Quote:
Originally Posted by 4Tran
In any case, these are academic considerations since there's no real likelihood of military conflict between any of the major players in East Asia unless there's some sort of major change in the geopolitics of the region. This is especially true since the only likely belligerent is China, and China will not have the capability for offensive naval operations for at least a couple of decades. The PLAN currently trails the U.S. Navy, the JMSDF and the Russian Navy by a lot. Heck, it won't even be able to take on an invasion of Taiwan any time soon.
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Academic considerations? I am sure that treaties between nations are not considered a mere piece of paper with words on it. More over, if the US has no intentions to protect Japan from possible hostile threats, then there would be no need to station so many soldiers there. At the same time, there would also be no reason for the Japanese government to fund so much money into the American military bases.
The possibility of military conflict in East Asia is possible, but unlikely for the time being due to a variety of reasons. China's military developments are not a mere research or self-defense usage, considering that no nation aside from North Korea's leadership ambitions at this point in time would actually attack them. Although China doesn't have a strong naval capability, but that depends on which navy capability you are comparing to. Obviously, both the US and Russia are the strongest at the time being. Not sure about Europe..
China does not need to invade Taiwan anytime soon, because it is already theirs to begin with. Then, it leaves to question as to why they need such a huge army and continue to invest tons of money into their military budget. It's not self-defense, they have multiple targets. However, I doubt China will be making any military move anytime soon, since they intend to build a stronger economy first. It is impossible for any nation to have a war while improving their economy.
And thus, China will not be having a war anytime soon. South Korea intends to improve ties with North Korea which renders a military conflict involving South Korea as not possible. Japan is a country under the pacifist constitution, so the idea of war is totally impossible. And this leaves to the last East Asian nation, North Korea. Although the six-party talks were rather successful, North Korea still haven't completely disable their nuclear facilities and is also doing nuclear-related business with Syria, an unfriendly nation of the US.
On top of all this, North Korea cannot be trusted considering that the issue of starting a re-investigation to the Japanese abductees was part of the six-party talk condition, yet North Korea had backed out on their words. I don't see why North Korea would want to keep the abductees at all. What reason would they have, considering that the six-party talks on denuclearization is going well? To conclude, North Korea is currently an obstacle to the temporary peace of East Asia.