Hi Hasbeen

A dispiriting time for your son. I hope he finds some certainty, a niche, soon.

Our Navy, DMO and/or industry are again over ambitious with 12 large subs. Modern advances mean more automation, meaning smaller crews.

Just 6 medium size conventional subs with crews of less than 40 would mean far less negative impact on the Government's budget and at least 4 could be manned at any one time.

- the HDW 214 just needs 27 all up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_214_submarine

- HDW Dolphin just 35 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin-class_submarine - with smaller crew when the Dolphin's nuclear missile capability is removed.

- Scorpene - 31 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorp%C3%A8ne-class_submarine

- Kockums A26 http://www.saabgroup.com/en/Naval/Kockums-Naval-Solutions/Submarines/Kockums-Next-Generation-Submarine/ would be around 30

All have offered build in Australia and/or overseas. Train overseas and here with far less language-cultural-secrecy-contractual problems.

Less risk than being Japan's first major customer.

Regards

Pete

No country is so much misunderstood as Japan as far as modern history is concerned, particularly when it comes to the World War II. This is a very interesting topic, but of course 350 words is far from enough to tell. Just a few words, since no one will pay me a penny.

Japan invaded China and China did not invade Japan in the modern era. From this people have drawn a lot of mistaken conclusions. China, from its historical experiences, has seen itself as being situated at the centre of the world, having everything excellent that the whold world should learn; she deserves to be the rule-maker. Read if interested, for instance, June Teufel Dreyer/China's Tianxia/YaleGlobal Online/30 Oct. 2014.

Japan, from her history, has thought that bonnie things lie over the ocean, in China until 1867 and in the Occident since 1868. Despite the war of agression, "...the Chinese have never reciprocated the warm feelings of the Japanese, viewing them with distrust and more than a little contempt. The Japanese nostalgia for China is a classic case of unrequited love (Edwin O. Reischauer, The Japanese.)" To be continued.

I do not want this comment to be long. Some tidbits that I hope might surprise you. The exchange of shots that took place on July 7, 1937 developed into a big war between Japan and China in spite of the two countries' will to contain it.
Japan entered into the negotiations with the United States to withdraw from China, though with some imperialistic interests implanted and preserved in Norther China, and to avoid armed hostilities with the United States. Did Nazi Germany start talks with Stalin or President Roosevelt to prevent war? To be continued.

Hitler invaded Russia on June 22, 1941; he had made the decision on July 1940. Japan received a reply, called in Japan the Hull Note,from U.S. Secretary of State Hull on Nov. 26, 1941. It was a total negation and refusal of what the two countries had been discussing in Washington DC. She made the final decision of going to war on Dec. 1, seven days before the Pearl Harbour attack.

Tojo resigned from the posts of prime minister and war minister in July 1044 when Japan lost Saipan, a South Pacific Island. He was simply put on the retired generals' and officers' list. When did Hitler resingn? Was it when Nazi Germany lost the battle in Stalin Grad? Or was it when he lost the battle of Kursk or when the Allied Forces landed on Normandy?

Japan had a new cabinet, the Suzuki cabinet in April 1945. The Americans like Joseph Grew, the last U.S. ambassador to pre-war Japan, knew from the line-up of the minisiters that it was the cabinet to lead Japan to surrender. Tojo said, "This is the end. This is our Badoglio Cabinet (Ben-Ami Shillony, Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan.) When did Nazi Germany have a Badoglio government and Hitler say, "This is the end. This is our Badoglio cabinet?"
He had said instead, "We may be destroyed, but, if we are, we shall drag a world with us--a world in flames (quoted in Frederick Schuman, International Politics.)"

The key note in Japan's foreign policy in modern times was to consider the interests of Great Britain and the United States and make necessary adjustments and compromises with them. Unbelievable? Just read Japanese history in stead of newspapers and weeklies. "The polical values of wartime Japan were part of a wider cultural milieu, in which traditional concepts had already been deeply modified by Westerm attitudes (Ben-Ami Shillony, ibid.)" "Japan would never have entered it (the war) had the armed forces kept out of politics, or, failing this, if the army had been content to allow the Foreign Ministry--its quality was impressive--unimpeded control of the handling of Japan's relations with China and the West in the 1930s (Richard Storry, A History of Modern Japan)."

PS Bernard Roling (Roeling) was a justice,sent from the Netherlands, at the Tokyo International Tribunal. He said that a very small country like Luxembourg would have started war like Japan if dealt with in the same manner. This summer is the seventieth anniversary. Seventy years is somewhat long enough to be emotionally detached and intellectually keep neutral. Apart from talking politically about the political justice or injustice of the tribunal, we could talk about the truth academically.

If a little bit more interested, and I hope some of you will, read Moriyama's comment to www.thediplomat.com/China, Japan, and the 21 Demands. Moriyama is shown by two Chinese characters.

Yes Michi

Japan could have ended the war in China, Southeast Asia, the Western Pacific, Papua-New Guinea and over Darwin and Broome earlier - especially if Japan had not started the war in 1937, then widened it in 1941.

Around 35,000,000 Asians, mainly in China, died in Japan's war of aggression.

The reason I am bringing up this history is that Japanese historians and school-book editors have largely deleted mention of Japanese aggression and murder in World War Two.

In contrast Germans remember their own country's history of aggression and are particularly apologetic about World War Two.

When Japanese tourists come to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra they are amazed about Japanese acts of aggression in World War Two. These tourists know about Hiroshima and the Tokyo raids but basically nothing else. They wonder why Japan advanced all the way south to New Guinea. It is as if they have never been aware of Japanese aggression before. That is because the Japanese Government chooses not to make them aware of it.

Regards