For 50 years, Japan has struggled to reconcile the pacifist principles enshrined in its Constitution with the ambition to play a major role in maintaining stability in the Far East.

New Dawn for the Army. The political need to be recognized as a trustworthy ally of the United States has compelled Japan toward a redefinition of the scope of its Self-Defense Forces, the military structure currently authorized to be employed only in case of a direct or indirect threat to national security. The post-9/11 era has entailed the use of Japanese soldiers in peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Cambodia, Uganda, and for the first time in the Iraq War. The specter of atomic war from North Korea and the passage from Koizumi to Abe as Japan’s chief of state has led to a shift toward militarism. Just last week, Japan announced the establishment of a Defense Department, fifty years after the end of the Second World War. The decisive acceleration for the passage away from the Self-Defense Agency, a paramilitary organization controlled by civilians, began with the launching of ballistic missiles and nuclear tests conducted by Pyongyang.

World’s Fourth Largest Army. Although a ‘pacifist state” whose Constitution repudiates war and prohibits armed forces, 90 percent of Japan’s Congress supported the resolution to establish a new Department of Defense. Elevating the stature of the Self-Defense Agency is only the first of a series of steps planned by Premier Shinzo Abe to raise the strategic and political stature of Japan to a level considered appropriate for a nation that is still the world’s second greatest economic power. With this reform, sending Japanese troops abroad for military missions will assume much greater importance. Plans are also underway for the creation of a secret services agency modeled on the American CIA. Despite the restrictions imposed by the Constitution, Japan’s military services are one of the most modern and best-equipped armies in the world, featuring state-of-the-art technologies, and they regularly conduct joint exercises with the US armed forces (50,000 US forces are stationed throughout the Japanese archipelago). Japan may not posses offensive weapons such as intercontinental missiles, nuclear weapons, or fighter-bombers. Nor can Japanese troops participate in combat, and they may carry only light weaponry, which they are to use only when their lives are threatened. Opposition to the militarist shift has been less pronounced than in the past, and the new world order imposed by American might has cast a shadow over the nation’s tradition of radical pacifism. Shinzo Abe makes no effort to deny that the article in the Constitution that repudiates war may be subject to change in the future.

New Recruiting Campaigns Sprout on TV. One of the most recent, aimed at attracting young Japanese to enroll in the Navy, has provoked loud criticism for its awkward attempt to make the army appear as non-aggressive as possible. The spot shows sailors who appear to be in their teens as they stage a ballet in white costumes on the bridge of an aircraft carrier, singing, “Join the Navy, Join the Navy, for Love of Country, Join the Navy!” Critics observe that it looks more like a Village People video than the expression of a nation that promulgated warrior culture and sacrifice to the fatherland during the Second World War. Despite the fact that none of its 400,000 soldiers are allowed to wear their uniforms in public, and although its armored cars are called by the euphemism “special vehicles,” and although neither the words “army” or “military” are ever used when referring to the Self-Defense Forces, Japan has the fourth largest military budget in the world, spending 46 million euro a year. Behind Russia, China, and, of course, the United States.