The irony of westerners accusing china of propaganda will never be lost on me.

The emotional reaction you are describing is just 'I don't like Japan, therefore any news of Japan increasing its defense makes me upset', and honestly I don't think this sentiment has any reasoning behind it, and doesn't need to be justified or defended, but in the same manner, it doesn't need to be heeded.

Nations don't make security decisions based on the hatred of other nationals, or whatever hurt feelings they might have, they make spending decisions based on their own security needs.

In the case of Japan, it has serious security needs because the US is much weaker now and cannot provide a defense shield, whereas China is both much stronger and also is making expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea. That calls for more defense spending just as a rational response. It also calls for Japan to update its constitution as the postwar arrangement comes to an end, which they will do, and they will also develop nuclear weapons.

Honestly it makes no sense for South Korea to not have a nuke if North Korea does. When you have a conflict between two nations, and one acquires nuclear weapons, the other side is driven to do the same. Look at India and Pakistan. In the past, the US kept a lid on things because it had such overwhelming dominance that it could be a global policeman and in that environment, individual nations didn't need to provide for their own defense, they had a policeman to back them.

But that era is now over, and as much as people complained about the US strutting around like a global cop, they are about to see the consequences of a world without a global cop -- that is, the world as it normally exists. In that world, it makes no sense for Japan to not have a nuke if North Korea and China does, and soon South Korea will, too. My guess is that South Korea will go nuclear first.

Just as it makes no sense for Iran to not have a nuke if Israel does. This is not a matter of hurt feelings, it is a matter of security balancing. It doesn't matter if you don't like Iran, or if you do like it, it's just a question of nations taking care of their own survival.

All of this will happen, and we will look back on the period of non-proliferation as being an artifact of US global dominance, understanding that as US military dominance fades, nations will turn to measures of self-help in a hostile world.

The whole world is changing, and we should face it with clarity and wisdom, not with hurt feelings. There are all sorts of repercussions to global trade, to global security arrangements, that are changing right now, and it helps to have your eyes open and think "well, how would each nation respond to this new threat environment" in a deliberate and realist perspective, rather than whether you like a given country or not.

One example is what is happening right now in Saudi Arabia. The US promised to be Saudi's security guarantor in 1945, and historically the US has done this, but this is a role that the US can no longer play, so Saudi Arabia is now being beaten by Yemen, and is desperately appealing to the US for help, but there is little the US can do. Now Saudi Arabia is in a pickle -- it will also turn to nuclear weapons.

One thing to think about is the moral hazard of these types of security guarantees - they incentivize client states to provoke their enemies, in this case Saudi Arabia invading and occupying Yemen, installing a puppet government, and blockading the nation. When you have the US at your back, you can take these provocative actions. But then comes a moment when you look behind and the Big Brother is no longer there.

Then we can look at Europe, you have this demilitarized continent that is doing things like seizing Russian ships because they are confident that the US will step and fight a war with Russia on their behalf. Well, they are going to learn that reality has changed and the US no longer has the power projection capability it once did. And what will they do? My guess is that at least one European state will nuclearize.

We are going to see major shifts happen as nations regionalize, many nations nuclearize, and new regional trade blocs form that disrupt global capital flows that we have taken for granted, especially if you formed your view of reality in the era when there was a Global Cop that had your back.

It's the Putin playbook. "It's NATO's fault we need to kill Ukranians!"

Based on historical and current events (USA) it takes roughly a couple of years for a country and its leaders to flip from pacifist to aggressive.

Japan is very much still jingoistic today, and Jingoism is what drove the Lugou bridge incident and the seconds sino-japanese war. While it was imperialism that drove the invasion of Korea and Manchuria in 1931, with a real need for resources and to give land and slave to industrialists, the 1937 war was totally dumbfuckery from jingoist sentiments. Basically Trump, but supported by 85% of the population.

That's why fascism doesn't work btw. They end up believing their own lies and do the most egregiously idiotic shit.

I meant the strikes while the Minsk ceasefire was in effect - one that was admitted to by Merkel to merely buy time for Ukraine's arms build-up into the 3rd largest European military. And then used effectively to shell and kill Russian civilians including children. Not a SINGLE word in the Western media. There dozens of such daily reports in 2021 marking deaths and casualties as very banal. Never made a peep in the Western news.

https://antimaydan.info//opolchenie_novorossii/svodki_ot_opo...

https://www.osce.org/sites/default/files/2021-04-06_SMM_Dail...

https://www.interfax-russia.ru/military/news/547769

The war in Ukraine demonstrated how cheap drones could overwhelm more expensive defense systems and make favorable trades. It has now also started to show that, as defense against cheap drones has gotten better, more expensive jet drones are being used that can bypass the now cheaper and slower defense systems that is designed to target cheap drones. As such we can expect to see more expensive and faster defense systems. If they then want to make even faster and bigger drones they might make it so big that put a person in it to fly it, thus making it easier to reuse and better to adapt to different defense systems.

And so the cycle is completed. The only real question seems to be if the pilot in the fighter jet will remain a benefit when the drone is increased to that scale.

Quite possibly. But shaheds aren't the answer either. After Fukushima, the plutonium 240 fuel for the breeders they don't want to run anymore has been piling up. Not as good as 239, but that is what they should be looking at.

Because of stealth jets, the US is capable of destroying every single power plant in the country, with all the horrible human cost you would expect. Exactly like Putin has been trying to do in Ukraine. Except, they could actually do it.

Trump and Hegseth may be bumbling idiots but so far they have been showing restraint. The jets seem to be pretty effective at making big holes in the ground, I wouldn't call their demise just yet.

Yeah, it's laughable to think that somewhere in the DoD a map labeled like "Iran: Huge Undefended Drone Warehouses" has just been sitting around unused because Hegseth/Trump keep vetoing it on account of potential civilian casualties.

Sure, we could easily wrap this whole thing up a couple days but the admin is choosing to remain stuck in a quagmire that's dooming GOP in the midterms. Based on a moral red line, of all things. Makes perfect sense.

There has been one US F35 damaged in combat. That's total, across all the areas its been in and all the countries that have deployed them, starting in 2018. They've been up against the best air defense systems in the world in Venezuela and Iran and they received a single scratch.

The countries acquiring them are doing so because they are best strike fighters on the planet, and it's not even close. Unless you know something that Norway, Japan, England, the Netherlands, etc don't know?

Holy non-sequitur batman.

Why would Japan mass produce an inferior product when they would easily be able to design and build a far superior one? "Shahed" isn't just another word for drone, it's a specific company's name.

How is a planet wide constellation with offensive capabilities not imperialistic?

The USA has officially killed the Outer Space Treaty with that system. We really do live in interesting times.

> In 2019, Donald Trump said the satellites would also carry offensive weapons.

Yes.

This man is going to single-handedly make it impossible for humans to ever reach space again.

I was responding to the incorrect assertion that China was the least imperialist country on the planet, which is clearly false. Maybe read the entire conversation before jumping in?

> The borders were continuously shifting, but they did stay somewhat near a focal point for centuries.

Ok? They were still an imperial power. Having a stable border for a little while doesn't affect that definition.

> The US meanwhile has an overseas empire for honestly no good reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

The reason for our overseas empire was to maintain our economic dominance.

If everyone voluntarily refused to touch boats and only trade oil for dollars we may have invested differently.

That is completely immaterial and makes absolutely no sense. An imperial power isn't one because its borders were set in 1776 (which they weren't)?

Also.. this little event where they added something like 10% of the current size. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1951_Chinese_annexation_of_Tib...

But I'm sure that wasn't imperialism because they had already conquered Tibet previously... in an act of imperial expansion.