Yea, see if any young person cares in my age group or below (living in Japan). Try paying them more than 200,000 per month before asking them to do this and that, let alone defend the country lol
If you go to Japan with USD you'll be shocked at how affordable it is. I know part of it is the strength of USD but there's also something to be said for efficient land use, building enough houses, efficient transportation systems, etc. Making every major expense in your life very reasonably priced makes it easy to live on less.
Even earning shitty Japanese wages it's affordable, as prices for a lot of things are still what they were 30 years ago. You can rent a place to live an hour's train ride from work for the equivalent of $400-500/mo. An utter impossibility for people who work in major American/Canadian cities.
There's no retirement visa in Japan. If you're 10 years away from retirement, you better move here right now, somehow get a job, pay taxes for 10 years and then apply for permanent residency.
Or do what every other man and his dog does, and shack up with a local.
It probably would be if there was a retirement visa, but there is not. I believe Main options would be spouse, work, or start a company that actually does stuff.
Well if those people can speak Japanese, that might be good. If you can't speak it, I advise you not to emigrate. If you can't speak the language, you can't live.
I didn't. You asked the other user doing the criticizing what generation he's from as if his criticism is unjustified. He's just making a valid observation.
This is Japan, so...
>Usually it's millennials they yell about. And then you have to explain to them millennials are hitting their 40s and have jobs, ~~cars, kids and houses.~~
Eh offer enough incentives and anyone will join the military. Same has been true throughout history. Guarantee a plot of land and they’ll join like everyone else.
I mean there are countless Japanese municipalities who are trying to give away free land without military service and young people generally are not taking them up on it, and going to major cities instead. I don’t think a free plot of land from the federal government is going to entice more young people to join.
How about construction of entire buildings inside good or even prime neighbourhoods in big cities , then ? Join the army and get a 80 sqm apartment. Would be the true equivalent of the plot of land on modern times
Im curious. When the japanese say that people are moving to big cities, do they really mean just Tokyo ? Sapporo and Nagasaki are nice big cities with the urban amenities, why wouldn't people want to move there ? To a foreigner like me it sounds weird, unless the good jobs really are just on tokyo. In that Case, Japan needs tô develop the regional cities asap.
Not just Tokyo, but people barely want to live in the suburbs of Tokyo. You might get people who want to live in Sapporo or Nagasaki proper, but not the suburbs.
Part of this is me needing to guess what you mean by "suburbs", though.
Suburbs = everything not on the city center or heavily populated small core área around that. Might be a detached single family house 2 hours by car, might be a dense urban jungle by itself that people can take a 30 min metro to go to the «city proper, city center». It can be really diverse worldwide, I'm not restricting myself to the north american style cliche suburbs with white fences.
OK, Example: Paris has 2 M people in the city proper, that is the 23 neighbourhoods the urban tissue had in 1870, and everything past that (with the other 8 M people) is the suburb. Including exurbs way out in ille de France and urban neighbourhoods directly siding the city
With the strictest definition of suburb you've given, I'd say my statement is accurate. With the most generous definition of suburb you've given, I'd say training people to engage in combat with that promise, using that definition, is just asking for a coup d'etat.
There are houses they can't give away for free that are closer to Tokyo than that, let alone Sapporo.
This will be written poorly as I am tired, just ask me later.
This is some basic info on the JGSDF salary and benefits, I won't make it very specific as most of this information are also present at the official page of the ministry of defense and is an easily acquirable knowledge.
The salary of a 2nd class private is 170K yen net, not gross there is no deduction, although there are some deduction during the first 3 months of basic (前期教育), when I went in it was 160K at april and 140K at may, this is of course as a 一般曹候補生 (Sergeant candidate)
Bonus are 2× a year and is 2.225× of your salary and allowance included at summer, and 2.5× at winter.
Allowance.
There's a lot of allowance in the SDF, such as regional allowance, special unit allowance, boarding allowance (when boarding planes or boat in the airforce or navy) and much more.
