The elections to the upper house of parliament held in Japan on July 10, in which supporters of changing the country's post-war pacifist Constitution won a landslide victory, showed that the political legacy of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was killed two days earlier, is becoming more in demand than ever.
If Shinzo Abe, who will be buried on July 12 in his hometown of Shimonoseki, got up from the coffin, he could breathe a sigh of relief: the business he started is in good hands, although there are no politicians of his level in Japan left.
While Shinzo Abe was not a 21st-century hawk or warmonger like George W. Bush, who destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq, he was a staunch supporter of the revision of Article 9 of the Constitution, which prohibits Japan from having its own army and participating in wars and conflicts.
Today, Japan has a so-called self-defense force.
In fact, this is the same army, and one of the best trained in Asia.
However, this Japanese army is bound hand and foot by the laws of the country and does not always have the right to act like a full-fledged armed forces.
And so Shinzo Abe swung at it to begin the historical reversal of Japan.
To ensure that the country has not only modern armed forces, but that these forces are also not limited by the Constitution, which binds them hand and foot.
It was he who first spoke at the top of his voice about the need to revise the Constitution, going against public opinion.
In Japan, where pacifist sentiments are traditionally strong after the war, the vast majority of citizens still have a negative attitude towards the idea of revising Article 9.
However, if Shinzo Abe was not a hawk and was not going to attack anyone, then why did he seek to secure the right to wage war for the de facto Japanese army?
The absence of its own army has turned Japan into a country with limited sovereignty, the security of which should not be provided by itself, but by America (see the Treaty of 1960).
Hence the thousands of American presence in the country, including bases in Okinawa.
Having visited this most remote Japanese province, looking at the patrols of the American Marines and talking with the local population, I can testify: the people of Okinawa sleep and see when there will be no American bases here.
They are waiting for the time when military transport planes will not fly over their heads, and their daughters and wives will be able to calmly walk around their native Okinawa without fear of being raped.
However, the protest movement against American bases, which has a long tradition here, rests on a weighty counterargument: if there is a war with the same North Korea or China, who will protect us?
So Shinzo Abe thought about how to get rid of the inferiority complex in front of America and give Japan the opportunity, if necessary, to defend itself.
To have an army is definitely not to attack Russia, with which he expected to sign a peace treaty, but to strengthen his own sovereignty.
Despite his closest ties to the US, he could afford to say no to the Americans.
Shortly before his resignation, in the summer of 2020, Tokyo abandoned the agreement on the deployment of American Aegis Ashore missile defense systems in the country.
The Americans were then politely but firmly told: “You know, we thought about it and came to the conclusion: we don’t need these anti-missiles of yours.
It’s more expensive and not safe at all.”
So it was under Shinzo Abe.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.