ABSTRACT
In supervising the founding of the Police Reserve, the occupation authority devised and laid down a system of civilian control that was very different from that in the US Department of Defense. To put the American system simply, there are two parallel hierarchies, one made up of the armed services and the other of civilian administrators in the Defense Department. With the major opposition party bent on abolishing the military altogether, the Diet became the arena of sterile dispute on the legality of armed forces. The difficulty with civilian control since 1945 has rather been that the concept was interpreted in an excessively antimilitary fashion. The joint efforts of Douglas MacArthur and Yoshida have left a lasting legacy to the institutions of the Japanese military. With the major opposition party bent on abolishing the military altogether, the Diet became the arena of sterile dispute on the legality of armed forces.
