By Yukari Easton
“Only in Japan is unilateral pacifism considered by so many to be viable national policy.”
A month after Japan’s new security bill passed into law, the gulf between supporters and opponents remains wide. To its supporters, in a world of new threats, the bill represents a necessary new chapter in Japan’s 70-year process of postwar normalization; a proportionate and responsible shouldering of the global security overhead that advanced nations are obliged to share. Opposition voices, however, remain angry and loud. In an effort to overthrow the bill, the Japan Communist Party has even proposed an extraordinary partnership with the Democratic Party of Japan to create a single issue unified national coalition. Those who stand in opposition to the legislation, including a sizable swath of the Japanese public, identify a recidivistic, revanchist and militaristic “war bill.” How can a seemingly straightforward initiative create such divide and outrage?
The bill does introduce a new norm for modern Japan: It permits the practice of collective self-defense. This incensed the opposition, which now talks of imminent war and conscription. Outside of Japan, however, the concept of security synergy (i.e., that the sum of the military parts of nations in concert adds up to more than the constituent elements) is neither original nor controversial. The idea that allies looking out for each other are stronger than nations with shared values working alone is indeed an internationally recognized prerogative of nations and forms the core of Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Constitution (in which an attack on one NATO member is seen as an attack on all). In the case of Japan the statute is, in fact, much more restrictive than in the case of NATO; the nation may only come to the aid of an ally overseas, using the minimum force necessary, when Japan itself faces an existential threat.
The opposition in Japan, however, sees things differently. Notwithstanding that the nation has long enjoyed the postwar benefits of international trade, many are incapable of entertaining the concepts of mutuality and multilateralism when it comes to security matters. To this sizable constituency, isolationism and pacifism appear to offer a safer, if not the only safe option, with any form of defense cooperation deemed to be inherently militaristic. Why, in Japan, is pacifism seen by so many as the only moral choice?
Read the full story at The Diplomat