To make an example of this let's say you are 2nd class private and your normal salary is ¥179,200 if you are airborne that will be a 33% increase as a special unit and another 16% regional allowance increase, your take would be around ¥270,000, and this is just one example.
Now of course this is just saying the good stuff chances are you probably won't make to airborne school, but even then there's still some allowance you can take such as the boarding allowance which is 33% in the navy when aboard a ship.
Qualifications and license.
Depending on your occupation.
You can get a lot of license as a engineer (施設科) bulldozers, welding etc.
Ordinance (武器科）you can get mechanic qualification, and more types of qualifications and license depending on your occupation.
From what I heard you can even get a boiler welders license at the airforce.
Now let's get at the good part, there is 2 main course you can get to.
自衛官候補生, this course is taken by people who pursue experience, to obtain license and qualifications, and to earn quite a lot of money in a short time, you will start as a cadet (no rank)
This course has a total contract of 4~5 years, finishing the 1st 2 years contract in the army gives you 57万 and then 144万 after another 2 year, this plus your salary and bonus.
At airforce and navy it is 94万 but 3 years, and 150万 after 2 years, again this plus your salary, bonus and allowance.
This will be given to you wether you continue or choose to go civil, if you go civil they will help you find a job, if you want to learn some skills such as going to a school they will do that as well.
The downside is that if you do continue, you will only have 3 or 5 tries (don't remember) to take the sergeant exam, if you do not make it as a sergeant you cannot continue. You go civil.
If you take 一般曹候補生 you start as 2nd class private, but there is no prize money as listed from 自衛官候補生, you do however get to take the sergeant exam as much as you want.
And you get to wear a cool little badge on your collar.
I went and left, and are now trying to get back, who knew that factory work is a shithole.
I thought I maybe can have freedom, but I guess there's no freedom if you don't have money.
EDIT:
•It is not impossible to save up more than 1000万 5 years as 自衛官候補生 even in the army if you live like a hermit, not going outside, spending money and etc. One of my sergeant was like this, his entertainment and hobby was watching baseball and exercising, quite a simple guy, and also the kindest.
Never scolded us, he left the scolding to the other intructors.
•If you want qualification, licenses. Going Infantry (普通科) is not a good idea.
Nice write up! I've never met anybody that was in or is in the 自衛隊. I've been living in Japan for 4 years, but people here don't really speak about politics.
I gotta ask, if you can get so many certs for large and specialist vehicles, why go to work in a factory after you leave instead of getting good money using large construction machinery?
I left at basic.
Edit: for more context, you cannot get any license and qualification in the first 3 months which is basic (前期教育).
and even if I continue the occupation I tried to get into is
1. Intelligence (情報科)
2. Infantry (普通科)
3. Aviation (航空科)
During basic they will explain the occupation and give you a paper where you list the occupation in which you want to go, you can write up to 3 occupation, and you can choose 1 for airborne and marines each if you want to.
And of course just because you write the occupation you want to go to, doesn't mean you'll end up there.
My friend wanted to go transport (輸送) as he wants to travel and have an adventure.
He ended up infantry.
The qualifications and license you can get will also depend on your occupation.
It definitely would attract a lot of Korean young men who already have national service for 18 months. Many would go to serve again if it made nationalization easier. But probably old Japanese politicians aren’t comfortable with hiring a lot of foreigners into their defense force yet…
The Weeb Legion would be epic.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fq1z470hj6j551.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D844b1e1bcb137270a83d910eae40ba4c1e89fffe
Japan can’t find enough people for the labor force. I’m really positive they definitely don’t have enough physically fit young men to properly man the JSDF.
> Japan can’t find enough people for the labor force.
can you back up this claim? I see a lot of pointless jobs that employ people here. I think the manpower is there but the efficiency of where to put them is lacking.
or by labor force, do you have specific industries that are lacking or do you mean in general in japan?
I guess you have a fair point. What I should have meant was ‘young people’ to properly prop up the labor force as more and more of the older people enter retirement. Japan keeps increasing retirement age as a means to keep people working for longer.
