A source within Japan's prime minister's office said Thursday that the country needs nuclear weapons, remarks that deviate from the country's long-standing non-nuclear principles and could trigger backlash at home and abroad.
Japan has been allowed a self-defense force. What that force can consist of/have/do has been quite restricted. They’ve built a lot of stuff that they probably technically aren’t allowed to but have said “oh, that’s not a ThingWeCannotHave but a SimlarButAllowedOrReducedThing”. Recent rumblings have been about what constitutes self defense, which some wanting to include attacks on Taiwan, cyber warfare, pre-emptive strikes, and other stuff.
Then there are the factions that want to strip out the article of the constitution about self-defense-forces-only entirely. Unless I missed it, this has yet to be done.
As for nuclear weapons, I don’t actually know if that’s covered anywhere in the constitution or self-imposed. We’re only recently getting to the point that there aren’t really any survivors left, but their kids are still around and many fight against having it. As the US becomes a less-reliable ally, I see this resistance falling. Tension has always been high, particularly in Okinawa which always get shafted, between the US forces and civilians and I suspect it will continue to increase.
Not exactly, or at least not insofaras repealing article 9 (I think is the one). Japan has done a lot of “this isn’t what it looks like and you can’t prove it’s not what we say it is” as a strategy for building things they probably “shouldn’t”.
I thought Japan could never have an army again after WW2, never mind nukes??
Japan has been allowed a self-defense force. What that force can consist of/have/do has been quite restricted. They’ve built a lot of stuff that they probably technically aren’t allowed to but have said “oh, that’s not a ThingWeCannotHave but a SimlarButAllowedOrReducedThing”. Recent rumblings have been about what constitutes self defense, which some wanting to include attacks on Taiwan, cyber warfare, pre-emptive strikes, and other stuff.
Then there are the factions that want to strip out the article of the constitution about self-defense-forces-only entirely. Unless I missed it, this has yet to be done.
As for nuclear weapons, I don’t actually know if that’s covered anywhere in the constitution or self-imposed. We’re only recently getting to the point that there aren’t really any survivors left, but their kids are still around and many fight against having it. As the US becomes a less-reliable ally, I see this resistance falling. Tension has always been high, particularly in Okinawa which always get shafted, between the US forces and civilians and I suspect it will continue to increase.
~ Dude living in Japan for a bit over a decade.
It’s been 80 years. Now USA is a bigger threat than japan.
Rules don’t seem to apply anymore, so fuck it
They had restrictions on their military, which were recently (in the last decade or so) lifted.
Not exactly, or at least not insofaras repealing article 9 (I think is the one). Japan has done a lot of “this isn’t what it looks like and you can’t prove it’s not what we say it is” as a strategy for building things they probably “shouldn’t”.