"Fact is, Japan has a military larger and more capable than any European nation."
No. They have strong navy, but their land forces hardly exist.
SK is vulnerable to Chinese propaganda with strong anti-Americanism and never reliable. NZ is not worth in the first place for its small force. Japan has motivations to bond it into the Asia bloc, but at the same time fears the militarization of China. Japan has decline its trust on China for strong anti-Japan protests, and if this mood could be maintained, Japan has no other options than to rely on US. Japan has strategic value to Ukraine and Poland as well for its position to be on the opposite side of Ukraine and Poland. Ukraine shares border with Russia on the west of Russia, and Japan is neighbor of Russia on the east of Russia. when both becomes member of NATO, Russia will be surrounded by two neighbors on the west and east, unable to concentrate its military on either side for fears to be attacked from the thin defense of the other side. Yuschenko has visited to Japan months ago, and Yuschenko might had in mind for the strategic value of Japan for its position on the opposite side of Russia.
(opinion)
By defense budget they are bigger than all others in Europe. Japan spends around 28% more on defense than Germany! They spend more than Great Britain.
Germany: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gm.html#Military
Japan: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ja.html#Military
Their Air Force has F-15's (232 of them), an advanced version of the F-16 (More yet) and other nice things. No, more than their navy is competent. Their Air force is better equipped than most of our Western European allies. And while their land forces are not huge, they are very well equipped and no dwarf either by European standards.
http://www.jda.go.jp/jasdf/ With slightly over 47,000 men active duty, the Japanese have a fairly healthy sized air force compared to any of our European allies (I think Germany has 30 something thousand). Truth is, not only are they fairly large compared to our European partners, they are generally BETTER equipped than most. Their pilots even log more hours of training than most our European allies. The EF is not even really operational until 2008. Germany’s main fighter to this day is the F-4 which will get decommissioned around 2012 when it truly is finally replaced by the EF.
Japan is a Pacific Rim nation. As such, the main emphasis is on naval and air power. That is where they spend their Yen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_active_troops The Germans barely have more troops and that’s only because of their Heer (Army).
(All these nations are smaller in total manpower compared to Japan)
Italy
Greece
Poland
Great Britain
Spain
Netherlands
Belgium
Norway
Denmark
Ireland
Canada (Let’s throw them in for fun too)
Portugal
Romania
Bulgaria
Check Republic
All have less total manpower strengths than Japan. Within the European NATO nations only France and Germany “barely” have more manpower. Turkey has a lot of troops (if you want to include them) but is poorly equipped.
If you Google F15J - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=f15j You get a lot of unreadable stuff. Few Europeans have ever traveled to Asia…… Not knowing does not equate to it not being so. Most Europeans don’t have a “Wahrnehmung” of reality. Most people live in a world where things revolve around them and their lives. The typical European is the same way. To them, the world somehow revolves around Europe, and Japan is this strange place out there which despite being a technological power house, the worlds second largest economy by a large margin, the worlds second largest industrial base, greater per capita income than most European states, more people than any European NATO ally, some of the worlds highest education levels…. etc, they still “perceive” Japan as somehow backwards.
Because the Japanese are a different culture, have a different language, are geographically remote, racially different, there is little understanding of them in most of the West. Most WWII movies focus on Germany. Why? Because we associate with them. We vacation in Europe, not in Japan. We trace our family origins to Europe, not Japan, we speak English, have English lit in schools etc. Yet, we lost 70% of our troops in the Pacific fighting the Japanese! We were fighting them after the Germans surrendered, we used some of our most impressive military hardware on them (A-bomb, B29, Corsair, Missouri, New Jersey…. most our carriers, many of our Rangers…. most our Marines, the world’s first true helicopter in military use…… Hellcat……near our whole silent service……). Because they are different, not understood and remote, they are forgotten. That didn’t make the Zero or later George fighters any less potent in WWII. The Zero at wars begin was as a carrier based plane probably “the” premiere fighter world wide until we came out with the Corsair and Hellcat. It didn’t make the Yamamoto any smaller (The world’s largest battleship); it didn’t make the Japanese fight any less fierce. It didn’t make the Japanese torpedo (most advanced in the world at the time) any less effective. Today, Japan is a democratic and Western nation, but they are still off of the common westerners radar screen. Besides knowing Tokyo is the capital, something taught in grade school geography, there is not a lot of understanding. They are nonetheless a military, economic, and technological power in the West. Today they are one of the “good guys”, but just as in the past, they are an unknown quantity. The average person in the street knows Japan exists because he owns a Sony or Toyota; but that’s just about it.
Japan has a "larger" land force than MOST our European NATO allies, which is an empirical fact. Japan spends more on defense than all European nations. France is Europe’s biggest spender, and Japan marginally beats them.
Japan has a peacetime economy like Germany. But they have a larger industrial base, more people, a larger defense budget by 28% and nearly as many people in their armed forces. Is Japan insignificant? No. They matter very much so. They can contribute massively. Tying this nation into NATO would be a great step for Japans security and in defending the “West’s” collective interests.
France: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_military
Japan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Self-Defense_Forces#_note-0
What you have today is a situation where the “West” has several real viable threats but is no longer focused and on one sheet of music. The Cold War is over, and many in Europe perceive no imminent threat. European politicians play games with collective security interests as Schroeder did in 2002/03 in his reelection bid. You even have some within NATO sabotaging the organization from within as France does. They see NATO in opposition to their expansion in influence within Europe. A Europe outside NATO is a Europe France has a lot of say in. In the meantime Iran builds an A-bomb. In the meantime AQ grew to an enormous organization with a global reach. In the meantime the threats to S. Korea etc have not gone away.
The German has no issue with buying products made in Japan, S. Korea or Singapore. In Germany you’ll see LG, Sony, Hitachi, Daewoo, Kia, Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Hyundai, Panasonic, and many many other products. They will sell nuclear power plants to Japan and sell BMW’s, Mercedes and other products in this region, but what do they think is their responsibility to secure this area? None. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.economist.com/images/20040612/CAS901.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm%3Fstory_id%3D2752802&h=494&w=575&sz=47&tbnid=JZiGi4ykHyAJ:&tbnh=113&tbnw=132&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dstrait%2Bof%2Bmalacca%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D&start=2&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=2 In this area alone there are 150 or so acts of “piracy” a year. Off the East Coast of Africa the US Navy sank a few pirate boats just some months ago! Where would Germany and France be if S. Korea were invaded tomorrow? What would they do if China raised its ugly head in the region and Japan was threatened? Do the Germans have issues with drugs in their country? Yes. What do they see as their role in the “War on Drugs” in Columbia, Peru and Bolivia? Nothing. Over 2/3rds of the World’s coca based drugs come from there, including those found on German streets, but do the Germans see any responsibility to help? No.
Even in the GWOT it’s a situation where our “allies” (not all, but many) want to do as little as possible. They help as much as they are forced to. They don’t “want” to see any links in Iraq, they avoid the subject Sudan all together………… What are these nations doing reference Syria?
It’s some of the “old Europe” NATO nations that want to prevent the redefining of NATO as Rumsfeld wants. It’s them, who don’t want an expansion of NATO to include Japan, S. Korea or Australia. After all, they want NATO to solve their Balkan crises in Europe but not be responsible for that “Ami” problem in S. Korea. But they don’t mind doing business there. NATO need to not only expand to include these nations, but it also needs to expand it’s scope. The defensive static Eurocentric posture of past will not work in a world where Taliban in Afghanistan plan attacks in the US or Europe.
