@Zzzzz...: well I am pretty sure It will not come to that.....hopefully at least. But if it does, then Japan will be ready with its own nuclear weapons arsenal!
@Zokan: Russia's borders look nicer with Kazakhstan added to it. Plus, I figured if the Ukrainians were willing to be annexed by Russia, then the Kazakh's, who are on pretty good terms with Russia, probably would too.
@Zhuge Liang: Indeed, China and Russia are going to start getting very close to each other soon, and Japan will be more than happy to bring them both down.
@Asalto: I don't think anyone would notice. Japan is a big nuclear power player, with lots of nuclear reactors in the country. With all foreign intelligence agents in Japan neutralized, nobody will notice anything wrong with another reactor that will start going up in central Honshu.....
@everyone else: thanks for the comments!
Japan is beginning to suffer problems in the area of resource acquisition. Shortfalls are beginning to appear in areas like strategic minerals, coal, and metal production. Japan will need to look not only to its traditional allies for new sources of these strategic resources, but also to secure its own sources by seized them directly. Japan's leaders now turn their eyes further to Southeast Asia, especially towards Indonesia.....
August, 2005. The Gulf Coast of the United States is utterly devastated by the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, bringing very high winds, devastating storm surges, and almost completely wiping the major city of New Orleans off the map. Not only is there massive physical damage, but there is also great political damage, as the Bush administration comes under heavy criticism for a lack of preparation and response to the storm.
Training of brigades of special forces commando's for the army is canceled by the government. Instead, training and production of equipment begins for brigades of elite marines for the Japanese military. These very well trained and highly equipped soldiers, backed up by attachments of attack helicopters, will be tasked with seizing coastal and island targets, and will serve very well also as light infantry for larger ground campaigns.
The American's do not like the Iranians very much.
More air and naval bases in the Japanese Philippines finish construction and are now ready for military use.
In Indonesia, the resort island of Bali is rocked by a series of terrorist bombings, killing a number of people, including a Japanese tourist and wounding several Japanese nationals. Japan immediately uses the attack to not only denounce terrorism but also to claim that the Indonesian government is soft on terrorism and is not doing enough to protect people from groups like Al-Qaeda or Abu Sayyaf, a group that is also still attempting to operate in the Japanese Philippines.
Meanwhile, Japan signs a major trade deal with the United States, trading large quantities of oil to the USA in exchange for massive American supplies of steel. Japan seems to now be becoming a very large oil producing country, especially as its influence grows in the pacific giving it control over things like offshore oil deposits. If Japan continues to expand oil production, the resource could become Japan's trump card in any major diplomatic spat.
Meanwhile, Japan begins to lay the groundwork for its next military endeavor. Although the activities of insurgents have largely been suppressed in the Philippines thanks to a heavy Japanese military presence, insurgents belonging to the group Abu Sayyaf are continuing to operate, largely in the southern island of Mindanao. These guerrilla fighters are engaging in regular firefights with Japanese troops, something that is continuing to be a problem. Japan immediately suspects that foreign forces are supplying these militants.
Japanese suspicions are later confirmed when Japanese forces intercept a ship loaded with huge quantities of arms, such as AK-47 assault rifles and rocket propelled grenade launchers, that was heading for the Mindanao coastline. Japanese investigators examine the weapons, and find that many bear markings of Indonesian arms manufacturers. Japan uses this fact to begin ratcheting up pressure on Indonesia, accusing its government of supplying terrorists and comparing Indonesia to countries like Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Indonesia of course denies all of it, stating that the Japanese claims have no merit and claiming that the weapons could have been stolen from the Indonesian army before being shipped by Abu Sayyaf to the Philippines. Tensions between Japan and Indonesia quickly begin to boil over....
Japan now begins deploying military assets to the southern Philippines, sending destroyers, frigates, and ships loaded with soldiers to newly constructed bases in Mindanao. Once again, Japan begins to prepare for war.