Targets - China and Russia: why is the US dragging Japan into the "Eastern NATO"
A sensation is brewing: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will take part in a NATO summit for the first time - in Madrid, from June 28 to 30. There he intends to present Tokyo's new doctrine on "strengthening defence 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 in it and designating Russia as "priority No. 1".
As is known, Japan is the only country in the world where a ban on the army and navy is enshrined in the constitution. It also prohibits offensive wars. However, the number of tanks, self-propelled guns, armoured vehicles, artillery barrels and SAMs in the "self-defence 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 on the territory of the country. Therefore, Tokyo's desire to be under the umbrella of NATO also looks mysterious, unless ... this is not Washington's calculation.
And not only to stay on the islands longer — it's time to recall the words of Secretary of State Baker at a meeting with Gorbachev in 1990: "NATO is the mechanism for securing the US presence in Europe."
More importantly, the United States does not hide its interest in creating an "eastern NATO" to confront China and Russia. The fifteen-year-old QUAD, where Japan is included, and the new AUKUS, where Japan is not, correlate well with the rapid pace of its transformation into a "great military power". At naval exercises with Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands, the Japanese exhibit light aircraft carriers created for the first time after World War II. And their ground forces conducted large-scale joint exercises with the United States and France for the first time in May.
The potential enemy 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 resolutely curtailed on March 21, after a number 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 to war with China and Russia with all their might, realising that the fate of humanity will be decided in the battle on the "Indo-Pacifica".
Elena Panina, Director of the RUSSTRAT Institute