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Ahead!
JAPANESE REARMAMENT
The changing geopolitical scene in East Asia may leave Japan no choice: It is rearm or perish!
J
APAN TODAY
faces a sobering
reality.
Japan is Asia' s premier
industrial nation. Its remarkable
postwar economic miracle has
been admired around the world.
The industrious Japanese are
affiucnt- ahead of most Euro–
peans, and not far behind the
United States.
But there is one potentially
fatal flaw. Japan's prosperity
relies on peace. J apan has no
majar natural resources.
It
cannot
feed itself.
It
cannot energize
itself. Japan is starvable. The
nati.on relies on international
trade for its very survival. With-
February 1981
by
Keith W. Stump
out it, Japan's huge industrial
machine would grind to a sudden
halt!
Were J apan to be denied food
and energy- whether through
war or sorne other form of eco–
nomic disruption-the nation
would fac.e the specter of virtual
overnight collapse!
For years the largély pacifist
Japanese public has chosen to
ignore these dire possibilities,
enjoying their growing affiuence
with little thought to protecting
it.
But times have changed. That
ostrich-like inattention to events
swirling around them is coming
to an abrupt end. Japan is begin–
ning to face up to realities.
Soviet Buildup
Defense has been an understand–
ably dirty word in J apan for most
of the 35 years since the end of
World War
11 .
But Japan's strong
postwar pacifist tradition is being
shaken. The onrusb of events is
jarring the Japanese awake, step–
ping up pressures to remilitarize.
The Soviet invasion of Afghan–
istan more than a year ago has
forced the touchy and highly con–
troversial question of Japan's
defense to the forefront of nation–
al attention. Add to this the con-
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