Why Japan Has No Military - YouTube

Japan has no military.

What it has, the government insists, are self-defense forces.

Whatever you call them, Japan has $49 billion a year worth — more than all but eight other

countries.

Officially, likewise, Japan is staunchly opposed to any and all nuclear proliferation,

Yet in 2017, it refused to ratify a UN non-proliferation treaty.

It also maintains a curiously large stockpile of plutonium.

And America’s nuclear weapons are a key component of its defense.

Neither, finally, does it build aircraft carriers.

This, clearly, is only a “helicopter destroyer”.

For the last 70 years, the world’s now third-largest economy has waged not a single war, nor fired

a single shot in combat.

In 1977, its Prime Minister labeled the nation’s commitment to peace a “historically unprecedented

experiment”.

In a world where “big country” is synonymous with “big military”, Japan has somehow

remained an almost singular beacon of hope in an alternative.

But, in the face of rising threats from neighboring China, North Korea, and Russia, many would

argue it’s only a matter of time before Japan becomes a, quote, “normal” country.

Indeed, some would say it already has — in everything but name.

The truth, however, is far more complicated.

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Translating an abstract concept like “peace” into the words of a legal document is already

ambitious,

But the idea that an authoritarian, militaristic state could be transformed into a free, democratic,

and peaceful one simply by transplanting an entire value system like Pacifism, is downright

absurd.

Yet that’s exactly what the Americans attempted after Japan’s unconditional World War II

surrender.

As the U.S. beg an writing Japan’s post-war constitution, General Douglas MacArthur made

three initial demands: One of which prohibited the country from ever engaging in war, even

for self-defense.

Its continued existence would depend entirely on the protection of others.

In the end, a slightly more ambiguous phrasing was adopted in the final draft of its Constitution,

known as Article 9:

“the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation … land,

sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.”

Note the omission of the words “self-defense”.

Although the spirit of the constitution remained as originally intended, its letter now left

what would eventually become a $49 billion a year loophole.

Perhaps the only surprise was just how quickly it was exploited.

Less than five years after America hand-wrote Japan’s Pacifist constitution, who pressured

its militarization, but… the Americans!

The peace constitution came into effect in 1947.

In 1949, the Communist Party took control of China.

And in 1950 the Korean War began.

In only a matter of months, Japan went from being seen as an extreme threat that could

only be suppressed with equally strong force, to a valuable asset in the fight against Communism.

When U.S. soldiers were sent to fight in Korea, Japan was left unprotected, leading to the

creation of the 75,000-person National Police Reserve.

Officially, the Police Reserve was not responsible for external security, thus not an army, and,

thus, constitutional.

Equipment left by the U.S. military, like tanks, were labeled with euphemisms like “special

vehicles”.

Two years later, the Police Reserve became the Safe ty Force, which the Prime Minister

insisted still had no “war potential”.

And two years after that it graduated to become the Japanese “Self-Defense Forces”, which

have now survived decades of constitutional challenges.

It would be a mistake, however, to call its armed forces a “normal” military in everything

but name.

While not weak, they are, nevertheless, severely constrained.

They do not, for instance, benefit from conscription, and therefore struggle to fill positions.

Neither can they possess certain offensive weapons such as intercontinental ballistic

missiles.

It’s fair to say Japan has performed all kinds of mental and linguistic gymnastics

in justifying things like its non-“aircraft carrier” aircraft carrier.

But it would be also an exaggeration to say it can acquire any weapon or behave like any

other military.

It may stretch the limits, sometimes rather flagrantly, but there are still limits.

Now, Article 9 could, in theory, be amended.

Changing the constitution requires two-thirds support in both houses of the Diet, its legislative

body, plus a simple majority in a public referendum.

But this has never been accomplished in its entire 74-year existence.

It is, in fact, the world’s oldest unchanged constitution.

The real obstacle is not so much legal as it is cultural.

To understand why, it helps to understand Pacifism not as a value forced upon Japan

by American occupiers, but as a product of the war itself.

While the U.S. may wish to claim responsibility, identifying the real cause is vital to measure

its durability.

Legal documents can change, but framing the issue only as a legal one distracts from the

cultural impediment, which is much harder to change.

Over 3 million Japanese lives were lost in World War II.

20% of all homes were destroyed.

And, of course, it suffered from the only use of nuclear weapons on a human population

in war.

