At the end of World War II, as historians began to sift through the chaos of information that awaiting them, Japan topped this list of wartime atrocities committed against the notion of human rights. Japan did a lot of bad stuff to a lot of innocent people, and they were duly punished for it in many ways, one of which was the institution of Article 9 in their constitution, which reads as follows: “To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph (peace), land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

The preceding clause discusses the prohibition on acts of war by the Japanese military, which is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, perhaps intentionally, because the Article goes on to ban any military expenditure by the Japanese government, which in turn means no military.

Regardless of the fact that World War II and anything like it now lies firmly buried 70-odd years in the past, this Article is becoming rather problematic on two fronts. Firstly, the Japanese economy is the third largest in the world, which makes them a “power,” or depending on how you choose to define it a “super power.” As history has shown us, international “powers” as a rule need to expand to feed their hungry economies. For example, economic expansion like the American neo-imperialism we see today, or good old fashioned geographic expansionism that got Japan into the predicament it is today back in WWII.

As Japan’s tiny mainland begins to run dry, the economic pressure to expand will only increase, and there is no current solution in place to relieve that pressure, short of economic stagnation, which is of course unacceptable for any nation. Regardless of how this expansion plays out, not having a military will be a problem. Not necessarily for invading Manchuria like they did two generations ago, but for hefting power when coming to a head with other expanding powers (China/Taiwan) over resource procurement.

As the Cold War shows us, sometimes having the military heft to discourage outright conflict is enough to actually prevent military answers to problems between powerful nations. Currently, Japan’s only heft is the very, very close relationship they have with the United States, the only current real, indisputable military super power. This leads nicely into the second aspect of the Article 9 problem, the American side of it.

Imagine China and Japan actually get to the point where their disagreements over those random mineral rich islands in the South China Sea become military prone. There is a debate about what the US involvement in Japan’s military, as well as China’s economy, will come to. The majority consensus is that the United States will serve as a buffer between disagreement and actual conflict, because no one wants to piss off the Americans to the point where they’re loading weapons.

China has too much to lose, (all out debt, for instance) to sever ties with the US, and would likely downgrade from outright hostility to stalemate with Japan should the US really start flexing our muscles. But when do we flex our muscles? We owe Japan a lot of loyalty, but we owe China a lot of money. Supposing they just can’t reconcile? Who do we go in behind? How badly will our commitment to Japan hurt us? The answer is tough to put in black and white, but what’s obvious is the potential for a real issue.

So here’s what we do. We help Japan cut Article 9 out of their constitution, sell them a ton of weapons, make a lot of money out of the whole thing, and cut our downright obligation to protect them, letting them once more protect themselves. We keep it friendly of course, and still intimidate China whenever we can, if only because being friendly with Japan is still economically important, but at the same time we cut our loses a bit and step back. So we’re not quite beholden to protect a nation that, really, could happily and easily protect themselves.