Quote Originally Posted by boostNslide
Quote Originally Posted by ensign_lee
hey secular monk:

second in military expenditures as a percentage of GDP, you mean?

Because I find it hard to believe that little itty bitty Japan spends more on military expenditures than, oh...I dunno...Russia?
you know japan is somewhere aroudn the size of california? I think its bigger, but that gives you a decent understanding of its size. So it might look little, but thats a lot of room. And I dont know if youve been to japan or know much about it, but those guys are packed in like sardines. If you think what you get for 1000$/mo in new york is small, you get the equivilent to a small walk in closet in tokyo. I could go look up thier population, but Im lazy, but its not as small as you would think. Also thier GDP is way up there. They are the leading supplier of high end tech, and a huge supplier of cars world wide.

I guess its a common conception, post-wwII, that japan is this itty bitty tame island nation. However think about wwII, they were some bad ass mother fuckers, they gave us a strong run for our money.



As for S. Korea, yes we are allies but I know that S. Koreans dont exactly love us. So I dont know how willing they are to do our dirty work. Maybe if we stayed out of it and japan and S. Korea got together or some crap. But I dont know, maybe they would be happy to reunite all of korea and bwn N. Korea once and for all.
Quite right. In fact, since WWII, Japan has made it a high priority to downplay it's military potential. They do this for one reason-it makes good economic sense (If it don't make dollars (yen), it don't make "Cents"!). Rather than focusing on imperialism (pre-WWII), the Japanese use that same fervor to succeed economically (or their own brand of capitalism).

Of course, there is still alot of bad blood between the Chinese and Japanese over the atrocities committed by the Japanese when they occupied China during WWII (Actually, all of East Asia remains somewhat petrified by the potential of the Japanese military). Because of this, any Japanese policy that remotely resembles a move to outright militarization (such as theatre missile defense (TMD)) is quickly jumped on by the Chinese. So, in order to appease China and the rest of East Asia, the Japanese consistently do cartwheels to keep their neighbors feelin' safe-once again, it makes good economic sense.

Yeah, the younger demographics of South Korea hate our guts-they want us outa there. For obvious reasons, Americans focus on the nuclear capabilities of North Korea, but alot of Americans do not realize the craziness of North Korean artillery-around 10,000 pieces...and it's all pointing south. And I'm not only referring to "dinky" towed artillery. Alot of their heavy artillery is embedded within the mountains. If hostilities did occur, Seoul would be wiped off the map pretty quick. Plus, you have to consider the fact that some of the shells are going to have chemical tips...