“..I lived in Sasebo, Japan on the island of Kyushu from 1969-1971. So, I know just a tad more than the average person about Japan.”
I suspect the Japanese people of today are not the same ones as in 1971...no more so than current Americans are not the same. The average young Japanese has become as weak as the average young American. Heck our military has trouble finding enough physically fit 18-22 year olds for military service. Most are just not suitable - physically or mentally - for military service.
It doesn’t take many. Never has. Most soldiers in any age are burdens and canon fodder. Conscript forces differ greatly in quality from professional standards. Ours did in WWII, Korea, Nam....vs Iraq I, II and Afghanistan.
“Out of every ONE HUNDRED men, TEN should not be there, EIGHTY are nothing but targets, NINE are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they the battle make.”
“Ah, but the ONE, ONE of them is a WARRIOR, and he will bring the others back.” Heraclitus 500 BC also attributed to Xenophon....never can find the original citation.
Regardless, from the classic Greeks...a nation of warriors if ever there was one.
My uncle Carl had a more appropriate if less scholarly quote....he was in China Burma theater (WWII) and then Korea....said he would rather fight 10 Chinamen than one Jap...and that is exactly how the red bastards work it.”
Modern China on offense vs modern Japan on defense.
It would be an interesting test of power as James T. Kirk would say. I would stay out of it for the first few rounds and come in for the victory dance myself. It will be long, harsh and bloody.
To protect it’s interests, Japan doesn’t need aircraft carriers....it is one. It will need lots of planes, subs, littoral combat ships, and assault landing ships to take back the islands China will seize by surprise and concentration of force.