Significance of the Military in Post-War Japan

Abstract

Military elements in Japan reached their all-time nadir in August I945. For some years thereafter they continued in the doldrums, but, beginning in ig5o, the new rearmament policy of the Occupation and the general Reverse Course policy in Japan produced a climate that encouraged some of the former professional military to engage once more in organized activity. Not only could many of them join the new armed forces, but they were able to participate with a certain degree of success in national elections and also to form various ex-officer and ex-servicemen's associations. It should, however, be emphasized that although the position of the former professional military has greatly improved since the years immediately following the war, the militarists themselves have, so far at least, failed in all their attempts to influence the Japanese Government in its defence plans: they have not had the slightest eflect on the actual evolution of the Self-Defence Forces, which have developed quietly and almost without deviation along the lines laid down by the American Military Assistance Group towards the target of a very modest degree of rearmament. The following article, which examines some of the more significant aspects of the partial rehabilitation of the military in post-war Japan, is based on one chapter of a book on post-war Japan being prepared by the writer under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Agfairs, London. The sections included here are concerned mainly with interpretation, rather than with a factual account.