Faced with this immense psychological toll, it’s said that Japanese society developed

several coping mechanisms: First, the need to assign meaning to an otherwise senseless

loss of life.

And second, to preserve one’s sense of innocence, the shifting of all blame onto the institution

of the military.

To resist militarization, in other words, was to recognize and learn from the past,

while relieving oneself of agency — whether justified or not.

In the decades since, Japan also came to associate peace with prosperity.

Its economy swiftly recovered and brought with it a dramatic rise in quality of life.

What keeps these principles alive so many years later is, in large part, education.

The Teacher’s Union, for example, though less prominent than it once was, has resisted

efforts to reform curriculum.

Academia also acts as a strong check against militarization.

In China, the line between academic and military is so often blurred that the American government

can very easily find grounds to reject and sometimes harass nearly any Chinese academic.

Most researchers around the world would have a hard time saying ‘no’ to funding.

In Japan, however, universities explicitly ban “dual-use” grants — civilian technologies

which also have some military application.

This deeply-ingrained skepticism isn’t confined to any single segment of society.

Nearly every student has taken a field trip to one of the country’s 76 peace museums,

which are spread out across 32 prefectures.

Over 74 million people in total have visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum alone.

Regrettably, some museums gloss over Japan’s own actions during the war, and few, if any,

challenge America’s involvement since, but each and every one leaves visitors with a

strong revulsion to war.

When taken together, all these influences create a distinct sentiment among the public.

But it can’t quite be labeled “Pacifism”, and not just because no single ideology can

possibly describe 125 million people.

The word “Pacifism”, by the strictest definition, means a total rejection of violence

— including self-defense.

It also implies a universal and coherent guiding philosophy — yet human beings are complicated.

Some, who argue its defense forces are inadequate for the times, say that while the Japanese

public supports the right to self-defense in theory, they oppose its implementation

in practice.

On one hand, a clear majority — 78% in one poll — say going to war is legitimate when

attacked.

Yet almost no one is willing to do so.

88% of Chinese citizens say they’re willing to fight for their country, 77% of Taiwanese,

67% of South Koreans, but only 13% of Japanese.

The result is a massive divide between the goals of the current Conservative government

and the attitudes of the public at large.

Unable to amend the constitution, the former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo instead relied on

reinterpretation.

The basic argument goes something like this:

Most people believe Japan ought to maintain at least the minimum level of force required

for self-defense.

The question is what that level is.

Conservatives argue that while defense expenditures have been on the rise across East Asia, Japan’s

have remained more or less the same, at about 1% of GDP.

In this view, a stable military budget actually means declining power in the context of adversaries

who are increasing theirs.

They also contend that global expectations have changed.

Failure to prevent violence, wherever it occurs, is no longer perceived as neutrality but tacit

approval, or, at least, shameful inaction.

In policy terms, this means actively maintaining peace, whether in its own neighborhood or

the Middle East.

Abe Shinzo called this “Proactive Pacifism”.

Critics call it not Pacifism, suggesting it represents a wholesale rejection of the Peace

Constitution and marks a new era of militarization.

But it’s important to contextualize these changes.

The proposed constitutional amendment was to explicitly allow the existence of self-defense

forces — something Japan already has.

If the public strongly opposed even that linguistic change, it will almost certainly resist anything

more tangible.

Imagine, for a second, that a concept like “Peace” could be measured on a single

continuum.

If Pacifism were on one side, on the other would be Militarization — when a society

becomes aggressively consumed by the military — think North Korea.

In the middle would be quote “normal” countries — those that proudly possess militaries

and are reasonably willing to use them.

Japan may be trending in one direction, but it has not yet reached even normalcy.

As the Conservative government passes security laws, reinterprets Pacifism, and buys new

equipment, it may seem as though the future is inevitable.

Yet the basic tension remains:

The current government defines Pacifism as a verb — an action, the absence of which

would enable violence, whereas the majority of the public think of it as an adjective

— a neutral state of being, if you will.

Is Proactive Pacifism only a polite, populace-pleasing euphemism for militarization, or is it a modern

update to a 70-year old ideal?

To answer this question, we must finally address the elephant in the room: The U.S. security

guarantee.

In reality, Pacifism is not just a negotiation between politicians and voters — there’s

a third party — the United States Government — and this relationship will determine its

future — next time, in Japan’s Pacifist Paradox.

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