Japan 
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The Japanese nation is perhaps the best known Asian nation in the West. It has represented both power, infamy, and guilt throughout modern history. It is important to understand a little of its ancient history to also understand its modern situation.
Like China, Japan is an ancient culture, primarily warrior based. Known for its Samurai, an ancient elite fighting art, the Japanese created a civilization that was remarkably self sufficient, healthy and some would say in tune with the Earth. Following Zen Buddhism, the Japanese culture of the warrior dominated much of its political life until the 20th century. Indeed, early explorers from Spain and Portugal found the Japanese a frightening mixture of ancient, less modern times, yet with a discipline and culture that sometimes made the explorers feel uncivilized. And the culture class was more than perception, many a explorer or tradesman losing their head over what must have seemed a minor mistake in protocol.
As western civilization and technology made its way into the Orient, the Japanese culture resisted as much as possible. However, in the years just before the close of 19th century, Japan went through a westernization that was stunningly breathtaking. Within 30 years, Japan, while maintaining its warrior culture, never-the-less accepted the requirement to modernize its society in many ways. Technology was the driver as Japanese leaders realized that their survival depended upon accepting technology. The choices left were remaining a backward nation who, by continuing to resist technology, would never be a world power. And being a world power met the requirements of the Emperor quite well, and in fact, dominated the Japanese political power, albeit secretly for the early half of the 20th century. Some would say that in the middle of the 20th century, Japan transferred its desire to be a military dominant world power to an economic world power, but the goal remained the same -- to be a very important world power. Thus, in the long run, they were successful.
Modern Japanese history found the Japanese building ships, aircraft and vehicles at a prodigious rate. Industrialized Japan moved quickly, becoming a large industrial power in half the time the rest of the world had taken. And given their late start, it was exceedingly necessary. By the late 1930s, Japan was well on the way to becoming a military power to be reckoned with.
As a small island nation, Japan had already begun spreading its sphere of influence via trade off the island and throughout Asia. As Japanese military forces followed, it soon became apparent that the Japanese had more on their mind than trade. When Germany began its march across Europe in the late 30s, Japan began a similar, albeit more quiet approach in the Pacific, wrapping up trade colonies of Britain, Spain and the U.S. without firing a shot. They simply placed military manpower where it would be needed. As the European war rambled on, Japan began to move from covert to overt, snapping up vast sections of the Asian Continent, and then once it was ready to begin to focus on the island nations South and East, Japan assaulted the biggest remaining protectorate of Asia, the United States.
On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack, much like its culture was famous for, if anyone had cared to study the art of Bushido and the history of the Samurai. The attack left the port of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in ruins, the U.S.S. Arizona, a prize battleship, at the bottom of the harbor. Other ships in ruin, the only ships not butchered were those presently out at sea, and fortunately for the U.S. its carriers.
This military action, understandably, brought the U.S. into the War dramatically, and as Pacific islands fell to the Japanese, the U.S. began a scale up almost as unprecedented as the Japanese build up in the early 20th century.
At the close of World War II, the U.S. moved from island nation to island nation, stalking Japanese forces, pushing them back to Tokyo. Douglas McArthur, routed from the Philippines returned in a methodical and at times brilliant campaign that not only recaptured territory, but insured the territory would be hold -- never again would McArthur allow land to be taken in a military campaign.
Finally, as the U.S. began to make the final efforts at the Japanese homeland, the Japanese were told to surrender their island nation before it was overwhelmed by surrounding forces. Refusing the Japanese invoked their Samurai heritage once again and prepared to fight to the death.
However, the U.S. had a horrendous surprise up their sleeve, having developed the weapon that would change the face of international rivalry forever, the atomic bomb. After repeated offers to the Japanese to surrender, and after analyzing the number of U.S. and allied deaths that would be required to bring Japan to its knees, U.S. planners presented U.S. President Truman with attack scenarios that 1) would maximize the industrial damage to the war making infrastructure, and 2) preserve as much of Japanese cultural landmarks. The second requirement eliminated Tokyo, Nakamura, and Akaido, since these cities housed relics older than the United States, including the giant Buddha figure in Nakamura. The cities chosen were industrial and easily recognizable from the air.
