Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "In Japan, An Assassination Amid an Inflection Point" video.

I was an exchange student in Japan, after my family hosted many Japanese exchange students in our homes in the US. The geography and topography definitely has created a series of practically-isolated urban states, only recently connected by a rail network in history. Population density acts as a barrier to much travel, so there are identities associated with the different prefectures. I also noticed racial variances, poverty, and brothels that I was not expecting to see. You could ride the bullet train to go from one city to another, but people tended to stay close to where they're from. There is no way to compare the culture, geography, demographics, and infrastructure with anything I've seen in the US, and I've been to 48 of the 50 States, lived in 8 across distant regions (SW, NE, Mountain West, Deep South, PNW).
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Zeihan has been studying and paying close attention to Japan for decades, as has George Friedman. They also have been tracking geopolitical details around the world that are interconnected with Japan. One of the biggest shifts in the balance that was done under Abe was going from JADF to an externally-focused military force structure, complete with large carriers and F-35s, both A and B models. Japan will be the largest non-US operator of JSF/F-35, even larger than the UK and Israel. There are parallels with the arms race in Europe that transpired from 1871-1914 in the interim period between Franco-Prussian War and The Great War, but because of geographic separation, we haven't seen any mirroring of the 31 conflicts that took place in Europe from 1871-1914 before Archduke Ferdinand II's assassination. China is also extremely apprehensive of being humiliated militarily in the region, since every one of her neighbors has territorial disputes with her and regional rivalry over resources. The Asia-Pacific region is highly-stressed internationally and internally in many nations, which is only going to be pushed harder once we see September crop yields. You won't get much of a sense of any of this in Japan now due to how structured it is with daily activity hiding regional tectonics that are offshore currently. I would not write Peter's work off as a subtractively-alarmist doomsday forecaster.
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It's interesting to see your perspective, especially how so many good things are recalled from peace during the Cold War, while the Serb ethnic cleansing of Bosnian and Croat people in 1992 seems to have been forgotten. Not meant to be a jab, but it follows what George Friedman describes as people remembering a time that didn't exist, especially with regard to Europe. Recollection of European history is often one of culture and romance, while the only time in its history of relative peace was 1945-1991. The wars are purged from memory because of their ugliness, horror, and discomfort that causes to the human mind. When Europe goes back to its normal ebb and flow of conflict, we re-live what hundreds upon hundreds of millions have experienced throughout history.
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@Mads_on_YT The young generations have always wondered why the older ones fought, then get to find out as they feed the jaws of conflict with their lives and babies.
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@fowchiiiliedpuppiesdied Those are more ideological political channels, not dispassionate geopolitical analyses. Huge difference between the approaches. It's better to feed from dispassionate analysis than emotionally-charged perspectives that don't understand the fundamentals.
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@ImChief We rode in bullet trains and private automobiles between cities. Within urban sprawl, we took various trains and subways. During rush hour, they had uniformed guys who would physically pack riders into the trains. I had never seen anything like it. You had no real personal space in Japan, very crowded, at least in 1991.
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