NATO presence isn't the same as occupation. Your take is also directly contradicted by the reality that the US have been literally begging their allies for decades to spend more on defense and become less reliant on NATO/the US military.
Also, shouldn't it be obvious why Germany and Japan in particular are military eunuchs? As recently as 1990, France and the UK were still scared shitless by the prospect of a reunified Germany. How do you think it would have gone down in Paris, London, Amsterdam or Warsaw if Germany had declared that the time has come to massively ramp up its military again?

pretty sure japan is ramping up.

I think this whole conflict was arranged in order to prepare the West for a war with China, so the sanctions on Russia aren't as important as breaking down the current global supply lines and rebuilding them in a way that would support such a war.

The sanctions were supposedly intended to make it impossible for the war to continue or to scare Russia out of Ukraine, neither of which has happened, and many of the countries involved in the sanctions have sidestepped them publicly in some way without any real issue. I doubt the US is unaware of this or unable to exert pressure to correct it, yet they don't, except to bully nations who may be aligning with China.

If they believed the sanctions would work, and wanted the war to end, I think they would do so, since they haven't it leads me to believe they don't want it to end.

As is Germany. But after decades of neglect, it will take years of ramp up to just barely restore their self-defense capabilities.

i think japan will be ready within the next few years to do something special, an operation, involving their military.

This post was edited by ferdia on May 26 2023 10:44am

Yes Mitterrand and Margaret Thatcher were trying their best to prevent German Reunification. Japan on the other wanted to ramp up their military for the longest time but the US prevented it and say we will put our military here and you just concentrate on making Money and we will " protect " you from the "communist"
As a German I believe that you are, I think you have mentioned it before. From my point of view, at least in my opinion but correct me if I am wrong. The US want them to spend more on defense, on their US troops in their country, at least that is what they wanted Japan to do. Saying that becoming less reliant on NATO and US Military is quite contradictory as well. As far as I can remember, but please correct me, EU wanted to have their own " Army " without 5 eyes influence, so the key is why didn't the United States push to release herself from NATO lets say 20 or 25 years back ? They could have , They could still sell weapons to those countries.
WW2 have long past , making Japan and Germany military eunuchs isn't exactly feasible anymore.

I will give my two cents worth on East Asia as compared to Europe which I am not as familiar as you are. And this is just my personal opinion. If Japan has her own military capability completely devoid of American influence and interference, it will be a strategic mistake for the United States, the US won't be able to use the Japanese as one of their first island chains when shit hits the fan, this also applies to South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines.

On the surface I will say there are noises from some part of the US government that want to be less involved. But underneath it all, the Foreign Policy establishment will never allow it to happen.

Japan has the advantage of being an island nation, they can really skimp on their ground forces and fully focus on their navy and their air defense. Still, even if they might have some elite forces ready for special operations within the next few years, I doubt they will be able to carry their weight anytime soon in scenarios like a Chinese blockade of Taiwan.

BS and you know it ^^

But in this Ironfister is not completely wrong.

Yes, I'm from Germany.

I agree the US benefit from NATO and from their military alliance with Japan and SK, and would be worse off if these allies were completely self-reliant. I think the situation in Europe is different from the one in East Asia though. The strategic conflict with China was a long time coming, so US strategists have had an interest in the so-called "pivot to Asia" for quite some time. This, in turn, means that they have an interest in Europe being able to hold its own, so that the US can shifts its focus and resources more toward the Pacific region. So I don't think their pleas for Germany et al. to spend more on defense were phony.



This also sheds a new light on the geostrategic implications of the current war in Ukraine: the US have a strong geostrategic interest in the Russian military being worn down to the point where their offensive capacities are exhausted for years to come. Since Russia is the only feasible military threat to Europe, such a situation would mean that Europe is safe on its own (at least for some time) and the US are free to finally go all in with their pivot to Asia. Likewise, the Chinese have a geostrategic interest in prolonging this conflict to delay this development and buy themselves more time.

So, simply put: the US don't want this war to end before the Russian army is depleted and thoroughly run-down, but they would prefer to arrive at this outcome as quickly as possible (without risking WW3). The Chinese, by contrast, have a strong interest in prolonging the war of attrition and thus keeping the US tied up on the other side of the globe while they can play catch-up.