The postwar constitution of Japan is often referred to as a “peace constitution.” Conservatives and liberals in Japan largely agree that the constitution’s Article 9, which reads in its entirety as below, has kept Japan out of war, preserving, for better or for worse, a postwar Japan in a state of perpetual pacifism.
Chapter II. Renunciation of War
Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.
(Note that Article 9 forms the entirety of Chapter II of the constitution.)
The decrepit Liberal Democratic Party, formed and funded by Washington as a conduit for American power, has long led the charge to amend Article 9. (This is ironic, given that the LDP’s American masters wrote the constitution that the LDP has proven impotent to amend.) LDP politicians portray their calls to erase or revise Article 9 as an act of patriotism, a way to get free of Washington’s yoke and finally achieve independence. This is a ruse, however. The LDP, and its legions of faux-conservative defenders, is a Vichy regime. It serves the occupier, not the occupied. The real reason the LDP wants to amend Article 9 is that by doing so Japan will be freer to send troops abroad at Washington’s bidding, allowing Japan to work more closely with Washington’s war machine.
The LDP’s pathetic conundrum–revise Article 9 to win freedom, although revising Article 9 will only push Japan deeper into Washington’s arms–helps explain why the LDP’s cheap constitutional-revision political theater is a lie. It gives away another important secret, too: the notion of a pacifist postwar Japan is a false one. Japan is arguably the second most belligerent nation in the postwar, second only to its imperial overlord, the United States.
“Pacifist” Japan has played a key supporting role in the expansion and maintenance of Washington’s empire. Japan pretends to be peace-loving, and indeed has no military of which to speak (although its Self-Defense Forces are some of the best-equipped in the world, thanks largely to military sales forced on Tokyo by Washington at enormous Japanese taxpayer expense). However, without Japan, Washington would be without a home base in the western Pacific, and therefore virtually powerless in this region and badly hobbled elsewhere. Imagine a Washington without Japan as its fifty-first state and it will be clear that Japan has been an indispensable element in Washington’s rampages in Asia and beyond. Japan is not pacifist. It is passive-ist. It sits back and pretends, preciously, to be peaceful. In reality, it is anything but.
Without Japan, there would have been no Washington onslaught against the peoples of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, or the Korean peninsula. Without Japan’s imperial tent-staking, Washington would have been much less free to pursue genocide against the peoples of Iraq, and to support smaller-scale mass killings against the peoples of Syria, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Serbia, and many other places. Washington’s prospective wars against Iran and the People’s Republic of China would also be unthinkable without Japan acting as cheerleader, funder, arms buyer and proxy arms dealer, apologist, and general lapdog for Washington.
None of this adds up to pacifism in any way. It is passive-ism, the shy, backstage version of Washington cheerleading and active imperial cooperation displayed by overt Washington lackeys such as the United Kingdom and Canada. (Although, to be fair, there are many lackeys in Japan who seek to surpass the British and Canadians in slavish devotion to the Deep State.)
With the concept of passive-ism delineated, it becomes possible to see that Japan is not the only practitioner of this diversionary tactic and long-term strategy. Germany has spent the postwar in virtually the same situation as Japan. Postwar Germany, especially the part that used to be called West Germany, was and remains a hotbed of passive-ism. Many Germans have been ostentatiously anti-war, vowing never to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s and 40s while solemnly intoning for world peace. At the same time, postwar Germany has been host to more than two hundred American military installations. Today, Germany is stirring from passive-ism to active bellicosity, and belligerency, in support of another of Washington’s proxies, NATO. (Japan, too, is courting NATO, and vice versa, passive-ism and proxy-ism layering and re-layering in a geopolitical pas de deux of Washington cutouts.)
It is no coincidence that both Germany and Japan are under double containment paradigms. Pretending to be protected by Washington is simply a brave face put on postwar neutering. Neither Germany nor Japan have been allowed to re-arm to a level approaching what it would take to challenge American power, which in turn justifies the perennial hosting of American bases. And this, in turn, allows Washington to build out its empire ever further over the face of the planet. This is how passive-ism works. It is what has defined Germany and Japan since 1945.
The people of Japan, and of Germany, appear to be getting wise to the passive-ism ruse, and are demanding an end to it. Populist movements are gaining momentum in both countries. The only question is, will the Japanese and German peoples be able to rid themselves of Washington and of the in-country traitors who have done Washington’s bidding these eight decades, or will Washington press passive-ism to its natural conclusion and bring war directly to Germany and Japan again before either can get free?
Featured: Japan Air Lines poster (1950).
