The Three Kingdoms: A Historical Treatise of World War 3

By Rex Valance Dare

The Pandemic of 2020 caught the world by surprise and changed our way of life forever. However, mankind survived and COVID19 will be just another page in future history books. In the same way, the Third Global Conflict will be triggered by factors world leaders have no control over and when it happens they will not be ready. If they panic and resort to their thousands of nuclear warheads there will not be a history book to read about it in the future. The author spent eight years researching the contents of this "fiction" about how WW3 will be fought and the possible outcome. Many lessons were drawn from the first two world wars and the contributing socio-economic and cultural factors. The overwhelming conclusion is that those factors are clearly present today. They will inevitably draw the major military powers into conflict that can escalate rapidly beyond anyone's control. While this fiction tries to imagine a peaceful resolution and even an opportunity to rebuild a utopian society, this might be just excessive optimism. The message here is prophetic. Leaders of the world cannot afford to be complacent. World peace cannot be preserved by starting an arms race. Nobody is going to win the next world war. The subject matters of this book is deliberately controversial to provoke serious discussion by those who are concerned about the fate of the world. We need to start building a new global social and economic system for future generations based on ethics and morality to avoid this coming war. We are 100 seconds to midnight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rex Valance Dare
• Release date: Dec 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005272456

Book preview

THE THREE KINGDOMS

A Historical Treatise on World War 3

by

Rex Valance Dare

Smashwords Edition

Arising from the ashes of a war-devastated world a new socio-economic utopia emerges to bring everlasting hope for all mankind.

Published on Smashwords by:

Rex Valance Dare

The Three Kingdoms

A Historical Treatise on World War 3

Copyright 2022 by Rex Valance Dare

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1: First Sign of Hostilities

Chapter 2: Point of No Return

Chapter 3: The Japanese Factor

Chapter 4: The American Century

Chapter 5: Pandemic

Chapter 6: The Japanese Conspiracy

Chapter 7: State of the World from 2014

Chapter 8: The World Is Not Big Enough

Chapter 9: Lessons from History

Chapter 10: 1914 Replay

Chapter 11: Global War Footing

Chapter 12: The Chinese Concerns

Chapter 13: China’s Secret War Against the Deep State

Chapter 14: USSR Resurrection

Chapter 15: The China/Russia Economic-Military Alliance

Chapter 16: China Ready for War

Chapter 17: The Drone War Begins

Chapter 18: Robots versus Humans

Chapter 19: Battle for America

Chapter 20: Russia versus Europe

Chapter 21: Isis Makes Its Move

Chapter 22: The Isis Legacy

Chapter 23: An Unexpected Outcome

Chapter 24: The Three Kingdoms

Chapter 25: A New Economic and Social Paradigm

Chapter 26: Reflection and Warning

Chapter 27: A Hard Retrospective Look

Acknowledgement

PREFACE

Empires come and empires go. Dictators rise up and then fall down to the grave as do all mortals. The greatest empires have eventually turned to dust and replaced by another one. Death is the ultimate equalizer for both empires and men. Yet, leaders of nations continue to ignore this important lesson of history. For the convenience of their contemporary needs, political expedience and lust for power at any price, they fail to see the risks of their own short sightedness and poorly considered actions that lead to their downfall. Sadly, the only thing people learn from history is that we never learn. That will always be the truth.

It is now 2045. It has been 20 years since The Third Great War began and coincidentally the 100th anniversary of WWII. The good news is that mankind survived yet again, demonstrating the resilience of the human species to rise above its self-destructive propensity. However, the global political makeup is completely different and national boundaries have been totally redrawn. The Third Great War, which only lasted 12 months, killed over 250 million people and destroyed 150 cities around the world. Surprisingly it was not an all-out nuclear war as earlier doomsday prophets had previously predicted. Had that been the case, I would not be around to write this and there would be nobody left to read it. Instead, it was a combination of conventional warfare and limited low-tonnage tactical nuclear warfare. In the end, the politicians and military leaders on the losing side with fingers nervously on their nuclear triggers chose not to use them when they realised it would not change the outcome and that it was futile to resist. Mutual annihilation through nuclear proliferation was not the only option as it turned out.

Many people, both combatant and non-combatant, died from bombs and firearms but many more died painfully from radiation poisoning, thirst, starvation, disease and random violence because there were multiple battle fronts. The exact casualty numbers will never be known because most of the casualties were in the zone that today is shrouded in secrecy.

