Based on an essay by Nobuyuki Kaji in the magazine Hanada, this article discusses the necessity of constitutional revision and the formal recognition of the Self-Defense Forces.
It examines Japan’s national security challenges and proposes a political strategy to achieve constitutional reform through a national referendum, grounded in the fundamental premise that no nation can exist without a national military.

2019-03-29.
A nation without a national military cannot exist.
The following is from an essay by Nobuyuki Kaji that opens this month’s issue of the magazine Hanada.
The emphasis within the text is mine.
I caught a cold and suffered from a severe cough.
Everyone disliked my coughing and no one would meet with me.
Unable to do anything else, I spent two weeks confined at home watching television all day.
The main program I watched was the broadcast of the National Diet sessions.
Unexpectedly, it was quite interesting.
It was the questions from the opposition parties.
What was interesting about them was how clearly they revealed their lack of intelligence.
Questions should strike directly at the essence of an issue.
Yet many opposition questions begin with pompous preliminaries and roundabout remarks, slowly trying to approach the essence.
This is outdated.
That style belongs to the era before television appeared.
They have not noticed this.
In other words, it is merely a transformation or extension of the prewar parliamentary style of the “grand speech.”
In the television age, unless one takes up a concrete situation and quickly cuts into the essence of the problem with speed and specificity, no one will pay attention.
Therefore, the path toward constitutional revision requires policies and techniques that appeal to people in a form suited to the television age.
In other words, the ruling party must possess a solid and powerful strategic framework.
Based on a conviction that does not waver no matter what happens.
Yet observing the current state of the ruling party, the progress toward constitutional revision appears to have stopped.
Of course, it may only appear that way to an outsider like myself.
The greatest objective of constitutional revision is, of course, the formal recognition and positioning of the Self-Defense Forces.
A nation without a national military cannot exist.
In that sense, there is a strong possibility of gaining national understanding.
However, matters in this world do not proceed so easily.
Those who call themselves defenders of the Constitution will surely launch full-scale opposition movements.
Such resistance will likely be inevitable.
Not only specific political parties but most of the media will oppose it.
Almost every day demonstrations will occur, and many university professors will appear in the media to express opposition.
This is easy to foresee.
Many ordinary citizens who see and hear this may be swept into the atmosphere of opposition.
Thus a constitutional revision clearly positioning the Self-Defense Forces might not necessarily win in a national referendum at present.
Does the government and ruling party truly have a firm strategy to overcome such concerns.
I have some doubts.
Is there then no method at all.
No, there is one.
If the strategy described below is adopted, success in a national referendum can be assured.
It is as follows.
In order to achieve the major objective of establishing the constitutional existence of the Self-Defense Forces, one should simultaneously accept part of what the left demands.
Among what the left currently demands, a relatively uncontroversial matter is marriage-related issues, namely unions between people of the same sex.
Article 24 of the current Constitution states that “marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes.”
In the word “marriage,” the character “kon” refers to a man and “in” refers to a woman, so the term cannot be used in this context.
Therefore, let us temporarily use the word “union.”
The wording can be carefully devised when drafting it.
In essence, it would be a constitutional revision recognizing unions between people of the same sex.
This is what the left most strongly demands.
Thus one could propose two points as constitutional revision.
First, recognition of the Self-Defense Forces as a national military under Article 9.
Second, replacing the word “marriage” in Article 24 with “union.”
The first would gain support from the right, and the second from the left.
If so, a majority vote in a national referendum could almost certainly be obtained.
Unions are an important issue, but compared with that, the urgent and greater problem at present is national defense.
Without national defense, unions themselves cannot exist.
As the ancients said.
If matters are thoroughly prepared beforehand, they will succeed.
If they are not prepared beforehand, they will fail.