lot of nations that aren't so sure - https://time.com/6222005/un-vote-russia-ukraine-allies/
chinabot
Abstained is a who's who of communist countries or those dependent on Russia for oil or gas
_kbh_
And yet Russias sway over them is so loose it cannot even convince them vote against the motion just to abstain from voting.
baandang
All kinds of bad possibilities. We seem to also have a bias that Russia and China are just automatically allied and there can never be a war between the two.