This account of the Third Great War could have been written by many people better qualified than me. I am not a professional historian or journalist. I was not one of the key politicians or military men involved in the decision making at the outbreak of hostilities. However, I was there from the beginning – not just during the war itself, but all of the earlier events that led to it. I am glad that I have lived long enough (91 years old this year) and still have the mental faculties to write this by drawing on my 30 years of diary records and personal research that have, fortunately, remained intact all these years. I can boast in some way that I was one of the earliest doomsday prophets to warn as many people as I could about the ominous signs of the impending global conflict that eventually happened just a few years later. Unfortunately, no one was listening and my lone voice was not loud enough.

My own background as a lawyer, teacher, linguist and self-made historian has enabled me to make critical observations over the years and piece together events and circumstances that I believed at the time – and can confirm today – were relevant contributing factors. I only wish I had been a false prophet. The historical account of a war is usually written by the victor but I was not on the winning side because Australia, my domicile, was technically one of the losers. However, being of Chinese descent, I am culturally linked to one of the major participants in the conflict. This mixed cultural background helped me to see things both from the Chinese perspective and the western view point without the usual racial bias or culturally blinkered world view of most historians. Of course, I accept that there are other equally plausible viewpoints and, in this case, there would be many no doubt. The actual outcome of the Third Great War may surprise anyone looking at it from the pre-conflict perspective but with the wisdom of hindsight one should understand more easily why it was inevitable.

More importantly, this war, as did WWII, changed the whole social, political and economic climate and dynamics of the world. The post-colonial, US/Europe dominated world order was replaced by something that is best described as ‘The Three Kingdoms’. More will be discussed about that later. This book then, is really a prequel to the new social order, describing all the world events and historical factors leading up to it and an account of the Third Great War itself. More importantly, it explains how the conflict cleared away the previous obstructions to the imposition of a new political, economic and social ideology that is the nearest the world has ever come to Utopia. Unfortunately, like many things in life, it was necessary to first break it down before rebuilding.

Knowing what I know today about everything that happened in the decade leading up to the Third Great War, I wish someone could give me a time machine to go back in time and deliver a copy of this book to all the leaders of the world before it became too late to reverse events. Millions of lives might have been saved not to mention all the valuable resources and historical assets destroyed globally. Yet, knowing the truth of human nature, I cannot help feeling that my prophetic writing might actually be a trigger for the inevitable conflict. Someone in a position of power may be just foolish enough to believe that pre-emptive action will give them a better chance of victory despite the clear writing on the wall. That would be their ultimate folly.

Rex Valance Dare

17 December 2045

FIRST SIGN OF HOSTILITIES

Japan began its first act of provocation on US Thanksgiving Day 2024.

Without warning, the Japanese sent a group of 20 army engineers to set up a communication centre and over-the-horizon radar system and ground to air missiles on the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands which China had always claimed sovereignty over but had never physically set foot on. When the Chinese learned of this, they perceived it as a serious national security threat and sent over two destroyers and three submarines and a contingent of 1000 Chinese marines to occupy the island and capture the invaders. Japan immediately declared a state of war and invited its western allies to do like-wise.

Although the US had previously promised that any invasion of these islands by China would invoke the mutual military alliance of US and Japan, it considered a declaration of war to be too drastic in the circumstances but instead sent its delegate to the UN Security Council to lodge a formal protest. It demanded China to withdraw all military personnel from the disputed island forthwith. As a token gesture of support for Japan, it moved its 7th Fleet to Guam. Of course, Russia and China used their position on the Security Council to veto the proposal. It was obvious that Japan was deliberately provoking war with China

The US sent a secret government delegation to Tokyo to try and persuade them not to force a conflict with China. The US President implored the Japanese Prime Minister not to do anything to provoke China because the timing was all wrong. They even threatened not to support hostilities initiated by Japan, but the Japanese knew this was a meaningless threat. With the 1960 military alliance agreement still in place, the US could not sit back while China decimated America’s only remaining military ally in Asia. This was exactly what Japan was counting on when it precipitated the second stage of events.

