ABSTRACT
The militarization processes affecting Japan in the 1980s arose in a sociopolitical environment still strongly influenced by the policies of demilitarization and democratization implemented by the Allied Occupation Forces immediately after the defeat. In Chapter 2 we saw how the Danwakai sought to lay an intellectual foundation for the Japanese government’s pursuit of a demilitarized policy as part of a new identity for Japan in the emerging cold war, giving life to these twin goals. The war-weary masses supported them overwhelmingly. Under the leadership of the United States, demilitarization had been pushed forward in the immediate years after defeat in four different dimensions: (1) the military, as the armed forces were physically abolished; (2) the political, as the military was banned in the new Constitution and military influence on the policy-making process was eliminated; (3) the economic, as the great arms industry of the zaibatsu (business combines) were dismantled; and (4) the social, as the military and all it stood for were rejected by most at the mass level. The attempts that the Allies made to deracinate militarism thoroughly from Japanese soil were bolstered by the implementation of legal, political, economic, social and other reforms, which also enjoyed popular support. Thereafter, these institutionalized impediments to militarism implanted during the Occupation, along with ‘peace thought’, anti-militaristic mass attitudes and political activities seeking to give life to these ideals, interacted in such a way as to create a mutually reinforcing environment of constraint on the military and its activities. For those forces supportive of an identity for Japan as a ‘normal’ military big power, therefore, breaking out of these constraints and restoring legitimacy to the military as an instrument of state policy has been the task sine qua non.
