在IA版看到有人提英日同盟本以為她在豪小每想到歐洲戰略智庫真有學者提出這種構想 礙於是新人無法在IA發言先在這理轉PO SORRY~~ http://ppt.cc/Opk6 Britain and Japan: two islands at the centre of world power? Typhoon Haiyan – which recently befouled the Philippines – has enabled the United Kingdom (UK) to demonstrate once again its continuing global military reach. Although the UK’s relief effort has been motivated primarily by altruism, it has also provided another opportunity for the British government to reconfirm its long-standing commitment to South-East Asia and build trust with its Indo-Pacific allies. Indeed, distracted as they have been with the United States’ (US) own ‘pivot’ or ‘rebalancing’ to East Asia, many analysts have overlooked the fact that the UK is also now placing a greater emphasis on the region. One example of this is HMS Daring’s tour of East Asia – today, the vessel docked in Tokyo, having been very active in the Pacific for the past few months. This ability to project naval power shows that – uniquely among European countries – the UK has the capabilities needed to play an active role in the Indo-Pacific’s emerging strategic order. While France has some reach into the Indian Ocean, only the UK has the strategic means to push as far as South-East Asia and the Pacific Ocean. The UK’s ‘strategic array’ of military installations – from air stations like Akrotiri, to naval facilities like Diego Garcia and Sembawang, as well as army garrisons like those in Brunei – which hang around southern Eurasia like a necklace, give the British a unique ‘power extension’ capability. This array can also be utilised to project force and to provide relief after natural disasters. Other than France and the US, the UK is the only non-Asian country with overseas military installations in the Indo-Pacific. And as Julian Lindley-French and the anonymous author Sir Humphrey have both pointed out – for all the negative portrayals in recent years by the media of the Royal Navy’s seeming decline – British naval power is actually being enhanced. Approximately 500,000 tonnes of modern warships and auxiliaries will have been built or ordered between 2000 and 2020 for the Naval Service – roughly the same as the gross tonnage of all the French and German navies’ main combatants combined. These new vessels will furnish the UK with a highly advanced and mobile fleet, centred around two giant aircraft carriers – HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales – each likely to be equipped with an onboard suite of Lightning II strike-fighters and various attack and reconnaissance helicopters. Likewise, the Astute class nuclear attack submarines, the last of which will soon be completed, will provide the UK with the means to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles, making it the only other country bar the United States (US) with the ability to do so. The now-complete Type 45 class destroyers will protect the carriers with a world-beating air-defence system, while the future Type 26 Global Combat Ships will give them a brand new generation of anti-submarine warfare escorts. It is perhaps in this sense that London seems particularly keen to foster a closer relationship with Tokyo. Japan is in many ways a mirror of the UK. As Philip Shetler Jones points out, the two countries are populous island states with constitutional monarchies. Both also have highly advanced economies founded on international trade and overseas investment. Moreover, both, in one way or another, are natural maritime powers, defended as they are on all flanks by the sea. And given that each sits just a stone’s throw away from a continental mainland, both the UK and Japan must be ready to engage – sometimes assertively – with their surrounding geopolitical environments. This gives both countries a preponderant position in respect to Europe and Asia – amplified further by their special relationships with the United States. As Nicholas Spykman realised during the 1940s, US power could only maintain an effective balance of power in Eurasia with the active consent and participation of the UK and Japan – and never against it (of course, he also realised that the same holds true in reverse). Like the UK, Japan is also in the midst of – not so much a new militarism or naval re-armament programme – but a significant naval reconfiguration. While the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force’s number of ships is not increasing, their size and capability certainly is. Japan is currently bringing online two new generations of what it describes conservatively as ‘helicopter carrying destroyers’ – the Hyuga and Izumo classes – which are larger than some other countries’ aircraft carriers. Equally, Japan’s destroyers are among the world’s most capable and sophisticated and – with over forty of them – it has more than the British, French and Dutch fleets put together. According to Alessio Patalano, Japan therefore has ‘no choice’ but to continue to develop into the UK of the Far East. Most significantly, while London is courting Tokyo, the Japanese also seem keen to foster much closer relations with the British. In 2013 – the four-hundredth anniversary of British-Japanese relations – London and Tokyo signed a new security and defence treaty. Equally, prior to becoming prime minister, Shinzo Abe stated his desire to see Japan join the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA), a security alliance set up in the 1970s between Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the UK to uphold security in South-East Asia. To retain and even regenerate Britain’s – and by extension, the European Union’s (EU) – strategic relevance, London should now consider doing two things: firstly, it should bolster the UK’s ‘passive ’ military power in the region by setting-up a standing – but adaptable – naval squadron, operating out of the British maritime facility in Singapore (or even from Darwin in Australia); and secondly, but perhaps more importantly, it should begin negotiations to incorporate Japan into the FPDA. Not only would this double movement represent a visible reconfirmation of the UK’s commitment to South-East Asia, but it would also make sound strategic sense. After all, this ‘Asian Mediterranean’ is the equidistant meeting point between British and Japanese power, as well as the vectors of Australian and US power. With China’s rising assertiveness and unknown intentions, South-East Asia could well become to the twenty-first century as Central Europe was to the twentieth (albeit in a maritime guise) – that is to say, the fulcrum of global geopolitics. Thus, by militarily reinforcing and expanding the FPDA, the UK (and the EU) – although distant – could help to tie a highly resistant geostrategic knot at the heart of South-East Asia, supported also by Japan and Australia and potentially even the US and India. This would enhance British and European influence in the Indo-Pacific, help support smaller regional powers and contribute to a lasting peace. 跟我在德國外交政策網站看到的差不多 總之大概念就是歐洲軍團要重新走出去由皇家海軍在印度的基地做支點 在跟新加坡 南韓 日本澳洲這些國家配合~~ --

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