China immediately set into action its plan that had been meticulously put in place since the year 2000 to prepare for full global conflict. Chinese merchant vessels bringing goods into China, particularly raw materials such as iron, coal, aluminium and copper were escorted by surface military vessels as they entered the South China Sea to prevent any blockade. They were also secretly escorted by PLA submarines the moment they left the foreign country. Merchant vessels bearing US or other Western Ally flags were prohibited from entering designated Chinese waters. All other vessels were quarantined in international waters for military weapons or surveillance equipment before being allowed to enter certain marked Chinese ports that were considered low risk. A no-fly zone was declared over China and all foreign civilian aircrafts were prevented from flying over China air space enroute to other countries but only permitted to land in Hong Kong and certain designated mainland airports mainly to bring home Chinese nationals. Foreigners were denied visas to enter China.

All reservist military personnel were ordered to report to barracks and national conscription was ordered for all men and women from 18 to 45 years of age except those already in critical defence and other industries. All key personnel in the cities (particularly those supporting the defence and armament industry) were evacuated with their immediate families to the underground cities already set up in remote western mountain ranges, mostly in huge caves dug deep into the mountains. These caves could withstand the most powerful bombs invented by the US military including those capable of drilling 200 meters through rock or steel. Their key entrances were also guarded by ‘Sentinel bombs that picked up anything approaching the entrances at faster than the speed of sound and engaged them automatically to explode before they got within 1000 metres of the entrance. The Sentinel Bomb had detectors in the ground and the engaging explosives shot upwards like a reverse waterfall. There were several layers of these Sentinel Bomb gateways to create a fail-safe system of defence. Above these mountains an impressive array of defence missiles was set up to create an iron dome" defence against even Hypersonic missiles.

All remaining city dwellers in the major coastal cities were ordered to move in an orderly fashion to the hundreds of inland ghost cities which had been prepared for such an eventuality since year 2000. Most of these empty but brand-new apartments were privately owned and the government now made it compulsory for landlords to rent it out to anyone who was able to pay the rent which was pre-determined by the government at a certain rate per square foot to avoid profiteering. Those unable to rent privately were housed in numerous government apartments which charged a nominal rental. Civic services were rapidly put into place in each of these cities to ensure utilities, health services, schools and government departments were functional. National coal, natural gas and oil reserves were moved to each of these cities to shore up their needs. Previously, these ghost cities had shopping malls, hospitals and schools that were either empty or under-utilised. The fringes of each of these newly populated cities were now guarded by PLA military units, THAAD equivalent defence missiles and drone defence forces.

Mobile telecommunication centres were established to maintain links with the Central Government and provincial government heads. The internet and local social media such as QQ and WeChat were immediately switched to quantum satellite mode and placed under government control enabling the populace to be kept informed of events and receive directives on what to do. In 2016 China had already begun launching a new generation of quantum satellites for military communication that were hack-proof. Each satellite was armed to prevent attacks from space. All ICT personnel were placed in secret government facilities to maintain full communication between military and key private organisations. Food, water, power and essential services were placed under military control to ensure there was no hoarding, no profiteering and fair distribution of essential commodities such as rice, flour, fuel, toilet paper and cooking oil.

All overseas moles and security service personnel were placed on high alert and given direct satellite access to the military command for further instructions, particularly those placed in Japan, the US and its western allies. Their job was to disrupt communications, utility services and military supplies. Jingli Software Corp and Betabyte Computers sent a software update to all its worldwide products to switch over to full China military cyber control. Now China had its eyes and ears fully tuned to the pulse of the world. If a US marine went to the latrine on his ship, China would know about it.

Around the world, similar activities were taking place in US, Canada, Australia, NZ and the Western European countries. In accordance with its military alliance with China and previous joint global defence plan, Russia moved 20 divisions of tanks to its western front along the border with the NATO countries of Latvia, Belarus and Romania, ready for the push into Poland and then Germany and France. Its troops were already in Georgia and Chechnya and ready to move into Turkey – the other key NATO member to the south western border that separated Russia from the Mediterranean. It also mobilised its nuclear warheads onto the back of trucks. The Black Sea and Baltic Sea fleets of the Russian navy, and particularly its submarines carrying nuclear warheads, were placed on high alert. Russia’s Siberian armoured and amphibious forces from its Eastern Division at Vladivostok were ready to join up with the Chinese navy in Northern China for the short trip across the Bering Sea to Alaska. North Korea was put on alert for a coordinated push into South Korea. Three divisions of PLA troops in the Himalayas and Tibet were put on high alert to guard the border with India in case India showed its colours in favour of the Western alliance.

