The Nations Are Ramping Up For War:

Japan and Germany are forgetting the lessons of 1945

RT

By Ladislav Zemánek

Japan’s surrender ended a catastrophic war in Asia and the Pacific. Germany’s defeat ended an equally catastrophic war in Europe. In both cases, military power had ceased to be merely an instrument of state policy and had become a force shaping policy itself. Countries were destroyed and tens of millions were dead as a consequence.

After the war, Japan was forced to embraced a high degree of military self-restraint, symbolized by Article 9 of its constitution and by the deliberately defensive character of its armed forces. Germany followed a different path but reached a similar conclusion: Military power requires strict limits and could not be treated as the normal measure of national strength.

Neither country ended up completely defenseless. Both retained armed forces and entered alliance structures. But for decades, there was an underlying recognition that more weapons did not necessarily mean more security.

Today, that recognition is fading. Japan is undertaking its most extensive military buildup since World War II. Germany is carrying out the most consequential rearmament of its postwar history. Both are increasing military spending, expanding defense-industrial capacity, acquiring more powerful strike capabilities, and deepening strategic cooperation. More ominously, both are reassessing their relationship with nuclear weapons.

The justification is simple. The Japanese are told to fear China. The Germans are told to fear Russia.

But what if these threats are being systematically inflated – and politically manufactured? What if the preparations supposedly intended to prevent war are making a larger war increasingly likely?

Japan is expanding its defense budget, strengthening its naval and air capabilities, acquiring long-range missiles, and developing what it calls “counterstrike capabilities.” It is strengthening its military infrastructure and integrating more closely into wider regional military planning. All of this is still framed as defensive measures, but that doesn’t change the fact that Japan is becoming a powerful military actor.

The relentlessly repeated justification is that China is growing stronger, therefore Japan must rearm. China is expanding its naval forces, therefore Japan must expand its own. China possesses increasingly sophisticated missiles, therefore Japan requires long-range strike capabilities.

But this narrative usually omits the strategic environment from which China’s own military policies emerge.

China is not surrounded by Chinese military bases. Instead, it faces a dense US-centered network of bases, alliances, intelligence systems, and military partnerships operating along its maritime periphery. US forces are stationed in Japan and elsewhere across the region. Japan is expanding its own military role and acquiring new offensive-range capabilities. Beijing’s response to this environment is then cited as proof that the original buildup was necessary, creating a vicious cycle of artificial reasoning.

China, like any major power, does pursue its own interests and take part in the global competition for influence. But the idea that China is simply a disguised aggressor waiting for an opportunity to attack Japan ignores both the elementary logic of power politics and Chinese strategic culture.

Why would China deliberately initiate a major war against Japan, knowing that this could bring it into direct conflict with the US and its allies? The more plausible scenario is the opposite, that China will increasingly prepare for a conflict because it sees one being prepared against it.

Germany is undergoing a parallel transformation. The army is expanding, military procurement is accelerating, arms production is being encouraged, and Germany is openly aspiring to a much larger role in EU military security.

The entire project rests upon a single dominant assumption: Russia is preparing to threaten Europe, and Europe must therefore prepare for war with Russia. Every day, the Europeans are being told that Russia intends to attack Germany or conquer Europe. These claims are absurd.

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Israel and the Middle East Convergence

End Times Are Here: Israel and the Middle East Convergence

Video

This analysis covers the convergence of major developments currently unfolding in Jerusalem events. We look at how these actions align with geopolitical tensions throughout the region, offering a clear perspective on the significance of these milestones. For those tracking the intersection of global politics and ancient predictions, this breakdown provides context on why these specific occurrences are drawing worldwide attention.

Germany: Antifa Threatens ANARCHY as Attacks on AfD Mount before Sunday Election

Germany: Antifa Threatens ANARCHY as Attacks on AfD Mount before Sunday Election

Collin McMahon

The German right-wing party Alternative for Germany is set to win the local state elections in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday with their popular young candidate for governor, Ulrich Siegmund. As the leftist parties fear losing control, attacks on AfD candidates mount, and Antifa cells threaten mob violence in the case of an AfD victory.