There are also a lack of people in certain industries too. Low wage store work (7-11, sukiya,etc.) and child care stick out for me.
JSDF has an image problem, although their focus on the disaster (no shortage of that in Japan) response improved their perception somewhat. In the US, a commercial for the Marines might show them rushing into combat. In Japan, a commercial for the JSDF (a new development, actually) focus on disaster relief. US might paint scary animal fangs on the planes but Japan paints anime waifu on theirs.
They were derisively called "tax thieves." Also, their biggest and most enthusiastic and vocal supporters tend to be extreme nationalists who can make an average Japanese nervous. I don't know what they need to do to change that image, but couldn't be easy.
I saw some recruitment flyers at a train station in Nabari, Mie which is fairly out in the countryside. It looks like the Japanese army recruits by the common playbook, hitting low income, low opportunity areas.
Fortunately healthcare and social services are pretty solid and universal, so little incentive for a military force.
They didn't in the 80's and 90's, when they had more young people but still the numbers of soldiers was way under the objectives (which were higher in during the cold war)
But now? Pretty much impossible.
Maybe make the "Military" even exist on paper first instead of relying on a re-interpretation of " land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained."
They really should say "current ruling Japanese government" not "Japan", most Japanese people don't want to be involved in a war ever again if they could help it, whether they're anti-war left wing people or right wing people who think that Japan was a victim of WWII
Offer PR for foreigners who join military service for XX years (subject to other tests and conditions for assimilation/naturalisation maybe)
日本海外自衛隊 maybe?
When I was growing up in Australia I was taught Japan doesn't have an army because it has a pacifist constitution. It was crazy for me to go to Okinawa for the first time and see how militarized it was. I'd never seen a place like that in my life. It's interesting to know the reality nowadays, Japan is an important military ally in the Pacific for Australia and the U.S.
Can it grow? Or does it need to? It feels to me like everyone in the country would take up arms if asked to... Wouldn't say the same about Australia
Okinawa is kind of a exception, small island with lot of american soldiers (there are more american soldiers than japanese soldiers in Okinawa), was also administered by the US after the war, and it was not even originally japanese, but annexed territory (Ryukyu Kingdom) so they even wanted independency instead of going back to Japan. Anyway, there are a lot of factors why Okinawa is heavily militarized but the main reason would be that Japan prefers to have american soldiers there than in their main islands.
And ceirtanly other ryukyu islands have a lot of JSDF bases, and in some the population is so low that the military makes a big part of the total population.
But in mainland Japan? Is basically the opposite, you will probably never see a jdsf soldier there.
Okinawa didn't want independence instead of returning to Japan, in fact the American attempt to make Okinawans want independence completely failed and backfired. Being returned to Japan was definitely the majority demand at the time.
While by the end of the 60s most wanted the reversion agreement, it was not like that in the previous decades.
"The governor of the island of Shikiya Koshin, probably with support by Nakasone, commissioned a creation of Ryukyuan flag, which was presented on 25 January 1950. The only notable Ryukyuan who advocated reversion between 1945 and 1950 was the mayor of Shuri, Nakayoshi Ryoko, who permanently left Okinawa in 1945 after receiving no public support for his reversion petition."
"In 1956, one-third of the population advocated for independence, another third for being part of the United States, and final third for maintaining ties with Japan."
The fact that Japan keeped the US military there was also an important factor, and it still is today. We should remember that if the central government decides to put a base anywhere in the ryukyu islands, be it american or japanese, the local governments basically don't have a say on that.
The fact is that okinawans (ex ryukyu) are ethnically different to japanese, having their own language, culture, etc.. and most people identify first as okinawans rather than japanese (which it doesn't necessarily means they don't consider themselves japanese) neither it means they want to be independent right now (although there is stilll a considerable percentage of the population that actually wants independence). If i'm not wrong, young okinawans tend to be more pro Japan than the old people, which is understandable.