Turkey, Poland, Germany and France, as well as Great Britain also put their troops on full alert. Australia moved most of its air and naval forces to Darwin, Broome and Cairns. In the Middle-East and North Africa the Islamic State announced it would stay ‘neutral’ in any conflict. However, no one believed this, least of all the Muslim countries next to Iraq and Syria. India, Brazil, Mexico, countries in South-East Asia and other non-NATO countries in Europe pleaded for calm from all parties concerned and most declared nervously that they would remain completely neutral if a conflict arose. Israel also put its military on orange alert.

POINT OF NO RETURN

24 December 2024 was the day that everyone will remember as the trigger point for the outbreak of hostilities from which there was no backing down. It was Christmas Eve in the US, when all Americans would be holidaying and staying at home. The Japanese military had deliberately chosen that day to launch their sea and airborne assault on the China Mainland near the coastal cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Fuzhou. It knew that American leaders would be enjoying the important holiday with families and would be unprepared for something like this and most likely over react from a state of confusion and panic with no time to debate in a meaningful way.

Over 10 ships and 100 aircraft (mostly aged and outdated) spearheaded the first assault using conventional weapons and 5000 reservist soldiers volunteering for this attack. The purpose of this first attack was not to succeed but served as a suicide mission to provoke a retaliatory strike from China that would hopefully be disproportional to the Japanese attack and forcibly draw the US into the conflict. They were gambling that the Chinese would not go nuclear against a mere conventional attack. For Japan, the best of their military arsenal was yet to be revealed.

China responded quickly with conventional missiles and fighter planes before the Japanese ships and planes got within 50km of China and blew most of the Japanese ships and planes out of the sea and sky. But the PLA went further and sent a number of conventional missiles into Tokyo and several other Japanese cities (targeting communication centres and some military assets) creating significant collateral civilian casualties and property damage. Because of the military alliance between US and Japan still being in place, the 7th and 9th Fleets of the US Navy immediately sailed into the South China Sea to defend Japan after the US President reluctantly declared a state of hostilities against China. US para-troopers in South Korea were flown to reinforce the US base in Okinawa. At that point Japan thought it had everyone exactly where it wanted them.

THE JAPANESE FACTOR

So who or what allowed such a calamity to happen after eight decades of relative global peace since WWII? Why did the world fail to see this coming? There had been clues and many clear indicators if anyone had been paying attention at the time. Unfortunately, the world had been distracted by other things that seemed more important in the second decade of the 21st century, like global warming, the ISIS war in Iraq and Syria, terrorism in European cities, the US election of the controversial Donald Trump in 2016, the increasing hostility of North Korea not to mention the second invasion of Ukraine by Russia. If we can pinpoint the exact time when the third global conflict became inevitable, the 30th of May 2014 would be that day. Yet few of the world leaders or military strategists barely noticed its passing. It may not have been as dramatic as the assassination of an Arch-duke or the invasion of Poland, the events that triggered the first two world wars, but it was equally significant.

On 30th May 2014, during a keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue (a forum for defence and security experts from Asia) Japan’s then Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, made the announcement that Japan would need to revise the interpretation of Article 9 of its post war constitution. This forum was attended by delegates from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the United States and Australia. Such an announcement in this forum was crucial because since the end of World War II, Article 9 of the post war Japanese constitution had stated that Japan would never raise an army designed for aggression but only for home defence. It could not attack another country by way of pre-emptive strike, for example. Essentially drafted by General Mc Arthur during the US occupational government in 1947, Article 9 was to guarantee future peace in the Pacific and to avoid any future Nippon aggression.

Abe’s announcement that its post-war military status would be changed after 70 years of Japanese non-aggression was the first major step towards ending that peace. The reinterpretation of Article 9 was expected to allow Japanese troops to fight either alone or with allies (most likely the US) abroad. The move was obviously triggered by Japan’s growing concern over China’s increasing military power in the region and dispute with Japan and other neighbours over certain South China Sea islands. Japan was using the disputed islands in the South China Sea as an excuse to re-arm itself. Abe’s announcement was formally implemented on 19 September 2015 by the passing of 11 security bills in Japan’s upper house. Again, little international media attention was given to this very significant event.

Australia’s then Foreign Minister Julie Bishop even described Japan as ‘our dear friends’ in an ABC TV interview. Obviously, Australia was blindly toeing the US line as usual – like when it joined the US led coalition against Iraq in the Gulf War and then the war in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attack in New York and Washington DC. Australia was also involved in the US airstrike against ISIS in September 2016 that accidentally killed and wounded over 100 Syrian troops in their own territory, an encroachment that did not have the consent of Syria. Julie Bishop also had private talks with Japan’s foreign minister on 11 June 2014 about military cooperation between the two countries including cyber security sharing.

