Why don't they [the Japanese] boot the US off the goddam island and get their own military?
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As others have posted, Japan does indeed have a substantial military; the Boeichio or Self Defense Force.
Homepage (as surprisingly amateurish in appearance as some US military sites)-
<http://www.jda.go.jp/e/index_.htm>
General Info -
<http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/japan/jda.htm>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Self-Defense_Forces>
...
Chris Doss:
How did this civilization with a rich, independent history -- a WARRIOR, IMPERIAL civilization no less -- become so subservient to the US?
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Warrior and imperial civilization notwithstanding, the Japan of 1945 was in, to say the least, an extraordinarily bad spot. The strategies of the "strike south" group --
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Strike_South%22_Group>
-- failed completely and now, at the end of decades of aggression, Nippon herself, seat of the Chrysanthemum Throne, divine descendant of Amaterasu was directly under threat from foreign invaders.
A nation that, only weeks before surrender documents were formally signed onboard the USS Missouri, had been preparing for "gyokusai", the shattering of 'human jewels' against the enemy, now found itself exhausted, defeated and dominated.
This is a slice of the psychological backdrop; of course, there were other, less melodramatic, more earthbound elements too.
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The geopolitical and economic components of American domination of Japan are well documented. Key factors include the US' strategic decision to use Japan as a forward operating base in the Pacific during the cold war, the Japanese surfing of this relationship to economic power via wide open access to the American market and the former MITI's
<http://www.fas.org/irp/world/japan/miti.htm>
deft organization of the economy for ever more sophisticated export-based development during the growth period.
In short, US dominance served both Japanese and American elite interests for many years.
But, with each passing day, this is less and less true. The challenge now for Japan is to engineer a new internal economic and political organization and forge more realistic, less American mediated relationships with her neighbors.
.d.