Posted on 06/27/2005 6:13:14 AM PDT by robowombat
For the first time since 1942, Japan has resumed the strategic offensive. Since the beginning of the year, Japan has claimed the island of Takeshima, now occupied by South Korea; seized control of an area in the South China Sea also claimed by Beijing; and, most ominously, announced that Tokyo might intervene militarily to defend Taiwan.
Taiwan was Japanese from 1895 to 1945, a fact that neither the Chinese nor the Taiwanese have forgotten; if they had to chose, many Taiwanese would rather be governed from Tokyo than from Beijing.
I do not know what has motivated the Japanese government to resume the strategic offensive. I do know it is a mistake. Japan's low-profile, defensive strategy has served her well for more than half a century. It is exactly the right strategy for a Fourth Generation 21st century, where survival will depend heavily on staying off other people's hit lists. As in the 1930s and early '40s, Japan shows an odd sense of timing.
The Takeshima issue offers an example. A divided Korea is very much in Japan's interest. By laying claim to what is now Korean territory, Japan brings South and North Korea together. In fact, North Korea missed an opportunity. Had Pyongyang said that in the face of any Japanese claims, the armed forces of both Koreas were one in defending Korean soil, it would have scored a propaganda triumph.
While a united Korea would be no danger to the United States, it would be perhaps the most dangerous state threat to Japan. Even today, South Korea's navy and air force are structured more for a war with Japan than for a conflict with North Korea. Any war with Japan, including an aggressive one, would be wildly popular with the Korean people. Asian memories run deep, and Japan's current military weakness offers an opportunity that may not last forever (although given Japan's demographics, it might).
Taking the offensive against China is an even greater blunder on Tokyo's part. Here, the danger is less Chinese aggression than internal Chinese dissolution and the regional instability that would result. Any humiliation of China by Japan damages the legitimacy of the Beijing government. A Chinese defeat by Japan and America in a crisis over Taiwan could well bring that government down. Contrary to neo-con blather, its likely successor would not be parliamentary democracy but a new "Period of Warring States" within China, which is to say Fourth Generation war throughout the most critical part of the Asian landmass. The resulting chaos would not be good for Japanese interests, especially if nukes started to fly. Putting a few on Japan would be an easy way for a Chinese contender to establish its patriotic credentials.
Predictably, the strategically imbecilic Bush administration is supporting Japan's new offensive posture. In reality, with its military forces tied down in the Middle East, the last thing America needs is a new source of crises in East Asia. The mix there is already volatile enough; adding a Japan on the strategic offensive is the equivalent of smoking in the powder magazine.
American interests require that both China and Japan follow defensive strategies - as indeed they require the United States to follow a defensive strategy. China wants to do exactly that, knowing that time is on her side. Only the Taiwan question is likely to push here to take the offensive, which means we should let that sleeping dog lie. As for Tokyo, I suspect the new Japanese offensive would collapse quickly if Washington quietly signaled its disapproval. Without American support, any rising of the Japanese sun will quickly prove a mirage made of hot air.
All that is required is a morsel of strategic sense in Washington. Alas, that horizon remains blank
Lind is troubled with a bit of knowledge and not much logic in his prognostications...(see the last article of his posted here)
China is building an arsenal to beome biligerent...Japan must become assertive for its own well being...nothing alarming about that.
So, South and North Korea will unite to war against Japan (or maybe just speechify, Lind wasn't too clear) but the US will stay out of that one. However, in the event that the Bejing gvt is even minorly inconvienienced, it will collapse into warring states.
Lind's a moron, that is what is perfectly lucid. Why military.com gives him bandwidth is beyond me?
Somewhere, Sun Tzu is ROFLHAIO!
Exactly. Rereading this article it confounds me what Lind is thinking? Is he on China's payroll too? Seems the only person drawing a blank in strategic common sense is he.
Lind= China's lap dog and all around defeatist.
Does he not understand that Chinese doctrine would have their generals few offensive strength as a "defensive" deterrent to any military action efforted on their part.
Lind's asleep at the wheel...Clausewitz, Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen. MacArthur, Henry IV, Machivelli, and Sun Tzu, and a whole host of others are ROFL wherever they are. This guy is just pure comedy.
Monday...ahhh few= view
Assuming that the statements about Japans actions are true then we may be witness to the beginning of the divided Asia that China is going to create.
Already India is posing a serious comptetitive threat to China.
Nobody in the area wants to see China ascend to a level of dominance on both the business and military fields.
seems to me that I have seen several articles about the USA encouraging the japanese toward a stronger military program. So I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese didn't have the implicit assent of the USA on the small islands and the explicit assent of the USA on Taiwan.
imho the Japanese would understand the present age as being an extended version of the period of their military expansion preceding world war II -- but after the USA cut off their oil supplies. Their war machine couldn't go on without replacement supplies. The nearest were in indonesia. To secure that supply line they felt they had to conquer the phillipines which meant they had to take the USA out of the pacific theatre--& therefor they had to destroy the US pacific fleet in pearl harbor.
the chinese are already worried about a smiliar scenario shaping up for them if they try to take taiwan. The USA could choke off their oil supplies in the singapore straights so they are building submarine bases alone the route in hopes of posing a credible threat to US surface vessals.
The Japanese meanwhile have been very steadfast in Iraq. Its not hard to see why the US would prefer a stronger Japan in Northwest Asia.
Modern wars are fought on logistics. We have moved toward the countdown faze of another one in northwest asia imho. the caveats here are that it is at least 3 years away.
or anyway this is what the great weathervane of the region--the president of Singapore -- said a couple months back.
there is another caveat. there is a worldwide hydrogen race going on today to kill the cost of hydrogen that's on par with the race of the late 1930's and early 40's to develop the atomic bomb. If there is a major break there then the oil age comes to an end and Iraq is the last of the oil wars.
I don't know how that would impact tension across the taiwan straights. except that the chinese would ---eventually--......not need to worry about securing oil supplies. eventually could be a long time.
It is also interesting to note that the Japanese have nuclear weapons.
I don't think so.
But it wouldn't take them very long to make one.
You understand the USA is concerned that the political legitimacy of the cpc in red china is sufficiently weak and the military budget for the pla is sufficientl high so as to suggest that the pla or the cpc are competing bureaucracies. The analogy that's drawn frequently in the west is that china today is much like Japan in the early 20th century. After a couple of conquests the militarists won out in the battle for internal control.
If-- on the other hand -- china became a democracy--then the ideological component would be removed.
Good stuff.
This is so poorly written that I had to check the source to make sure that the errors were not typos. They weren't.
A lunatic dictator shot two missiles over their country and now same lunatic claims to have 'the bomb', that is justification enough the Japan's current strategic actions.
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