personal view: the thing with japan is that after ww2 they got heavily disarmed ,they focused only on defensive military . Now ,after the Ukraine war and the problems they face with China(and north Korea) they decide to increase the military budget ,just like everybody else “if my neighbor is buying a gun ,shouldn’t I also have one ?” Everybody says that we are at the start of the second cold war ,I tend to belive it .
Fighting a sovereign state decisions about its own military, something a dictator would do
On one hand, the upcoming arms race is concerning. On the other hand, Japan IS a part of “Russia is occupying our land” club.
I don’t think it’s about Russia at all for Japan. It’s about China and their recent escalations in Taiwan, south china sea and east china sea.
The only thing that really has to do with Russia is that they showed the world that near peer wars are still a thing and that China is a potential threat for all East Asia.
China is not a potential threat for East Asia, China is a potential threat to the US and the US wants to control East Asia and Japan works a checkpoint to keep that region in place.
