Donald Trump questions why US protects Japan
Trump said he loves Japan but was skeptical about the security arrangements with the country.
The reason we protect Japan is because they agreed to scale back their imperial military to a small defense force protected by the American nuclear umbrella. It also gives the US influence over Asia and feeds into the global free movement of goods.
If I were Japan or SKorea hearing this news, I'd be looking hard at a nuclear weapons program.
History. That's why. What a dipshit
Historically, Japan is really good at handing Russia its own ass. Whenever you're ready Putin.
Eh, they did in Russo-Japanese War but got curbstomped by the Soviets in 1945.
I am not worried for modern day Japan however considering that they are a paranuclear state and Russia doesn't care about invading Japan.
I see a Russian amphibious invasion of Japan even without America, go poorly. It would probably make the SMO look like a picnic in comparison.
I don’t know the capabilities of the Pacific Fleet although I think it has more capability than the other fleets. But to use Black Sea Fleet as an example, when Black Sea Fleet was reinforced with landing craft from Baltic Fleet it was given capability to land 2 BTGs.
So I’d assume that a non reinforced Pacific Fleet can carry 2 BTGs (take with grain of salt, this is pure guessing) using their amphibious landing craft which isn’t much and unlike China, Russia don’t have a merchant fleet that was purposefully made easy to retrofit for amphibious operations.
We required they make a constitution were they rely on us for defense. We dictated it. I just can't handle the president is so ignorant of basic us history and apparently all his advisors and anyone close to him who could explain it. Granted I can see why ignorant hicks like this guy.
He publicly denied knowledge of what happened in the last 4 years. While blaming Biden for things. He's either a dumbass or completely bereft of any connection to honesty.
Idiot doesn’t follow much history
Right now he's pretty laser focused in on about a 5 year period in 1940 and a certain country in Europe. Unfortunately I don't think he's actually read how that particular story ends though.
Give the guy a break. He's only the presid... Fuck.
It's not about "protecting Japan", it's about maintaining hegemony. US bases around the world are about projecting and maintaining US power. There's plenty to fight Trump on, but if he wants to dismantle the US empire, let him do it.
Of course he does, there's not a single historical event that he understands. Even recent ones that children remember clearly.
Too much heat on donald being a Russian asset so he's going to shift to helping China?
I assumed it was to help North Korea, but who knows at this point
I’m sure it’s not just a single fantastically evil person who is convincing Trump to repeatedly humiliate himself, damage the U.S. economy, destroy its soft power, alienate its allies, and take steps that empower and embolden all its enemies, but I’m just imagining some insane genius giving a solid hand clap before a team of researchers and saying “okay, folks, what damage are we going to do today?”
At this rate we may be looking at Trump swapping Biden’s lead pipe replacement campaign with a campaign to install lead pipes by the end of the summer. Who knows, maybe Freon will come back because someone tells Trump a thin ozone layer means better tans. Maybe he’ll hear about manifest destiny and start marching the army into the sea, believing it will yield.
These actions are so cartoonishly stupid and ham-fisted, that even if there’s an ounce of sound reasoning in any of them, he’s picking the worst way to approach something that needs nuance.
But that’s the goal, right? Wonder what moves they’re making that aren’t generating much press.
(...) The U.S. and Japan also negotiated the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty between 1951 and 1960, which gives the U.S. the right to maintain military bases in Japan so that it has a presence in Asia, so long as it protects Japan if the nation is attacked. (...)
Expect such military bases, not only in Japan but also in Europe, to dismantle in the following decades.
Also worth noting that Japan’s constitution specifically prevents them from having a standing army. They’re only allowed a small “self-defense force” to protect their own borders in the event of an attack. It was one of the key concessions that Japan made in the wake of World War II. The world saw how Germany had invaded twice, and didn’t want that to happen with Japan in a few years. And one of the largest reasons Japan was willing to go along with it is because the US had promised to help them rebuild, and offered to protect them with their own military if they were ever invaded.
