It’s never made sense to me that Japan, a model advanced country and an enormously important bulwark against China, wasn’t engaged in the sort of military build-up one would expect given the geopolitical circumstances.
Japan on Friday unveiled its biggest military build-up since World War Two with a $320 billion plan that will buy missiles capable of striking China and ready it for sustained conflict, as regional tensions and Russia’s Ukraine invasion stoke war fears.
The sweeping, five-year plan, once unthinkable in pacifist Japan, will make the country the world’s third-biggest military spender after the United States and China, based on current budgets.
Good.