Both japan, korea and china are way too integrated economically and any kind of military conflict is out of the question. China will
naturally win on the territorial disputes due to its sheer size and power but this japan-korea alliance is necessary for maintaining
the balance of power in the region and is a welcome step. After all the yanks won't be there for ever to protect the japanese and
koreans.
I doubt that Japanese needed any protection of any sort except the first few years post WW2. They've shown what they're like when they want to militarize. It is only a matter of time before Japanese dump their Article 9 totally and start building up military rapidly. As such they've got a cutting edge military and with the kind of technological expertise they have, a build up shouldn't take anytime at all.
Glad to see Korea and Japan ending their years of feud to jointly face a bigger problem. Hopefully the Korean right wing and Japanese right wing reach a rapprochement after this.
It is true that the US power is in decline, that's why the US is trying to forge the US-Korea-Japan triple alliance as the core security instrument in Asia, then expand it to include other nations.
In that case, it is important that your new president actually starts taking militarization a bit more seriously. From what I personally see, you Koreans will need to do a few things before things can turn on in your favor:
- build a strong anti-artillery defense system against the hundreds of artillery units posted near the DMZ by the Fat Kim's regime.
- remove any pacifist approach in your military or constitutional doctrine of the past and look forward to a more offensive military capability. Please note that China will not fight you head-on in a confrontation; they will use their last communist puppets aka NK.
- an agreement between the hawks on both Japan's and your side. We all know that you and the Japanese don't like each other due to past actions of the latter and that was bad. But now times have changed and a bigger threat has emerged that is common to both of your and equally dangerous. You must decide accordingly.
One may not be able to win over all of PLA, but three can....
In modern warfare, you won't need three countries to hold off the Reds. Japan and you have reasonable technology to hold off for long enough. Remember, Chinese would never fight you directly. They'd fight directly with the Japanese but for them, it would be better if they could get you and NK to kill each other off. China's objective in Korean peninsula is not communism now but whatever resources your north and you have beneath your surface.
Japan desperately wants the access to the Korean radar data feed in order to monitor North Korean and PLA activities in the Yellow Sea, which in turn would theoretically give Korea access to Japan's radar feed in East China Sea near Okinawa, but I am not sure what Koreans would do with that... Anyhow, this agreement greatly increases the coverage of resolution of radars on both side, of much higher details than what China is able to gather alone.
You may need to be prepared to be more unilateral in your military decisions (independent off USA's say)in the future as the US may tend to be soft footed on security concerns of you or the Japanese due to its own economic troubles. It is understandable but it should not become the cause of risk for you and Tokyo.
