It’s about $120 million for F-35 right now.

If they wait to 2020-25, sure the F-35’s price will reduce. But that’ll be costly in terms of trying to keep F-4Es flying for another 10-15 years whilst capability gets flushed down the toilet.

That peace treaty was a face saving measure for Americans.

The US had lost its appetite for the war, packed up and left the South Vietnamese to their own devices.

So war was lost as the the primary goal of preservation of South Vietnam was not achieved.

It’s already been reinterpreted a few times, & not just to allow humanitarian deployments. And who said anything about pre-emptive strikes? The proposed re-interpretation I referenced was to allow collective self defence, i.e. assisting an ally which is under attack.

There was at least some allegations that Abe is planning the ability to utilise pre-emptive strikes

http://japandailypress.com/japan-might-seek-provision-to-allow-pre-emptive-strikes-2532876/

I don’t know much about Japanese politics so can’t comment much beyond this.

Just out of curiosity- which allies would the Japanese be referring to? Their only official one is USA.

There are several wild cards to deal in this equation and one is the resentment Russia has for China and knowledge that China covets the extensive resources of Siberia. It should not be forgotten that Russia and China fought a serious border war in 1969 and Russia floated the idea to the United States at that time of jointly taking out China’s atomic weapons arsenal

With China’s ever growing appetite for natural resources you could see Russia joining with Japan and others in a mutual defense pact to ‘contain’ China. Russia being an European power might have to throw in with certain Asian powers to maintain its Asian presence in the region.

Russia has it’s own disputes with Japan over the Kuril Islands and also agitates the Japanese with aircraft incursions.

However media doesn’t report this as China is current enemy no 1 and not Russia.

Russia is far friendlier with China these days and happily loads them up with weapons. Just a couple of weeks ago China and Russia participated in a massive naval exercise.

Also Russia knows that Japan is allied with USA and Russia still views USA as enemy.

Russians have been butting heads with USA/EU too on matters such as Syria. They’re also conducting military exercises based on attaks on European countries (e.g. recent Zapad exercise)

And it should be recalled that China invaded Vietnam to contain the spread of Russian influence in South East Asia. There are several scenarios where Chinese hegemony creates alliances that seem impossible today.

China invaded Vietnam because Vietnam invaded China’s ally, Cambodia which was being systematically destroyed by Pol Pot.

Yet in 1976, South Vietnam no longer existed and Laos and Cambodia were Communist.

Hence war lost.

Military success counts for diddly dquat if you don’t achieve your goals (which in this case was safeguard continued existence of South Vietnam and prevent Cambodia and Laos from becoming Communist).

Point of war is not killing your enemy (something Americans don’t seem to understand). It’s accomplishing political goals. I say political because national interest is defined by politicians and is often against the national interest e.g. German invasion of USSR or American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

An army is a tool just like diplomacy or sanctions.

I agree with Rii’s nicely phrased comment: “Reality makes a poor substitute for American mythology.”

A lot of Japanese media ala movies, tv shows, books are banned in South Korea too.

I don’t think Scooter understands the hatred here – the Japanese occupation of Korea was 40 years of oppression, brutality, state enforced terror, attempts at cultural obliteration (e.g. forcing Koreans to convert to Shintoism, oppression of Christians, destruction of Korean language books) and exploitation including slavery via forced labourers and land appropriation by the Japanese.

The Chinese too suffered massively under the Japanese – most prominent incidents being The Rape of Nanking and the horrors perpetrated by Unit 731 (on par with the most horrific abuses of Nazi Germany).

And the Japanese haven’t really gone out of their way to mend fences (unlike the Germans) and it certainly doesn’t help when PM’s visit shrines that include war criminals or oppose formal apologies for crimes committed.

Slayer’s 1980s and early 1990s output was great. In recent times Christ Illusion was a decent Slayer album. World Painted Blood wasn’t that great. Did you guys know Jeff Hanneman died recently?

For Thrash these days, I think Overkill, Evile, Onslaught, Lazarus A.D. and Warbringer churn out some good stuff. Only Overkill and Onslaught are old school though – hell Overkill predate Slayer and Metallica. Megadeth and Anthrax are still in game, albeit playing more traditional heavy metal/hard rock (Anthrax’s latest album Worship Music is phenomenal and a real return to form).

Totally off-topic.

As to Eurofighter, it doesn’t look like a “Slayer” in the same way Hog sticks for A-10, Rhino for F-4, BUFF for B-52 or Viper for F-16 or SLUF for A-7. It’s too dainty looking – Slayer would be more appropriate for a Flanker – big and mean.

By the way I still refuse to call Super Hornet a Rhino too.