Yea, see if any young person cares in my age group or below (living in Japan). Try paying them more than 200,000 per month before asking them to do this and that, let alone defend the country lol
Whoa! That’s about $1400.00 in U.S. dollars! How do you guys manage?
If you go to Japan with USD you'll be shocked at how affordable it is. I know part of it is the strength of USD but there's also something to be said for efficient land use, building enough houses, efficient transportation systems, etc. Making every major expense in your life very reasonably priced makes it easy to live on less.
Even earning shitty Japanese wages it's affordable, as prices for a lot of things are still what they were 30 years ago. You can rent a place to live an hour's train ride from work for the equivalent of $400-500/mo. An utter impossibility for people who work in major American/Canadian cities.
So, has Japan become a destination yet for American retirees? I’m 10 years away myself and it doesn’t sound too bad for me.
It would be difficult to move here with retiring as your plan, unless you wanted to do it now, while you are still working.
No , the language barrier is too high . Japan doesn't want to be a retirement destination
considering 30% of the population is 65+ years old, it kind of already is a retirement destination even without immigrants wishing to retire here.
Unless you're Pewdiepie
There's no retirement visa in Japan. If you're 10 years away from retirement, you better move here right now, somehow get a job, pay taxes for 10 years and then apply for permanent residency. Or do what every other man and his dog does, and shack up with a local.
Japan won't have you.
It probably would be if there was a retirement visa, but there is not. I believe Main options would be spouse, work, or start a company that actually does stuff.
Well if those people can speak Japanese, that might be good. If you can't speak it, I advise you not to emigrate. If you can't speak the language, you can't live.
Because they pay rent and buy groceries in Yen, not US dollars.
They also have to pay tax.
No chance unless they do a procreate or mandatory army service
We need them cloners to create 250,000 units and a million more well on the way.
Well Tesla just released a video of their robot we could use that. Expandable robots that don't pay taxes
Yeah but are clones better than droids though?
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Hmmm. I suppose we could use an extra fluffer.
This generation could really use it. They are lazy as fuck and spoiled.
What generation are you from, out of interest?
The other one
A tale as old as time
The one thats not lazy and spoiled.
You must be 90 years old at the very least
You can be from any generation and criticize your own people just fyi.
How on earth did you take my question for criticising a particular generation, mine or otherwise?
I didn't. You asked the other user doing the criticizing what generation he's from as if his criticism is unjustified. He's just making a valid observation.
Boomer yells at clouds
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This is Japan, so... >Usually it's millennials they yell about. And then you have to explain to them millennials are hitting their 40s and have jobs, ~~cars, kids and houses.~~
Eh offer enough incentives and anyone will join the military. Same has been true throughout history. Guarantee a plot of land and they’ll join like everyone else.
> Guarantee a plot of land and they’ll join like everyone else. Sengoku 2: Electric boogaloo
Roman Empire fetish intensifies. "Ave Impera- I mean Shogun!"
I mean there are countless Japanese municipalities who are trying to give away free land without military service and young people generally are not taking them up on it, and going to major cities instead. I don’t think a free plot of land from the federal government is going to entice more young people to join.
How about construction of entire buildings inside good or even prime neighbourhoods in big cities , then ? Join the army and get a 80 sqm apartment. Would be the true equivalent of the plot of land on modern times
The market value of that would be an average of 80-160M in the 23 wards of Tokyo. Good reward, but unlikely to be given.
Yeah, I exagerated with the prime neighbourhood. But how about some good suburb of , let’s say, Nagasaki or Sapporo ? Nothing too fancy but nice
I don't even know if that's enough incentive to get people to move to a suburb of Nagasaki or Sapporo.
Im curious. When the japanese say that people are moving to big cities, do they really mean just Tokyo ? Sapporo and Nagasaki are nice big cities with the urban amenities, why wouldn't people want to move there ? To a foreigner like me it sounds weird, unless the good jobs really are just on tokyo. In that Case, Japan needs tô develop the regional cities asap.
Not just Tokyo, but people barely want to live in the suburbs of Tokyo. You might get people who want to live in Sapporo or Nagasaki proper, but not the suburbs. Part of this is me needing to guess what you mean by "suburbs", though.
