Korea was caught in the conflict among China, Russia, and Japan as each sought to make it a colony. Other powers, like Britain,
France, and the United States also were involved. Korea, which was just emerging from its self-imposed isolation, faced the rival ambitions of these countries.
That's not how it happened. What happened was the "winner's curse".
Japan basically "surrendered" without a fight when the US fleet led by Commodore Perry who opened Japan by force in 1853. After signing the unequal treaty, Japanese learned of their limitations and began to modernize aggressive, eventually becoming an empire. Japan lost the battle, but won the war.
Korea on the other hand battled and repelled the French and American invasions in 1866 and 1871, which emboldened the Korean court into a false belief that they did not need to modernize and the delayed modernizatio eventually doomed the country. Korea won the battle, but lost the war.
Fast forward to 1997, Korea is financial bankrupt and asks for an IMF bailout. During this humiliating time, Koreans realized the shortcomings of their own system and began a financial reform during which the Korean financial and corporate structure departed the Japanese system and adopted the American and European systems, a change forced upon desperate Korean corporations by directors from Goldman Sachs the likes.These reforms of late 90s greatly boosted the competitiveness of Korea Corporations and turned them into world beaters that rule today. Korea lost the battle, but won the war.
Japan of 2012 never had a financial crisis since the boom time, and nothing changed accordingly. The Japanese government is drowning in a 220% debt, while Japanese corporations are bleeding tens of billions of dollars in losses each and are losing market shares everywhere, and the industrial titans of yesteryears are going bankrupt one by one. There is no hope of getting out of this vicious 20 year depression cycle and put Japan back on the path of a strong growth again. The situation is so desperate that leading Japanese economists wish Japan would default on foreign debt and be forced to go to IMF in order to force a reform, but that won't happen either. Japan won the battle, but lost the war.
So the lesson of story is that whoever wins today may come to regret that victory tomorrow. The key to success is not forgetting history in order to not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Shipyards are full with orders.
Two will be built in Korea, Six in India under the supervision of Korean engineers.
An American exit of SK, means South Korea will rapidly turn to nuclear weapons, and attempt to attain a strategic equilibrium against China, the same way, Pakistan has attained against India.
No nuke is needed, just more conventional force. More fighter jets, more warships, more training. Quality over Quantity.
no, that won't happen. in that situation, China notwithstanding, even Japan will conduct a surgical attack to end South Korea, or North Korea's nuclear dream. I am telling you with 100 pct guarantee.
Japan would not risk a war, they too would go nuclear.
Actually Japanese MoD did run a war scenario study on a hypothetical war against Korea, not over nukes but over the Liancourt Rocks, and the outcome was negative. Even if Japan takes the Liancourt Rocks, Koreans would take Tsushima; and there is no way of getting Tsushima back(Japan has no marines and no landing capability).