As Japan rethinks its pacifist approach, the United States needs to step up.
So declares Article V of the Japan-U. S. Security treaty, which may be facing its most important test as North Korea ramps up threats against both the United States and Japan, and tests the latter’s resolve by lobbying missiles off its coast.
These events come as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gains public support for revising Japan’s Constitution to explicitly allow for it to engage in military conflict.
Passed in 1947, Article 9 of the document states:
Subsequent interpretations have allowed for Japan to maintain what is effectively a military force, known as the Self Defense Forces (SDF) but their activity has been limited to purely defensive measures. Although public opposition to changing Japan’s essentially pacifist constitution to allow for the nation to have a “normal” military still hovers at 55% , on my most recent trip I have noticed a softening of that opposition as more and more ordinary Japanese begin to rethink their traditional Post-War pacifism.
I was struck in particular by two conversations I had with working class Japanese, a plumber and a real estate agent, both who had come to the conclusion that a constitutional revision was needed to face the growing and ominous North Korean threat.
While some have derided the Constitution as one “imposed” on Japan by General Douglas MacArthur and the United States, in reality it is a document that reflects the character and nature of the Japanese people for whom “wa” or getting along in harmony with one another is one of the highest virtues of all.
If Japanese are rethinking their pacifist posture, it is purely out of necessity and because of the United States unwillingness and/or inability to take the North Korean threat seriously. The Clinton administration’s waffling as North Korea began to abrogate treaties designed to curtail its nuclear ambitions combined with the Bush administration’s laser-like focus on the Middle East and the Obama administration’s benign neglect of the region has left President Donald Trump and his administration with a mess on its hands.