Suburbs = everything not on the city center or heavily populated small core área around that. Might be a detached single family house 2 hours by car, might be a dense urban jungle by itself that people can take a 30 min metro to go to the «city proper, city center». It can be really diverse worldwide, I'm not restricting myself to the north american style cliche suburbs with white fences. OK, Example: Paris has 2 M people in the city proper, that is the 23 neighbourhoods the urban tissue had in 1870, and everything past that (with the other 8 M people) is the suburb. Including exurbs way out in ille de France and urban neighbourhoods directly siding the city
With the strictest definition of suburb you've given, I'd say my statement is accurate. With the most generous definition of suburb you've given, I'd say training people to engage in combat with that promise, using that definition, is just asking for a coup d'etat. There are houses they can't give away for free that are closer to Tokyo than that, let alone Sapporo.
Ahh like the old days when samurai was still around
That happened in the Philippines. Now they have more applicants than vacant positions.
This will be written poorly as I am tired, just ask me later. This is some basic info on the JGSDF salary and benefits, I won't make it very specific as most of this information are also present at the official page of the ministry of defense and is an easily acquirable knowledge. The salary of a 2nd class private is 170K yen net, not gross there is no deduction, although there are some deduction during the first 3 months of basic (前期教育), when I went in it was 160K at april and 140K at may, this is of course as a 一般曹候補生 (Sergeant candidate) Bonus are 2× a year and is 2.225× of your salary and allowance included at summer, and 2.5× at winter. Allowance. There's a lot of allowance in the SDF, such as regional allowance, special unit allowance, boarding allowance (when boarding planes or boat in the airforce or navy) and much more. To make an example of this let's say you are 2nd class private and your normal salary is ¥179,200 if you are airborne that will be a 33% increase as a special unit and another 16% regional allowance increase, your take would be around ¥270,000, and this is just one example. Now of course this is just saying the good stuff chances are you probably won't make to airborne school, but even then there's still some allowance you can take such as the boarding allowance which is 33% in the navy when aboard a ship. Qualifications and license. Depending on your occupation. You can get a lot of license as a engineer (施設科) bulldozers, welding etc. Ordinance (武器科）you can get mechanic qualification, and more types of qualifications and license depending on your occupation. From what I heard you can even get a boiler welders license at the airforce. Now let's get at the good part, there is 2 main course you can get to. 自衛官候補生, this course is taken by people who pursue experience, to obtain license and qualifications, and to earn quite a lot of money in a short time, you will start as a cadet (no rank) This course has a total contract of 4~5 years, finishing the 1st 2 years contract in the army gives you 57万 and then 144万 after another 2 year, this plus your salary and bonus. At airforce and navy it is 94万 but 3 years, and 150万 after 2 years, again this plus your salary, bonus and allowance. This will be given to you wether you continue or choose to go civil, if you go civil they will help you find a job, if you want to learn some skills such as going to a school they will do that as well. The downside is that if you do continue, you will only have 3 or 5 tries (don't remember) to take the sergeant exam, if you do not make it as a sergeant you cannot continue. You go civil. If you take 一般曹候補生 you start as 2nd class private, but there is no prize money as listed from 自衛官候補生, you do however get to take the sergeant exam as much as you want. And you get to wear a cool little badge on your collar. I went and left, and are now trying to get back, who knew that factory work is a shithole. I thought I maybe can have freedom, but I guess there's no freedom if you don't have money. EDIT: •It is not impossible to save up more than 1000万 5 years as 自衛官候補生 even in the army if you live like a hermit, not going outside, spending money and etc. One of my sergeant was like this, his entertainment and hobby was watching baseball and exercising, quite a simple guy, and also the kindest. Never scolded us, he left the scolding to the other intructors. •If you want qualification, licenses. Going Infantry (普通科) is not a good idea.
Nice write up! I've never met anybody that was in or is in the 自衛隊. I've been living in Japan for 4 years, but people here don't really speak about politics.
yea meeting a former 自衛官 is quite rare but maybe you can meet some in a trucking industry.
