Japan, Victim of Obama's Pivot to Asia?

Dear Mr. President,

An article in today’s NYT (“Japan Shifting Further Away From Pacifism”) describes the shift from a country that held its military in check for 65 years to one expanding its power and role. In February, 280 Japanese troops participated in war games with U.S. Marines on San Clemente Island, This is a radical change since their Constitution—in effect since 1947—renounces the right to wage war and restricts the military to act only in self-defense. By law it is illegal for Japan to come to the aid of an ally—e.g., they can’t shoot down a North Korean missile headed for the U.S. But their new conservative Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, wants to change that. He wants to rewrite the Constitution and eliminate restrictions on the military, unthinkable a few years ago but with China claiming those uninhabited islands offshore and North Korea rattling their nuclear warheads, people are afraid and want security. Adding to the shift in attitude, after the Fukushima earthquake, the military rescued survivors and were the heroes of that disaster. Abe has already increased Japan’s 2013 military budget by $1.4 billion, the first increase in 11 years. The Defense Ministry plans to buy F-35 jet fighters (hooray Lockheed! if they can just get them to fly), Boeing V-22 Ospreys (Hooray Boeing!), some Global Hawk drones (Hooray Northrop Grumman!), new patrol planes, amphibious landing craft, an attack submarine and other weapons of destruction. A January 7 Times article, “Japan Is Weighing Raising Military Spending” said that as of last year Japan had the world’s 6^th-largest military budget ($53.3 billion) and one of the largest militaries in Asia. That was a surprise. How did a nation so anti-military and pro-peace end up with the 6^th largest military budget in the world? Was it just the threats of China and North Korea and the new perception of their military as heroes? Did your pivot to Asia and some behind-the-scenes deal have anything to with it? Or has Japan lost the lessons learned by previous generations—that all wars are dumb and leave only misery and death in their wake. For 68 years they lived with the scars of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with their land decimated and 3 million dead in senseless slaughter promoted by politicians and warmongers. But even if memory dims and hard-learned lessons are lost, the brutal facts of war remain—it is the most vile act of humanity; there is no such thing as a just or smart or necessary war. In spite of what you think.