The coming war with Japan
An in-depth analysis of international relations in the post-Cold War period; argues that the major conflict in the world, today and for the forseeable future, is now between Japan and the United States.
Stats for nerds
0recommend
4mentions
3people
2012–2020years
100% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Japan was the Bogeyman.
The Coming War With Japan, 1991 by George Friedman https://www.amazon.com/Coming-War-Japan-George-Friedman/dp/0...
- >>"Japan was never considered evil in the 1980s"
I suppose we remember differently. An example: in 1991 George Friedman (the respected analyst, who, by the way, is predicting now the collapse of China) published "The coming war with Japan". Obviously the title is just "click-bait" but I think reflects what was in the zeitgeist then.
>>"China has always had a much more complicated relationship with the USA [..]"
Absolutely agree with that. After all, the constitution of Japan was basically redacted by the USA and militarily depends on the USA.
China is going to be a different matter and, that, I think, it's the real reason because China is considered even more "evil" than Japan, because subdue it it's going to be very difficult (if possible).
- History does not repeat itself but it rhymes.
Strong rhymes from the 80's and 90's when Japan was the boogieman. Replace Japan with China to update into the present moment.
1) Fear of Japanese AI was real in the 80's. The fifth generation computers (massive parallelism with prolog programs)[1].
2) Fear of Japanese buying the rest of the world [2] and unfair trade tactics.
3) Trump attacking Japan for trade and considering a presidential run with trade war and tariffs [3].
4) The war with Japan is inevitable [4].
5) Under all this Japan had 'demographic time bomb' and real estate boom reaching the maximum.
China will undoubtedly face many of the same problems as Japan did, but the scales are different (both time and magnitude). China has still at least two decades to go. The country is still undergoing urbanization and has to fit over 100 million people into cities. While Chinese growth can't be as high as in last decades, their growth will still outpace the West for a long time.
It's very unlikely that China just fizzles and stays paralyzed for more than a decade like Japan did. Either Chinese solve their problems or the problems will destabilize China internally.
---
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer
[2]: http://www.businessinsider.com/japans-eighties-america-buyin...
[3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/over-four-decades-tr...
[4]: The Coming War With Japan by George Friedman , Meredith Lebard https://www.amazon.com/Coming-War-Japan-George-Friedman/dp/0...
- The CEO of Stratfor wrote a book called "The Coming War with Japan" in 1991:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Friedman
After I told him this a few months ago when we were talking about this article, my dad read it a little more critically and found at least one blatant factual error. So take it with a grain of salt.
Related
America's secret war
1 recommend · 3
The Next 100 Years
2 recommend · 17
The machinery of freedom
37 recommend · 91
The Storm Before the Calm
2 recommend · 2
The fall of Japan
1 recommend · 2
Flashpoints
1 recommend · 3
2018–2022
The second world wars
3 recommend · 5