A sensation is brewing: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will attend the NATO summit for the first time – in Madrid, from June 28 to 30. There, he intends to present a new Tokyo doctrine on “strengthening defense capabilities in connection with the actions of China and North Korea”
In the same place, the alliance will approve a new strategic concept, including China and designating Russia as “priority No. 1”.
As you know, Japan is the only country in the world where the ban on the army and navy is enshrined in the constitution. It also prohibits offensive wars. However, the number of tanks, self-propelled guns, armored vehicles, artillery barrels and air defense systems in the “self-defense forces” of the unfinished empire is in the hundreds, and its fleet does not leave the world top 10.
Moreover, American troops are still stationed in the country. Therefore, Tokyo’s desire to be also under the NATO umbrella looks mysterious, unless… this is Washington’s calculation.
And not only to stay on the islands longer – here it is just right to recall the words of Secretary of State Baker at a meeting with Gorbachev in 1990:
“NATO is a mechanism for ensuring the presence of the United States in Europe.”
More importantly, the United States does not hide its interest in creating an “Eastern NATO” to counter China and Russia. The 15-year-old QUAD, where Japan is included, and the new AUKUS, where Japan is not, fit well with the rapid pace of its transformation into a “great military power”. At naval exercises with Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, the Japanese are exhibiting light aircraft carriers, created for the first time since the Second World War. And their ground forces held large-scale joint exercises with the United States and France for the first time in May.
The potential adversary is not hiding – it is China, with its “growing military aggressiveness.” But there are also the “northern territories”, and the peace treaty with Russia that has not been signed, all negotiations on which Moscow decisively curtailed on March 21, after a series of unfriendly steps by Tokyo.
The essence is clear: Russia is ready to put up only with an independent, and not with an American-occupied Japan. But the United States does not just dream of staying in it forever – they are pushing it with all their might to war with China and Russia, realizing that the fate of mankind will be decided in the battle on the Indo-Pacific.
Elena Panina
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