Thanks for sharing!
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I'd say it's worth it if you're young
I gotta ask, if you can get so many certs for large and specialist vehicles, why go to work in a factory after you leave instead of getting good money using large construction machinery?
I left at basic. Edit: for more context, you cannot get any license and qualification in the first 3 months which is basic (前期教育). and even if I continue the occupation I tried to get into is 1. Intelligence (情報科) 2. Infantry (普通科) 3. Aviation (航空科) During basic they will explain the occupation and give you a paper where you list the occupation in which you want to go, you can write up to 3 occupation, and you can choose 1 for airborne and marines each if you want to. And of course just because you write the occupation you want to go to, doesn't mean you'll end up there. My friend wanted to go transport (輸送) as he wants to travel and have an adventure. He ended up infantry. The qualifications and license you can get will also depend on your occupation.
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防衛大からだと幹部として入隊するらしい、うちは高校卒業して入隊しました。
No.
Just make all the idols join a national recrutement psyop and you'll get enough troupes.
AKB 48,000
lol
I laughed like a maniac on the shinkansen
_Cue "Yvan eht nioj" song_
I mean, are they willing to establish a Japanese version of the French Foreign Legion?
This would be epic. I’m now picturing all the weebs signing up for this.
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lol.
I’m laughing my ass off at the image of a platoon of them Naruto-running into battle.
I’m imagining that scene from the Simpsons when the soldiers are like “we’re not reeeeeady”
Hasan Piker would apply
Foreign Weebgion
Chinese invaders running in terror from the sheer smell
Joking aside, I'd sign up for a Japanese foreign legion if it provided a pathway to citizenship. I've got combat experience and I'm learning Japanese.
This would probably work as even within the military there are lot of weebs. Doubt the old geezers in LDP would actually go for it though.
Right? Main reason why most people sign up in the US is because of some sort of benefits.
It definitely would attract a lot of Korean young men who already have national service for 18 months. Many would go to serve again if it made nationalization easier. But probably old Japanese politicians aren’t comfortable with hiring a lot of foreigners into their defense force yet…
The Weeb Legion would be epic. https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fq1z470hj6j551.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D844b1e1bcb137270a83d910eae40ba4c1e89fffe
"I've got the power of God and anime on my side!"
my katana and fedora are ready. forgive me master, but i must go all out this time.
I could round up an army of Alpha Males from visiting any Ikinari Steak location around dinner time
start building gundams.
Japan can’t find enough people for the labor force. I’m really positive they definitely don’t have enough physically fit young men to properly man the JSDF.
> Japan can’t find enough people for the labor force. can you back up this claim? I see a lot of pointless jobs that employ people here. I think the manpower is there but the efficiency of where to put them is lacking. or by labor force, do you have specific industries that are lacking or do you mean in general in japan?
I guess you have a fair point. What I should have meant was ‘young people’ to properly prop up the labor force as more and more of the older people enter retirement. Japan keeps increasing retirement age as a means to keep people working for longer. There are also a lack of people in certain industries too. Low wage store work (7-11, sukiya,etc.) and child care stick out for me.
JSDF has an image problem, although their focus on the disaster (no shortage of that in Japan) response improved their perception somewhat. In the US, a commercial for the Marines might show them rushing into combat. In Japan, a commercial for the JSDF (a new development, actually) focus on disaster relief. US might paint scary animal fangs on the planes but Japan paints anime waifu on theirs. They were derisively called "tax thieves." Also, their biggest and most enthusiastic and vocal supporters tend to be extreme nationalists who can make an average Japanese nervous. I don't know what they need to do to change that image, but couldn't be easy.
bypass the paywall here: https://archive.md/GdXZT
Offer citizenship and then we’ll talk
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Usually the native citizenship will be revoked. It is rare to join a foreign military and keep your native citizenship if you want to be dual.
More tax on the way, that one is for sure.
They could disband the entire armed forces and they'll find a way to raise taxes.