Australia was always part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance made up of Australia, NZ, USA, Canada and the UK. These five countries had very close ties with each other from the post WWII period for sharing questions of security and intelligence gathering that even NATO partners such as France were not privy to. It was therefore very strange that Australia (and therefore the US by its passive approval) would consider Japan worthy of being included in the Five Eyes Intelligence alliance. Through this close cyber-net cooperation with Australia, Japan would later gain insider knowledge of the Alliance’s military strategies and contingency plans in the event of a conflict with China, Russia or other countries that threatened the security of this alliance.

In any conflict with the US, Russia, the third most powerful military state, would expectedly stand on China’s side as would the Middle East nations who detested the Americans. India, militarily the fourth most powerful state in the world, was expected to stay neutral until it was clear who was having the upper-hand. Strategically, India had more to gain by siding with the US because of their historic border disputes with China. It was clear that none of the European allies in NATO had the military power, economic capacity and will to fight a sustained global conflict. This was dramatically illustrated during the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that started in February 2022 when NATO steadfastly refused to give direct military aid to Ukraine but only responded with economic sanctions that had very little long-term effect on Russia.

The UK, militarily sixth in the world’s ranking in 2014, had its last demonstration of mediocre naval power in 1984 when fighting and barely defeating a poorly armed Argentina in the Falklands. In fact, the UK’s economy was so bad in 2014 that Scotland sought a referendum that year to withdraw from the 307 years union with Great Britain, hoping that by going it alone, they would fare better than being dragged along with Britain’s ailing economy and failed Westminster governance. The referendum failed by a slight margin. Had it succeeded, Britain would have had to relocate its nuclear submarine base in Scotland and lost much of its oil drilling rights in the North Sea due to redrawing of territorial waters. More significantly, on 23 June 2016 the UK people had a referendum approving its withdrawal from the EU after the successful ‘Brexit’ campaign. That meant the UK was moving towards its own economic path independent of the 27 European members after 43 years of membership. The tortuous path experienced by the UK during its negotiations with the EU for Brexit showed that the EU, dominated by Germany, was loath to allow any member to depart without punitive measures. Eventually, the UK accepted a less than desirable divorce settlement in 2021 that diminished the UK to a backwater colony of the EU leaving it with few of the benefits as a full member and none of the benefits anticipated by the Brexit advocates. Major trading partners with EU such as China and US avoided any separate trade agreements with the UK after its exit because of these EU constraints. This move by UK would have a negative effect on the remaining members of the EU who dared not leave fearing the same fate as the UK. In fact, Germany was the only country that benefitted from the EU because other poorly performing EU countries like Greece and Spain kept the Euro artificially low in value benefitting German exports.

Long before Brexit, Britain had already lost its traditional place as head of international white supremacy because in 2014 the most common male name for babies in the UK was ‘Mohammad’. Sharia law was becoming deeply imbedded into mainstream UK legislation. This also reflected the changing demographics of the UK and growing dominance of the Islamic religion in England from decades of Arab, North African and Pakistani migration into the UK. Sharia law had deeply infiltrated the British legal system. Many of the ISIS recruits in Syria and Iraq were actually British nationals with Muslim backgrounds. One of the most out-spoken and murderous ISIS leaders nicknamed ‘Jihadist John’ (his real name being Mohammad Emwazi) was a former UK salesman working for an IT firm in Kuwait. He was personally responsible for beheading a number of UK, US and Japanese nationals while video-taping these grisly executions on social media. He was later assassinated by a US drone strike. The UK also elected its first-ever non-white prime minister in October 2022. Rishi Sunak was of Indian background and a Hindu.

