Japan doesn't get a Pacifist Constitution

What if the Japanese constitution after World War II allowed it to have a military? Like Germany, America would allow this. How would the world be different if this happened? Would Japan still have an alliance with the US and if so, what wars would it get itself involved in: Vietnam? Afghanistan? Iraq?
 
What if the Japanese constitution after World War II allowed it to have a military? Like Germany, America would allow this. How would the world be different if this happened? Would Japan still have an alliance with the US and if so, what wars would it get itself involved in: Vietnam? Afghanistan? Iraq?

You'd need a good reason for the US to allow Japan a formal military (as opposed to the Self-Defense Force that's a military in all but name). Unlike Germany, Japan isn't on the Cold War front line to nearly the same extent.

Some possible PODs... A united communist Korea might be enough. Or a divided Japan, with the Soviets creating a communist Japanese state in Hokkaido, the Kurils and Sakhalin.

For Japan to redevelop a true military, it needs to be on or close to a Cold War fault line, and important to US security or containment policy. Otherwise there's just no way to justify it to Asian allies or Japan-skeptics in the US.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Maybe they'll get a carrier...they've gotten that helicopter assault ship, and that was under the constitution they've got now. I don't think they call it that, though. One of those legal things...


...though for all I know they could do what the Soviets did and call their carriers "aircraft-carrying cruisers," or go the British route with "through-deck cruisers."

The British did it for funding reasons, but the Soviets did it because of legal restrictions involving which ships could and could not transit the Bosphorus.
 
You'd need a good reason for the US to allow Japan a formal military (as opposed to the Self-Defense Force that's a military in all but name). Unlike Germany, Japan isn't on the Cold War front line to nearly the same extent.

Some possible PODs... A united communist Korea might be enough. Or a divided Japan, with the Soviets creating a communist Japanese state in Hokkaido, the Kurils and Sakhalin.

For Japan to redevelop a true military, it needs to be on or close to a Cold War fault line, and important to US security or containment policy. Otherwise there's just no way to justify it to Asian allies or Japan-skeptics in the US.
Ah but the US wanted Japan to strip Article 9 from its constitution and rearm during the Reverse Course of 1947-51. Only a lot of politiking from Yoshida kept the US from having their way. So just have the POD be that Yoshida is replaced by basically any other conservative (Kishi, for example) and you get a rearmed Japan.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
To get Article 9 out of the new Constitution you have to get the JAPANESE people to see any reason to return to an active military role. Since the active role had killed around 5 million Japanese citizens, caused mass starvation, the utter destruction of nearly every urban area in the country, and bankrupted the nation to the point that it was entirely reliant on its former enemies for food, fuel and capital, that is going to be one hell of a hard sell.

If there existed any country on Earth in 1945 that had a driving national interest in forswearing war as a national option it was Japan.
 
Didn't a recent PM try to get rid of that only a few years ago? I seem to remember that was one of the things he ran on
 
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