> Japan has neither and it's dubious whether the United States would step in.

There is NO QUESTION the US would provide a full defense of Japan against any aggressive party.

The US has multiple military bases in Japan, with 35,000+ military personnel. Japan pays the US billions every year to support the US military presence there. Japan is also a too-big-to-fail economy (4th in the world) and US trading partner. And strategically, what do you think the US "pivot to Asia" means, if not defending close US allies in the Asia-Pacific from unprovoked aggression?

    For over 60 years the United States-Japan Alliance has served as the cornerstone of peace, stability, and freedom in the Indo-Pacific region.  The U.S. commitment to Japan’s defense under the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty of 1960 is unwavering. https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-japan/

▲ danielscrubs 9 hours ago | parent [-]

The Budapest Memorandum (1994) gave assurances, that the U.S. would militarily intervene or defend Ukraine under attack like an alliance-treaty.

Ukraine surrendered the sharpest tool in its arsenal for those assurances, its inherited nuclear arsenal, the world’s third-largest at the time. But the loss was broader than warheads; it was the surrender of a strategic future.

America first means America first. All politicians will say one thing and do another, always check the incentives…

	▲	anonymous908213 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The Budapest Memorandum did no such thing. It is completely and totally incomparable to the US-Japan alliance. At most, it calls for a weaselly "security council action to provide assistance". `>Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".`