Liberal Japan

On NBR’s Japan forum the issue of modifying Japan’s constitution came up, and this lead to a few posters asserting that Japan is now a peaceful country and therefore having a normal military is not a problem. For them, the idea of Japan getting involved in an aggressive war is simply a silly idea.

In general, there are two choruses of sheep that bleep every time this issue comes up. One bleeps, “Japan is a modern democracy, and the Japanese people are very peaceful. So its only racism or culturism to talk about Japan waging an aggressive war.” Another bleeps, “if given the chance, Japan will quickly militarize and wage war. We’ve seen Japan’s aggressions in the past, so we know it could happen again. Japan has yet to show genuine remorse for its past military aggressions.”

Views like this are often given in the media, where there’s little interest in digging below the surface. However, whether Japan engages in an aggressive war in the future is not something that would be easy to divine. It could happen or not happen depending on a lot of conflicting forces.

Without harping on Japan’s militaristic past, I want to show how genuinely easy it would be for Japan to slip into an aggressive war. Here are three different scenarios which would draw Japan into an aggressive war:

1. This year, relations between America and Iran cool off to tolerable levels. Hillary Clinton, a closet hawk, wins the Presidential election in 2008. Sometime in the next three years, hawkish politicians like Shinzo Abe, manage to change the constitution so that Japan can engage in collective defense. Relations between America and Iran heat up again. President Clinton decides to attack Iran and Japan assists. (The example could be done with Syria or another country of choice.)
2. Japan suffers a devastating terror attack by Islamic fundamentalists. Mood in Japan quickly shifts towards defending the home front and making the world safe for democracy. Not immediately, but eventually countries that had nothing to do with the terror attack face the brunt of retaliation. Think 9/11 and Iraq. By the way, can we be sure that China isn’t unintentionally hosting some Islamic terrorists in a far flung province? If China can’t deal with them, then maybe Japan will have to deal with China.
3. In the future Japan modifies its constitution. The situation heats up between China and America over Taiwan. Neither country wants war. However, both try to exert influence and power by bringing various big ships into the arena. Some kind of flukey mistake happens, a ship captain thinks he’s been attacked even though he hasn’t. Something like that. He retaliates. Suddenly it’s a shooting war. All heck breaks loose. Japan assists America in attacking China despite the fact that Japan hasn’t even been directly attacked.

I recently shared these scenarios with NBR’s Japan forum. William Stonehill in a separate but related discussion gave his own harrowing example of Japan getting involved in an aggressive war:

Let me give one possible scenario of things getting out of hand: Japan and
Korea are wrangling (as usual) about Taekdo (Takeshima) and the contiguous
EEZ. The Koreans start carrying out an oceanographic survey of the
contentious EEZ, and their ship is arrested by the Japanese Coast Guard.
The South Koreans send their Navy and take back their ship. Japan
retaliates with a “punishment” air attack against a South Korean Navy
facility in Pusan, and before they know it, South Korea and Japan are in a
shooting war.

Would anyone care to add their own possible example? Or is there anyone reading this who would like to insist that Japan could never become involved in an aggressive war?

Finally, two points I’d like to make in relation to this issue would be:

• It is never useful to focus on the mood of any country and then determine what laws are appropriate for its use of the military. Instead, the focus should always be on making sure the military is under the thumbs of the civilian government. This is far from an easy matter, but it should be the primary consideration when formulating laws and constitutions. A constitution that forbids aggressive actions overseas could be, albeit debatably, a good idea.
• While I do think I often see troubling romantic and militaristic rumblings from the very influential right in Japan, much more attention needs to be drawn to the current and active militarism in America. At this point, it’s nearly hypocritical for Americans to criticize Japan for latent militarism unless they first make it clear that they are aware of militarism in their own country. I’ve written previously about this.