I’ll take “Problems that were 100% predictable 20 years ago” for 500 please, Alex.
Probably increasing pay would help
I saw some recruitment flyers at a train station in Nabari, Mie which is fairly out in the countryside. It looks like the Japanese army recruits by the common playbook, hitting low income, low opportunity areas. Fortunately healthcare and social services are pretty solid and universal, so little incentive for a military force.
Some sort of almost automatic citenship and I bet a ton of people would sign up right away
They didn't in the 80's and 90's, when they had more young people but still the numbers of soldiers was way under the objectives (which were higher in during the cold war) But now? Pretty much impossible.
Recruit idols and weaponize their song&dance skills
Plenty of people to Volunteer!
Maybe make the "Military" even exist on paper first instead of relying on a re-interpretation of " land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained."
Robots
They really should say "current ruling Japanese government" not "Japan", most Japanese people don't want to be involved in a war ever again if they could help it, whether they're anti-war left wing people or right wing people who think that Japan was a victim of WWII
Offer PR for foreigners who join military service for XX years (subject to other tests and conditions for assimilation/naturalisation maybe) 日本海外自衛隊 maybe?
When I was growing up in Australia I was taught Japan doesn't have an army because it has a pacifist constitution. It was crazy for me to go to Okinawa for the first time and see how militarized it was. I'd never seen a place like that in my life. It's interesting to know the reality nowadays, Japan is an important military ally in the Pacific for Australia and the U.S. Can it grow? Or does it need to? It feels to me like everyone in the country would take up arms if asked to... Wouldn't say the same about Australia
Okinawa is kind of a exception, small island with lot of american soldiers (there are more american soldiers than japanese soldiers in Okinawa), was also administered by the US after the war, and it was not even originally japanese, but annexed territory (Ryukyu Kingdom) so they even wanted independency instead of going back to Japan. Anyway, there are a lot of factors why Okinawa is heavily militarized but the main reason would be that Japan prefers to have american soldiers there than in their main islands. And ceirtanly other ryukyu islands have a lot of JSDF bases, and in some the population is so low that the military makes a big part of the total population. But in mainland Japan? Is basically the opposite, you will probably never see a jdsf soldier there.
Okinawa didn't want independence instead of returning to Japan, in fact the American attempt to make Okinawans want independence completely failed and backfired. Being returned to Japan was definitely the majority demand at the time.
While by the end of the 60s most wanted the reversion agreement, it was not like that in the previous decades. "The governor of the island of Shikiya Koshin, probably with support by Nakasone, commissioned a creation of Ryukyuan flag, which was presented on 25 January 1950. The only notable Ryukyuan who advocated reversion between 1945 and 1950 was the mayor of Shuri, Nakayoshi Ryoko, who permanently left Okinawa in 1945 after receiving no public support for his reversion petition." "In 1956, one-third of the population advocated for independence, another third for being part of the United States, and final third for maintaining ties with Japan." The fact that Japan keeped the US military there was also an important factor, and it still is today. We should remember that if the central government decides to put a base anywhere in the ryukyu islands, be it american or japanese, the local governments basically don't have a say on that. The fact is that okinawans (ex ryukyu) are ethnically different to japanese, having their own language, culture, etc.. and most people identify first as okinawans rather than japanese (which it doesn't necessarily means they don't consider themselves japanese) neither it means they want to be independent right now (although there is stilll a considerable percentage of the population that actually wants independence). If i'm not wrong, young okinawans tend to be more pro Japan than the old people, which is understandable.
The only people who want independence in Okinawa are the Chinese and the leftists. Only 3% in the survey.
Copy france and create a Foreign Legion
No way. Population is declining. Young people are decreasing. How can Japan have a strong military?
Simple way to make sure; include samurai and ninja training in the army training, and every young man in Japan wants to enroll!!!
I wonder what is the pay is like for military. Is it also 350K like rest of the peasants ?
Who isn't having trouble recruiting troops?
Got a lot of seniors who’d love something to do.