Editing Japan (section)

== Self Defense Force ==
After World War II, Japan was hated and feared by the Allied Powers, and unlike West Germany it was not seen as a critical barrier to Soviet invasion. As such Japan was forced to adopt a constitution that prohibited an army, navy or air force and renounced the right to belligerency. As the Cold War heated up, NATO realized Japan ''was'' critical to preventing Communist dominance of the Pacific. Accordingly Japan was able to [[Rules Lawyer|exploit a loophole]] and create a "self defense force" that was an army in all but name. Said Self-Defense Force, as the name implies, has full authority to deal with domestic threats like terrorists and pirates threatening Japanese shipping, but any sort of offensive or overseas actions are more rigidly controlled and require the cooperation of the United States, per the bilateral security treaty.

While not the latest tech, the JSDF's equipment is absolutely modern and contains plenty of armored vehicles. Their main rifle is the Type 89, a pretty straightforward AR-18 variant that uses STANAG (M16) magazines. Unlike the British AR-18 variant, the Type 89 actually works since 1: They had the original AR-18 specs (Howa was previously subcontractor for manufacturing the AR-18) instead of a crude copy by people who never used a firearm before 2: It wasn't built by workers who knew they were going to be fired immediately afterwards. Improvements like free-floating and optics mounting are considered, but budgetary concerns prevent adoption. In December 2019 it was announced such an upgrade would finally be adopted after winning a trial, but if that will actually occur is unknown.

By the numbers, the Maritime Self Defense Force is at worst a match for the Russian Federation's Pacific Fleet, though would be heavily outnumbered if the Arctic fleet or Baltic fleet reinforced them (reinforcements from the Black Fleet however are unlikely). While it technically has no aircraft carriers, the JMSDF has four "helicopter destroyers" (two Izumo-class, and two slightly older, shorter Hyuga-class) that were quite clearly designed with a conversion or variant that carries fixed wing aircraft in mind. The obviously intended conversion of the Izumo-class into proper aircraft carriers was announced in December of 2018 and caused more than a bit of butt-hurt in Korea.  The rest of Japan's surface fleet consists mostly of destroyers in a variety of classes, most of which are derivatives of the USN's ''Arleigh Burke'' class, complete with the AEGIS system.  

By the same post-war Constitution, Japan is expressly forbidden from having nuclear weapons, and their history with them makes the vast majority of the population OK with that. They do however have a large nuclear power industry (Or rather they did, before the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster made them think twice) and a space program, so there's no doubt they could easily make some and ICBMs to go with it if they wanted to, but they don't waste money on that when America already has got them covered.

As of 2022 due to the increasing global in[[skub]]ility the JSDF had begun an extensive process of expanding it's capabilities with the Diet/LDP gunning for the total military spending of the country to reach 2% of GDP with 287 billion dollars to be allocated over a 5 year period. Other developments include the procurement of up to 500 Tomahawks from the USA and a converision of their one helicopter carrier to a fully fledged aircraft carrier among other things.