Abe declares 2020 as goal for new Constitution

Due in part to America’s decline over the last eight years under the Obama administration, like a lot of the major powers in the world, Japan is beginning to realize it cannot 100% depend on the U.S. as a reliable partner. Policy changes with almost every new president make it difficult to find stability. It has now decided to scrap its current constitution and do away with the pacifism that keeps it from efficiently defending itself.

This is also the beginning of an Asian hegemonic bloc. Japan will eventually gravitate and align towards China, as the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia are currently doing.

 

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe addresses the annual rally on revising the Constitution organized by conservative lawmakers in Tokyo on Monday. | AP

 

In an unprecedented declaration, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday he hopes to see a revised Constitution take effect in 2020, when the nation will host the Tokyo Olympics.

Inside Japan’s invisible army

The country’s constitution bans it from having a traditional standing army. But its so-called Self Defense Force is one of the world’s most sophisticated armed bodies.

FORTUNE — On paper, Japan is a pacifist nation. It ranks 6th on the Global Peace Index, a list tabulated by peace activists at Vision of Humanity. Japan’s constitution makes illegal a traditional standing army. But a recently published defense white paper shows the extent to which the country has one of the most well-equipped “invisible” armies in the world.

Japan’s armed forces are euphemistically dubbed the “Self Defense Force” (SDF) — officially it’s an extension of the police.