Pulling out could have massively detrimental effects to Japan’s neighbors, especially considering the fact that far-right support has been on the rise in Japan too. Japan has always been a conservative country, but in recent years there has been a big slide towards nationalism and xenophobia. If the US military pulls out, then Japan will want to fill the void with their own military. And this would be happening right as the country is sliding towards neo-nationalism. Those two things combined are a dangerous combination.
The US military bases aren’t super popular in Japan. Especially since there have historically been some high-profile cases of military dudebros causing trouble off base, and then running back to base to avoid being punished by Japanese authorities. Even when the military takes action against the person in question, Japan tends to see it as the military protecting their service members because Japanese judicial punishments tend to be much more severe than American punishments. So many Japanese people would likely take a “good riddance, we can do it better ourselves” stance.
offered to protect them with their own military if they were ever invaded.
Same reason Ukraine gave up nuclear capabilities
I guess The White House movie night showed Pearl Harbour, not that Trump would have watched most of it but he heard Japanese enough for it to stick
@Gsus4 Next month, DJT nukes Japan again because they didn't say thank you for the first two times.
Ah shit, here we go again.
Interesting. so he's telling Taiwan and Japan to start getting their own militaries strong enough that they can stand on their own. I have no automatic hostility toward the general concept were it done healthily (making sure both Taiwan and Japan transition to good military without issue). It's a matter of self sufficiency and that, at some point, each place should be baseline strong enough on all crucial facets of it's empire to stand on it's own. Better to be able to and choose not to than to not be able to. Having puppies just weaned right now, I don't disagree with the behavior. Weaning Taiwan and Japan off American military will help both longterm and also get american tendrils out of foreign stuff. Just my take. Feel free to downvote to negative infinity since I'm agreeing with a trump decision. Taiwan just has to hope Trump doesn't give them to China, which he may be doing. he appease all the bigwigs they let him stay king forever? That tha plan? he going to give ukrain to russia, taiwan to china, then pres for life backed by china russia?
It’s a matter of self sufficiency and that, at some point,
You are thinking in terms of pre-nuclear weapons geopolitics. Nuclear weapons completely changes everything. The 80 year old US nuclear umbrella is the only reason we do not yet have dozens of countries with nuclear weapons. Now because of Trump’s New World Disorder, we can expect a mad scramble of dozens of countries getting nukes.
It has ALREADY started. Poland says it is going to get its own nukes now. It’s a very wise move for Poland but the beginning of a terrible disaster for planet Earth.
https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-tusk-plan-train-poland-men-military-service-russia/
each place should be baseline strong enough
The world could very easily have 23 new countries becoming "baseline strong" very cheaply in a matter of years simply by building nukes. There are 32 countries that have nuclear power stations now. That is the core technology. And the rest of the world can easily acquire the technology from those 32.
Does any sane person think that humanity will become MORE SAFE having 32+ nuclear weapons countries instead of 9? Country A would only need 20 nuclear weapons to wipe out Country B's 20 biggest cities in one day. Even if Country B is the top military power in the world and Country A is a small relatively poor country. And all the suicide bombers and terrorist attacks in the last quarter century prove that Mutual Assured Destruction has major limitations. There is no way that Americans will benefit from this. Trump's New World Disorder WILL gravely weaken our national security and world security.
Japan to start getting their own militaries strong enough
Thanks in part to the SCAP in post-WW2, they're not even allowed to do that. But we all know that Trump doesn't care about agreements.
Yeah, I mean in practice he’s dismantling the current empire. Really wish he’d do it properly though, with enough time for their now free vassals to get their own feet down.
Also really wish he wasn’t going for another empire more local, with all the Panama, Greenland and Canada stuff…
Pray tell, how is Taiwan supposed to militarily resist China on their own?
Japan's neighbors have a problem with Japan being able to stand on its own. SK and JP need to really get over their past shit.
I would have an issue if the fascist state next to me was trying to develop more too, especially one only held back by a greater fascist state historically.
"The people of Japan are like everyone else, only moreso."
