Eh to be honest fighting for ideologies, causes and such is overrated, I had quite my fill of that in Iraq thank you very much.

Fighting for a paycheck would be a lot simpler I think.

The Army isn't much different, the only difference is that its so spread out,so sporadic you don't often hear about it. But heck even that crash in Japan this year is exactly what I'm talking about, refurbished gear from a decade ago that isn't properly up kept because there is just no money for it in the budget. The landing struts weren't properly secured because the sea air had corroded their connectors, which is what led to the crash when the thing landed and one end of the helicopter pulled forward, you would be amazed of all these things, trends on tanks that aren't replaced but every few years despite them not getting traction in required time to avoid small arms fire, the list goes on and on and on.

The Private Sector at least is somewhat held accountable, you die in a military incident and you are lucky if they promote you and send your family a check and a note saying sorry.

No more then Britain, China, Russia or France does.

I dont think we really even need a "foothold" right near China. A conflict with them is most likely going to be at sea. 98% of their freight moves by sea, making them practically an island nation in terms of import/export. I do not see how our troops based in south korea would be of much help in a conflict with China.

Of course, Japan could be just as much an ally, but them being a TRUE island nation makes them not as effective as being connected got be mainland (while it also makes them a better defensive ally for the same reason). Having both as close allies who are okay with the presence of U.S. military forces is really a best case scenario.... well, as far as best case scenarios to when discussing the possibility of World War 3.

I don't know...

I've been watching Japan with mild interest since late 2007 when they began what I believe to be a around a fifteen year plan to re-militarize to the extent to actually be a regional military power again. This has coincided with a aggressive sense of nationalism that has invaded the national diet and has spread among a good deal of the populace over the prior years.Not only that, their has their military spending basically exploded since around 2004, their also disregarding a lot of the service limitations imposed upon them by treaty, they haven't started building aircraft carriers or anything but I wouldn't be surprised if they have a very capable intermediate submarine force, and a massively capable air force by 2020.

I could see American military forces being treated rather coldly in a few years in Japan, this isn't 1945 and they like Germany (hence why they have had several recent movements in the Bundestag to actually just suspend it indefinitely in Germany's case) seem to be growing rather sick of those treaties. Which to be fair who can really blame them? I mean sure the economic benefits of not having much military spending helped with rebuilding and aided in Japan's rise to international commerce in the 60s and 70s but damn, the world has changed.

So I don't know how much Japan could really be relied upon.

I would absolutely love that.

I would so run over to Japan and try to get them to let me pilot one.

And Germany?

Their doing about the same thing.

Then again their already most of the muscle in the EU anyway.

As long as Japan doesn't cut back their anime budget for this I will allow it.