If the AfD wins the governor’s office in the East German State on Sunday, an Antifa manifesto revealed by Apollo News threatens to “attack the functions of the German state”, declaring the state “part of a fascist government and thus a legitimate target: Prisons, government offices, employment centers, police stations, Army bases, migrant offices…” The screed published on Antifa websites Indymediaand Kontrapolis declares that “fascism is here” and calls for a “Week of Action Sept. 7.-13.”

German authorities take the threat seriously, Apollo News reports, citing a letter from the German train service warning staff to “avoid confrontation” and “report suspicious occurrences.”

A hand grenade attack occurred outside a jeweler’s store near Augsburg train station early Wednesday morning, which could be tied to organized crime, according to press reports. Several other security-related events have unsettled Germany in recent weeks, including presumably left-wing attacks on electrical infrastructure and a mysterious explosives-laden drone at Leipzig airport found near a Ukrainian cargo plane.

Nine people were injured at an AfD campaign stand in the Rhineland-Palatinate town of Bad Kreuznach on Wednesday, reports AfD Bundestag delegate Nicole Höchst, after concentrated chlorine disinfectant was sprayed at them from a window. “Seven people had to be treated by medics. Bad Kreuznach firefighters then cleaned the square and secured the liquid.”

A letter with a mysterious white powder was found at AfD party headquarters in Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, on Monday. Police ruled out immediate danger and are investigating.

Police in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have been investigating threats against AfD politicians, including Saxony-Anhalt front-runner Ulrich Siegmund and Bundestag delegate Martin Reichardt, since August 10, Die Welt reports: “The letter read: “We know absolutely everything about you: your addresses, your contacts, your weaknesses. We know where your children go to school […] We will erase you from the political face of Germany. We will cleanse this country of a disgrace like the AfD […] You will be crushed. None of you will escape responsibility.”

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Tens of thousands flood streets to protest Spain border crisis

Tens of thousands flood streets to protest Spain border crisis

Anders Hagstrom

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Spain to protest the government's handling of a mass crossing of migrants into Spain in July.

Authorities say 50,000 protesters were on the streets in Madrid alone, furious at Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as the migrant crisis in Spain's North African city of Ceuta continues.

Violence continued for hours after the major protests ended, with gunshots and explosions audible throughout the night on Wednesday.

The protesters bore signs reading, "A united Ceuta will never be defeated," "Sánchez to prison," and "Invaders — go home!"

Spain is still dealing with the fallout after over 70,000 foreign migrants surged across its border from neighboring Morocco in late July.

Thousands of those migrants remain in Spanish territory even now.

"What happened to us was not a migratory crisis," Ceuta's regional leader, Juan Jesús Vivas, said Wednesday. "What happened was the violation of Spain's territorial integrity."

The protests came days after Ceuta residents tore down and burned makeshift migrant shelters found in their city.

Demonstrators carrying Spanish flags moved toward beachside migrant camps last week, destroying shelters and setting fires as police attempted to keep protesters and migrants apart, according to Spain’s public broadcaster RTVE and news agency EFE.

Meanwhile, Sanchez has blamed Russia and Israel for amplifying the migrant crisis via social media, saying the July surge across the border was due to a misinterpretation of a Spanish Supreme Court ruling.

Sánchez told radio station SER that research by the European Union’s diplomatic service, the European External Action Service, indicated Russian and Israeli networks had participated in spreading disinformation alongside far-right networks, Reuters reported Aug. 31.

"Without facts, without materials backed up by numbers, dates, names, there is simply nothing to talk about," Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told reporters.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar accused Sánchez of "lying shamelessly," and said in a post on X that the Spanish leader was attempting to divert attention from domestic policy failures

Hidden Beneath The Waves: The New Nuclear Threat From Russia And China

Hidden Beneath The Waves: The New Nuclear Threat From Russia And China

 PNW STAFF

While much of the world is watching drones transform the battlefields of Ukraine and the Middle East, another military revolution is taking place largely out of sight.

It is happening beneath the oceans.

Russia and China are rapidly developing underwater nuclear capabilities designed around one of the most important principles of nuclear warfare: survival. Missiles sitting in fixed silos can be targeted. Air bases can be monitored by satellites. But a nuclear submarine that disappears beneath millions of square miles of ocean presents a completely different problem.

And both Moscow and Beijing are investing heavily in making that problem much more difficult for the United States.

Russia's newest contribution is particularly ominous.