Even Germany, the strongest European economy and the fourth largest in the world, could no longer be relied on to support Western Interests in Europe. In September 2016 Germany’s Deutsche Bank was on the brink of collapse, threatening to pull other European financial institutions down with it. Export for German products was decreasing and the return on its capital investments was also diminishing. The price of German goods had to be greatly reduced to improve sales, such as spare parts for VW and Daimler cars. Simply put, the EU and its economy was coming apart. Brexit was only the first domino to fall. Former President Trump even commented that the EU and NATO were obsolete concepts that had no reason to continue and that the EU was originally a German design created for Germany’s own benefit. Trump weakened the NATO alliance through his 2018-19 trade tariffs directed against Western allies and then upset Turkey by imposing harsh trade sanctions in 2018 over the arrest of a US pastor in Turkey for alleged espionage. The sanctions were repeated in 2019 for Turkey’s continual attack on Kurdish rebels. Those US sanctions immediately devalued the Turkish Lira and impacted on the Turkish economy. The US also refused to sell certain drones to Turkey forcing it to develop its own cheaper version which proved to be highly effective for the Ukraine defence during the Russia/Ukraine conflict in early 2022. More importantly, these sanctions weakened the military alliance with this strategically important NATO partner.

From 2016 onwards an increasing number of political and economic observers and writers were beginning to talk about a possible global conflict involving the US. All the signs of global instability were there for those who had eyes to see and ears to listen. The fear of another world recession or regression was creating fear and anxiety in all the higher circles of economic, political and military power. The competition for perceived limited global resources and markets between the super powers and decoupling of economic ties between China and the US was pushing nations towards armed conflict. In January 2017 Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, voiced his concerns about the increasing risk to global peace because of nuclear rearmament by both the US and Russia. The New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) agreement between Russia and the US signed on 8 April 2010 was due to expire on 5 February 2021 but the talks between the two countries in June 2020 did not conclude any new arrangement. While the Chinese were invited to these discussions they failed to show up. The Doomsday Clock was moved forward twice in January 2017 and January 2018 to 2.0 minutes to midnight – the closest it has ever been. The last time this clock was moved forward was during the Cuban crisis in the 60’s. The global war everyone was discussing possibly involved Russia or the Middle East countries – particularly Iran, NATO, North Korea and especially China. Even Prince Charles departed from the usual palace protocol of not discussing politics in his 2016 Christmas address by raising his concerns about global conflict because of rising religious tensions in the world. Former US president Jimmy Carter voiced his concerns on 31 December 2018 to the Washington Post saying Trump’s provocation of China with his trade war was undermining forty years of peaceful cooperation between the two superpowers. He (like many other former White House incumbents or their senior staff) disagreed with the Trump administration that China was a threat to the US and such dangerous notions was creating a new cold war or even the risk of a real conflict. However, nobody could deter Trump from treating China as an economic and military competitor and during his first term in office, Trump managed to gain bipartisan support from both Republicans and Democrats for his anti-China stance. By early 2020, Trump had upgraded China from global economic competitor to enemy of the US. During the Ukraine/Russia war of 2022 the Doomsday clock had been moved to 100 seconds to midnight because Putin made repeated threats to use nuclear weapons if NATO interfered.

Strangely, nobody thought of Japan being the catalyst for global war even though it was ranked a close 7th after the UK on the Global Firepower list and rapidly re-arming itself with US support and encouragement. Despite the strong historical evidence to the contrary, the US still considered the Japanese more trustworthy as an ally than the Chinese. Perhaps the McCarthyism era of paranoia and its irrational fear of commies hiding under the bed was still haunting the US leaders. The battle of Cold War ideologies was still very much alive in the US military and upper echelon of American political circles. Once a country or political group had been labelled as the ideological enemy, it was hard to change that thinking. The American public, mindset over decades by the US media and government propaganda, still mistrusted hard core commies who they believed opposed capitalism, democracy and the American way of life. They still favoured the Japanese who, as a matter of historical fact, bombed Pearl Harbour before formally declaring war. They trusted the Germans who fought two world wars against the western allies and murdered over 6 million Jews under the Nazi’s 5 years reign of terror over Europe. At least the Japanese and Germans were not opposed to American core values. That had been the greatest fear of the western capitalists and America in particular. The important lessons of history were being discarded by the Western nations for political expedience and short-term benefits. The Japanese dog of war was once again being unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

In April 2007, long before the Americans had given their informal nod of approval, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had already established a 13-man panel to consider the revision of Article 9 of their constitution. The Japanese military think tank had been very busy. Amending the constitution would require a referendum – not an easy task – but reinterpretation was much easier. After all, the whaling issue showed how creative the Japanese government could be when defining scientific research. Abe knew that it would be a struggle to rebuild Japan’s military to a size that matched China’s because many younger Japanese were too comfortable with peace and reliance on the US for its security.

Realistically, with the constant presence of the US military in Japan after WWII, Japan had no need to