DEC 7th Update: Japan's Navy in top 5 in the World.... Japanese Marines

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Kuehn is not alone among analysts who rate Japan's navy, known as the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, among the top five navies in the world.

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"The United States and Japan are the two closest military powers in the world today. They're even closer than the US and UK," Mizokami said in an email to CNN.

"They train together on a daily basis, and there are major military exercises in air, land and sea on almost a weekly basis," Mizokami said.

Kuehn said the presence of US technology like the ship-based Aegis anti-missile system, which can shoot down ballistic missiles, in Japan's fleet makes it a force hard to counter.

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Besides strong naval and air weaponry, Japan is making moves to improve its position in other areas, Mizokami said.

Foremost among those is amphibious operations, a form of warfare Japan invented with its storming ashore to conquer Pacific islands in the months after the Pearl Harbor attack, Mizokami said.

In fact, Japan in November completed a large exercise with US forces in the Northern Mariana Islands practicing just that.

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Amphibious landings figure in to what Japan sees as its biggest security issues: Its competing claims with China over islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyus in China. China pressed its claim to the islands in 2012 after Tokyo brought them under public ownership.

"I think it shocked Japan that (China) was willing to allow relations to deteriorate just to push its claim to a few small islands," Mizokami said.

Tokyo is developing an "amphibious rapid deployment brigade" of 3,000 troops, according the US Congressional Research Service.

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