The €œgrowing threat€ of North Korea may be the present justification for that policy, but getting
Japan to ditch its pacifist constitution so that they can €œdo their part€ in assisting in America’s
various international adventures has been a goal of American foreign policy for many years. In 2000, a
bipartisan study group featuring such well-placed neocons as Richard Armitage and Paul Wolfowitz issued
a report that called the Japanese policy a ‘constraint’ on their alliance and urged a model similar
to US-Britain alliance for broadening Japanese involvement in global military operations.
Yohei Kono, the Speaker of the Japanese Parliament says he takes pride in the fact that the Japanese
troops haven’t killed a single person in the 60 years since that constitution has been in place.
Between that and turning a country devastated by war into the second largest economy on the planet, one
can’t help but wonder why there is such haste amongst policymakers, and indeed, why there would be any
support at all from the population at large for such a major change. Hasn’t peace served Japan well
enough since then? Hasn’t war after war proven enough of a disaster for the nations that have gone
down that road since then?
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