The nuclear-powered submarine Khabarovsk reportedly began sea trials in Russia's White Sea in August. Launched in November 2025, the vessel is the first of a new class specifically designed to carry Russia's Poseidon nuclear-powered underwater weapon. Reports indicate that Khabarovsk could eventually carry as many as six Poseidons.

Poseidon is unlike the ballistic missiles that dominated Cold War nuclear planning. It is essentially an enormous autonomous underwater vehicle powered by its own nuclear reactor and capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

Russian claims surrounding the weapon have often been dramatic and should be treated cautiously, but the concept itself is serious. Instead of sending a warhead through space on a predictable ballistic trajectory, Poseidon is designed to travel enormous distances underwater before approaching its target.

That makes it primarily a weapon of retaliation.

If Russia's land-based missiles, bombers and military installations were devastated during a nuclear exchange, Moscow wants an enemy to know that weapons hidden beneath the ocean could still be coming.

That is why Poseidon has earned the disturbing nickname "doomsday weapon."

China, meanwhile, is pursuing a somewhat more conventional but potentially even more consequential expansion of its underwater nuclear forces.

On July 6, Beijing conducted a rare test of a strategic missile launched from a nuclear-powered submarine toward the Pacific. China said the missile carried a dummy warhead and described the launch as routine training, but the test demonstrated something Washington and its Pacific allies cannot ignore: China's sea-based nuclear deterrent is becoming increasingly capable.

The missile was widely believed to be China's JL-3, although Beijing did not publicly identify it. The JL-3 has an estimated range of roughly 10,000 kilometers, giving Chinese ballistic-missile submarines the ability to threaten portions of the continental United States without traveling nearly as far into the Pacific as earlier Chinese systems required.

China currently operates six Jin-class Type 094 ballistic-missile submarines and has been upgrading them with longer-range JL-3 missiles. Even more important is what comes next: Beijing is developing the quieter Type 096 ballistic-missile submarine while rapidly expanding its broader nuclear-powered submarine fleet.

U.S. naval intelligence warned Congress earlier this year that China's undersea forces could eventually challenge American regional maritime dominance. China's submarine fleet already exceeds 60 vessels, while its shift toward increased production of nuclear-powered submarines represents a significant change from its historical dependence on diesel-electric boats.

Put Russia and China together and the strategic picture becomes considerably more troubling.

For most of the Cold War, American nuclear planning was overwhelmingly focused on one principal nuclear adversary: the Soviet Union. China possessed nuclear weapons, but its arsenal was comparatively small.

That world is disappearing.

China's nuclear stockpile is now estimated at roughly 620 warheads, while Beijing is simultaneously expanding its land-based missiles, submarine-launched weapons and bomber capabilities. Russia already possesses one of the world's two largest nuclear arsenals and is adding unconventional systems such as Poseidon.

The United States therefore faces the increasingly difficult challenge of deterring two major nuclear powers at the same time.

Submarines make that equation especially dangerous because deterrence depends heavily upon knowing what an opponent can do—and where his weapons are located.

A missile silo can be photographed. A bomber base can be watched. Satellite constellations can monitor missile fields and military installations almost continuously.

But somewhere beneath the Pacific, Arctic or Atlantic, a submarine carrying nuclear weapons can simply disappear.

That uncertainty is precisely what makes these vessels so valuable. Even after absorbing a devastating surprise attack, a nation with surviving ballistic-missile submarines retains the ability to retaliate. The enemy can never be certain it has eliminated the threat.

Russia's Poseidon takes that logic another step by attempting to create an entirely different underwater retaliatory system.

Meanwhile, China's expanding submarine fleet forces the United States to devote greater resources to tracking increasingly capable vessels across the vast Pacific at the same time Washington must continue monitoring Russian submarines in the Arctic and Atlantic.

None of this means nuclear war is imminent. In one sense, survivable retaliatory weapons can strengthen deterrence because they make a successful first strike virtually impossible.

But they also reveal where the world's major powers believe the future may be heading.

While headlines concentrate on inexpensive drones, artificial intelligence and hypersonic missiles, Russia and China are spending enormous resources preparing for a far darker possibility.

The most frightening weapons of the next great-power conflict may not be the ones everyone can see crossing the sky.

They may already be silently moving beneath the waves.