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mrstickball on 13 April 2010
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Kasz216 said:
mrstickball said:

That is 100% correct. We have about 800 bases, and it costs us dearly. We have nearly 100,000 troops in Europe....Why? Why do we need troops in Europe? We aren't worried about the Soviets anymore.

The only places that troops are justified would be Asia, in case of North Korea attacking South Korea (in which, millions may die in the matter of a few days of fighting). However, we could reduce our forces there in favor of more SK and JP spending on forces. In all honesty, we've screwed Japan over for far too long - they are ready to become a regional player, but they spend about 1% of their GDP on spending, when it needs to be 2-3 times that. The same goes for SK and Taiwan too. We've changed regional balances of power, which have weakened some nations, and we shouldn't do that.

I actually seem to recall reading somehwere that Japan had one of the top 10 strongest armies in the world... despite the fact that they aren't really supposed to have a full army.

I'm not sure where you read that..

Combat Aircraft inventory (fighters/bombers/strike)

  • Republic of Korea - 511
  • Japan - 391
  • Taiwan - 341
  • Australia - 91

Naval Assets (destroyers, subs, ect):

  • Taiwan - 103 ships (mostly missle boats)
  • Japan - 71 ships
  • Republic of Korea - 63 ships
  • Australia - 32 ships

Active military forces (personel):

  • Republic of Korea - 655,000
  • Taiwan - 290,000
  • Japan - 238,000
  • Australia - 55,000

So in some ways, the JDF is pretty good - naval and air assets are good. Overall personel is low for their comparative size (they have one of the lowest per capita military levels)

But again, they spend about 1% of GDP on the military, and it should be higher than that, given that we spend billions a year on our forces in Japan....That allows Japan to get off with less responsibility. Yes, they were horrific in the first half of last century, but people change. Look at ze Germans post-WW2 and the Brits post-1812, hehe. They can be reasonable people when given time

 



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.