With economic collapse and increasing conflicts with China how far can it be before Japan begins an internal fomenting for militarization and political chauvinism not unlike its ultra-nationalist past?
I totally agree with Kartographer that Japan should be the first country to economically collapse based on the numbers but God showed David Wilkerson in “The Vision” (1972) that some European or Mediterranean country would default and start a bank run and Japan would shortly be the second country to fall. Evidently Mexico falls in about two more weeks and starts a run on USA banks which collapses US the next day. If/when this happens, people should expect the rest of the vision to also happen.
They can’t afford it.
No men, no money.
And, frankly, no point in militarization. Back in the last century there was some argument that a colonial empire was a good idea, economically. More resources, more people, captive markets meant more power and more prosperity for the rulers. Since then it has become clear that this was pretty pointless. For the most part the big payoff in prosperity comes from peoples per-capita productivity and not acreage or headcount of the uncooperative subjects.
Colonialism didn’t pay, if the international system was such that it could protect your country from resource shortages and keep global markets mostly open.