A New Role for Japan’s Military
Japanese people have been divided over whether to revise the Constitution since almost as soon as it was promulgated in 1946. The debate has centered on Article 9, the so-called peace clause. And it has been fundamentally miscast.
Article 9 comprises two paragraphs. In the first, Japan renounces “war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.” This text tracks the language of the Charter of the United Nations, which has been ratified by almost all the countries of the world. In the second paragraph of Article 9, Japan renounces maintaining any “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential.”… Seguir leyendo »