[Reily]

That type of an alliance would require significant naval assets. No one other then the US has that.

[Zhang Fei]

[That type of an alliance would require significant naval assets. No one other then the US has that.]

---

South Korea and Japan could each build a major navy. Japan built one when it’s economy was 1/10 of the US. War-related monuments all over the Far East bear silent testimony to that fact. But that would require serious defense spending, and national sacrifice. I doubt they’re up to the challenge.

There’s a vast, brain-dead contingent among the populations of our allies that believes our military bases abroad hold them in a kind of serfdom, and are responsible for our First World incomes. Never mind that the US achieved the highest per capita income in the West at some point in the 19th century, thereby attracting hordes of European immigrants like Trump’s grandfather. Never mind the US’s vast natural resource output. Never mind the broad and deep ranks of American corporate behemoths that include Apple, Pfizer, Boeing, Microsoft, et al. In the minds of these foreign cranks, it’s the ubiquity of expensive overseas American military bases lording it over the natives that gives the US economy its vigor.

And it’s this contingent that will keep defense spending low, right up to the point that a massive Chinese invasion force crosses their border. They can’t say we didn’t warn them.