Why Germany And Japan Are Expanding Their Militaries

Japan and Germany military via youtube

After decades of post-war demilitarization, Germany and Japan have announced in recent years that they will finally begin expanding their Armed Forces. Germany pledged to add nearly 7,000 soldiers and almost a hundred and fifty billion dollars to its military. While Japan passed a law allowing its military to be used for nonself-defense. Both countries have dark wartime history. So why are they expanding their militaries?

Well, their original demilitarization came in the aftermath of World War two. Germany and Japan were axis powers alongside Italy, and when the Allies won the war, all three countries were invaded and occupied. As part of the deal, the Allies forced to write new constitutions limiting their future military might to avoid ever ending up as aggressors in another world war. In Japan, the occupation lasted from nineteen forty-five to nineteen fifty-two and saw the country transformed into a democracy under the Allies. Article 9 of its new US back constitution renounce any right to use war as a means of solving disputes and that Japan would never maintain land, sea, or air forces. However, after the Allies withdrew from their occupation it became immediately clear that without a military, Japan was defenseless and in danger of surrounding aggression. So, in 1954 it established a small self-defense force and signed the 1960 treaty of mutual cooperation and security with the United States. This obligated the US to maintain military bases in Japan and to defend it in the case of attack.

However, Japan still could not declare war possess nuclear weapons were deployed troops outside the country. Similarly, Germany's new 1949 Constitution limited its Armed Forces to defensive purposes only and originally the Allies were hesitant to allow any remilitarization whatsoever but with the cold war between the US and Russia dividing the world into; including Germany into east and west. By 1955 West Germany was allowed to establish armed forces and join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Within a few decades, the new German military provided the book of NATO's defensive Central European forces with roughly half a million available troops at its height. Although the end of the Cold War cut its military in half down to about 250 thousand personnel, the German military remains a significant and well-funded NATO member.

But in the years since the Cold War both Japan and Germany have reconsidered their defensive only forces. New laws passed in japan in 2015, allowed its military to defend not just Japan but its allies around the world. This gives the country greater military reach preparing against any moves by North Korea and guarding against China's territorial expansion. And although Germany ended conscription in 2011 and imposed a Kappa just a hundred eighty-five thousand troops the new expansion reverses its demilitarization as response to terrorism in the migrant crisis.

Germany is involved in a large number of ongoing conflicts, including engaging the Islamic state in Syria and Iraq and monitoring Eastern Europe for Russian territorial aggression. More than 70 years Japan-Germany have embraced pacifism. What is the relationship between the two countries in the US has grown closer and more militarized. Germany and Japan have both taken larger roles and police in the world as the two countries continue to grow and take on more responsibility. They also grow in influence and power.

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