Will Japan Have Two Armies, for the World and the US?

According to the media, in the June 3 joint session between the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan and the New Komeito Party, the Abe administration made a proposal to the effect of changing, or — dare I say — gutting the official interpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, which states that on no account must Japan “integrate” into other countries’ military activity on foreign soil.

To wit, [the Abe administration] made a rash attempt to make it read that combat service support to other countries is constitutional, so long as the supplies (e.g., gasoline, water and food) and the service (e.g., transportation and medical care) of the self-defense forces are not directly employed in combat operations, even if those countries are engaged in warfare (i.e., in combat zones) at that particular moment in time.

However, with all the backlash from the New Komeito Party (though the Liberal Democratic Party’s coalition partner) and the quick reaction from the media, the proposal was revised the next day on June 4, so that the self-defense forces would not be able to engage in any support operations whatsoever in combat zones, and such support would be interrupted the moment any combat flared up.

As a result, the proposal was amended, thereby making it constitutional for the self-defense forces to provide, this time, supplies and service not directly used in battle within noncombat areas.

With this amendment, the self-defense forces could now send manpower (i.e., soldiers) and supplies (such as weapons and ammunition) to the military bases of other countries’ army units, providing them with gasoline, food and water, and taking charge of the medical care of the wounded.

This would put the U.S. and Japan into specific roles in war, the former on the front in combat, the latter in the rear.

Which country are we talking about here? In short, we are being told that, while the self-defense forces and the U.S. military cannot engage in war as one, we can henceforth do that very thing with this role-division stratagem, wherever it might be.

This country might as well have had neither Article 9, nor any constitutional discussion or product thereof, over the last approximately 70 years.

In that sense, we cannot but say that the current administration is sort of “out of whack.”

The proposal just mentioned essentially says that the self-defense forces would become two armies: of the world and of the U.S. This kind of proposal could not be conjured up under any cast of light of the current Article 9, if you ask me.

The fact that this kind of outrage is uttered with sheer brazenness by this administration never ceases to amaze me. And yet no counter is to be seen, either from within the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan itself or the opposition camp, which attests to the stymied state of Japanese politics today. So, for all intents and purposes, it all rests with the levelheaded judgment of the people at this point.

Setsu Kobayashi is a lawyer and professor emeritus of constitutional law at Keio University.