ironx

As ya all knoe the japanese have been barred from having an army of any sort since the ww2 days. however, something got me thinking - with all this technology/creativity/whatever that drives them, honor they call it / - would they reign supreme if they had a shot at it? All speculative here - anyways, they HAVE shown the world their might, when they won the first battle against an european country (eg. with russia iirc), they totally ravage almost the whole of south-east asia, even China.

And look the the japanese submarines, the ZERO fighter's, their weaponary then was a notch above any other during that time..it's very possible to say that the japanese would reign have had they been allowed to built up arms, no?

like to hear comments from you people - and no race bashing plz.

Ganguro

proally not. after you drop nukes on major occupied cities, it can be a bit of a blow to your ego. As much as i like japanese culture, im very glad they got over thier shogun stage and moved on with their lives as a whole.It's a lot easier to take the world over by buying up property than it is by military force because everyone likes money

skier

I found it interesting how the japanese navy and air force fell apart because of one single battle- the battle of midway. One american codebreaker? not sure what they are called- figured out that the japanese were to attack the midway islands just two days prior to thier attack. As a result, the many aircraft carriers stationed there that would have been utterly demolished escaped and american bomber pilots destroyed 5 super-class japanese aircraft carriers along with the designer of the infamous Zero fighter plane and all the schematics for said plane. If japan had been successful with thier ambush, they would have taken control of the entire pacific and landed on the largely undefended shore of california and washington.

The world might have been a mighty different place today.

In terms of arms, if japan was allowed to build up it's army it would in all likelyhood become a rival superpower to the states- it would gain position in the United Nations (in the G8) and if the united states reacted in a hostile manner, we would find ourselves in a cold war. An interesting thing to point out is that since japan was not allowed to rebuild it's military, it underwent a massive industrialization. Japan is an economic superpower instead of a military superpower. They have a very dense population and I think if it gained military superiority it may well attempt to take some adjoining islands that have resources, like the philipines. The only thing halting japan's economic domination is that they have to import all materials for production. With a internal resource industry they could accomplish much.

At least that's my take on it.

krwlz

Just to clarify, The Zero only reigned supreme for a short while...Then the US created better planes, that ultimatly took the zero out of the picture.

skier

That's true. The Zero's greatest strength lay in it's manuverability. The experienced pilots that entered the war flew the zero fighter very well and as a result lay heavy losses on american forces. But the zero was a carrier plane and when those carriers were destroyed only a few japanese aces were left to train the many new recruits. novice pilots who did not exploit the manuvrability of the craft were quickly shot down.

Cynthetiq

look back into Japanese history and you'll find that Japan was a brilliant gun maker in the early part of the millinium. They gave up being gunsmiths to do something more honorable like swords.

Look at their anime and you'll see some of the ideas that could come to fruition...just like it did from american comics for americans.

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Rodney

The Japanese Self Defence Force is not to be trifled with -- plenty of fighting ships, good planes, about 250,000 personnel, and the best technology -- some bought from us, some theirs. They have AEGIS guided missile cruisers, AWACs planes, all the goodies. Most of these stay close to home, but not all; some have operated out of the Persian Gulf in support roles to American forces.

If they cared to, or had a reason to, or had the money to, scale up their current assets by 300 percent or so, no one but the U.S. could stand against them in non-nuclear warfare.

As to whether they would: I don't think the average Japanese is willing to die to build an empire any more; even less so than Americans.

Macheath

I think Asia is pretty finely balanced at this moment. China, Japan, India and Russia are great powers and fairly evenly balanced. Even countries like Vietnam , South Korea, and Australia wouldn't be pushovers in an invasion; especially with the latter two's close ties to the US. There are no fully fledged alliances between any of these countries like in cold war Europe against Russia but they all watch each other carefully for signs of aggression. If any one nation made threatening moves, the others would likely band together against it.

As for Japan specifically; the one thing that would most likely set them off would be further nuclear threats from North Korea. Already it seems like perhaps they are using their military role in the Iraq coalition to address the constitutional issues and strengthen their stance towards North Korea.

manalone

Well, it depends. If Japan had sunk the truly mind-boggling sums of money that the US spent in defence, maybe.

In any case, it is, like so much speculative history, almost impossible to judge. For the simple reason that one must consider the Chinese and Russian attitudes to a re-armed Japan, as well as a million other factors.

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skysooner

Japan would have a decisive advantage over most armies in the world with the exception of the United States. Their big problem though is their geographical location. Their close proximity to Asia would make defense a bit more complicated. Some of the information above is not entirely accurate. The Zero was eventually supplanted by the Hellfire in the Pacific. However, the Japanese had managed to build two superior fighters by the end of the war, but their industrial base was so badly hit they could only manufacture about 12 of them. I think one was called the Reppu. The American codebreakers actually had information on the Midway attack and the Aleutian Islands diversion weeks ahead of time. This was what allowed us to have a carrier force in place ahead of the attack and allowed us time to fortify Midway even more than it had been.

ironx

talking about the geological position of the japs; it would be possible to laucnh nukes (okay, not counting those that can reach any part of the world you see in the james bond movies) at the US relatively easy?

fallen_angel

ok japan is on an island and on top of that in okinawa there is a large military base and im sure if they found out about them building up their army they could easily be stomped. . .

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Sensei

Japan isn't going to be a major military power anytime soon. Japanese society is ashamed of the atrocities its former regime committed to the Asian continent for the century preceding WWII. Much like in the way Germans would feel uncomfortable possessing nuclear arms-given their history (however long ago) with weapons and mass destruction.

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Thraeryn

Er, I'm with Sensei. I think that the Japanese have become way too friendly and considerate towards the rest of the world to ever be a huge military superpower again.

Unless it's all just a front.

I think I'll become a giant robot repairman, just in case. So I know how to disable the one that's knocking on my back door.

phredgreen

dammit thrae, you beat me to the giant robots joke.

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