The first weapon was dropped over Hiroshima, detonating in the air with approximately 2 kilotons of blast power. This weapon leveled the city of Hiroshima and set fires all that was not blown down. It killed in total, after several weeks of dehabilitating radiation sickness just under 100,000 people.
However, Japan still refused to surrender after repeated offers from the U.S. The second and final atomic bomb targeting people was dropped over Nagasaki, with a slightly smaller yield but with the same approximate effects. U.S. leadership warned Japan that Nakamura, Akaido and Tokyo were next. Finally the Emperor, seeing his nation turning to total rubble, surrendered.
Since then, no nuclear bomb has been used in war nor targeted humans. The threat of the mass destruction of a "war's full" of people and the environmental damage caused by one use has made these weapons politically impossible.
Post World War II Japan
Today, Japan is a constitutional monarchy, the emperor being mostly a ceremonial post with certain powers all of which can be overridden. The laws and organization are American-English based. The country has grown from its days as a sad and shamed nation occupied by the U.S. military to one of the most powerful economies in the world.
The Japanese economy went through a huge expansion in the 1970s making it one of the most powerful nations, economically, in the world. According to Yahoo's Background on Japanese economy, Japan has 400,000 plus robotics machines of the worlds total of 720,000. A turn round in economy began in 1999 after the Asian financial crisis devastated the region. However, Asian financial straights have wasted huge capital and while still emerging as the industrial leader in Asia, Japan's economy and political strength is still quite fragile.
Domestic labor focuses on trade and services 65%, industry 30%, agriculture, forestry, and fishing 5%. The exports tell the tale of an industrial giant, however, with motor vehicles, semiconductors, office machinery (computers, office electronics and personal electronics), and chemicals supplied to just about every nation on the planet. And the Japanese middle and upper class consume home and office electronics at a rate higher than all but the U.S., Singapore and China. Imports reflect a typical island industrial nation, purchasing fuels, foodstuffs, chemicals, textiles, office machinery and minerals required to produce finished products such as metal as well as wood, both which are not available in quantity without further taxing the already threatened environment.
The Japanese military, post World War II was, by constitution, a defensive only military called the Japan Defense Force. Of late, however, the U.S. who has been the major protector of Japan as the occupier after the War and granting Japanese autonomy in the late 1950s, has requested Japan to take more of the region's defense on their own shoulders. To meet this request, Japan has begun to request more offensive equipment for patrol such as AEGIS cruisers, and beefing up their defensive aircraft inventories with the latest in U.S. technology permitted. The three forces, Army, Navy, and Air Force have a pool of 21 year olds each year of some 770,000 plus men, with a total pool 15 to 49 of better than 30 million.
Today, Japan's military problems are its neighbors and the security arrangements that the U.S. is turning over to Japan to take care of on their own. Japan has a minor domestic drug use problem, an aggressive number of terrorist groups in the past but which have been for the most part quelled. Japan has had a long standing disagreement with Russia over the tiny Islands to the Northeast of the giant island of Hokkaido. It is an earmark of the political and economic power as one of the U.S.' staunchest allies that this disagreement has not been settled forcibly by Russia. However, Russian occupied these tiny islands in 1945 and continues to administer them. Japan, Korea, and China still maintain ancient distrust. However, the recent agreement to host the Soccer World Cup by Japan and Korea simultaneously, is a remarkable opportunity to sow economic trust between the two nations.
However, as a highly industrialized island nation, the environment and dissatisfaction over daily life are growing issues. Some analysts predict organized crime combined with harsh employment schedules and minimum rewards will lead to a worker's revolt in the next decade. However, at least for now, the incredibly strong Japanese work ethic and desire to sacrifice in favor of improvement and maintaining their economic dominance of Asia, prevents the Japanese people from boiling over. The fact that the majority of the population is quite well westernized and woman's suffrage is the legal norm if not the domestic equivalent of western nations as of yet, offer hope for the next decade.
Terrorist Groups Active
in Japan
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