Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that 90 percent of the Japanese population respects the military as he pushes to expand it and change the country’s constitution to get rid of its post-WWII pacifist requirements.
“Ninety percent of the population now treats the Self-Defense Force (SDF) with respect,” Abe said during a military-themed event on Sunday. “ You have gained public trust with your hands.”
Speaking in front of about 4,000 servicemen at a military training center in Saitama Prefecture, the prime minister stated it is now up to politicians to create “an environment” for SDF to carry out its duties “with a sense of pride.”
SDF functions as Japan’s de facto national army. It is considered one of the most advanced and best equipped military structures in the world, and ranks 8th in terms of its budget size.
Abe was re-elected in a landslide for the third term as the head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party last month, and is poised to fulfill the party’s long-time pledge to explicitly entrench the role of the army into Japan’s largely pacifist constitution.
