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A comment on As Japan's population shrinks, bears and boars roam among schools and shrines. Parent comment

Re:As Japan's population shrinks, bears and boars roam among... by a3n on Sunday July 10, 2016 @02:32PM (#12066602)
> The U.S. has had military bases in Japan continuously since 1945

Of course. And if an area is severely depopulated, one of the easiest ways to populate it and simultaneously discourage opportunism would be to plop a US military base down. "Easy" because it's doable, there are already bases, and protocols, and familiarity.

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Re:As Japan's population shrinks, bears and boars roam among... by tacostakohashi on Sunday July 10, 2016 @02:58PM (#12066717)
Complete nonsense.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/19/thousands-prot...

The existing bases are in sparsely populated areas. Even so, they're deeply unpopular, mainly because the servicemen have a bad habit of raping and murdering the locals.

Adding more bases to boost the population would be political suicide.

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Re:As Japan's population shrinks, bears and boars roam among... by happyslobro on Sunday July 10, 2016 @03:16PM (#12066815)
It is hard for me to spot the difference between the Americans moving in and expanding their overseas military, and the Chinese doing the same thing. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the expansion of any superpower is generally just bad news for everyone else.

An ideal scenario in my opinion, would be for the Japanese to automate a purely defensive military along with their workforce. Japan could go back to being that demon island that no one dares to invade.

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