Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan has been sanctified in postwar Japan not as a matter of legal reasoning, but as an object of belief.
Drawing on the realities of Cold War security, Stalin’s intentions, the actions of Japan’s leftist intellectuals, and even examples such as Aum Shinrikyo and the Quakers, this essay argues sharply that Article 9 should be understood not as a constitutional issue, but as a religious one.

2019-06-01
However, it would be intolerable if those entrusted with the nation were to say, “If Tsushima is taken, we will hand over Shimane Prefecture as well.”

The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Consider Article 9 as a Religion.
Among the provisions of the Constitution of Japan, Article 9 in particular has been treated as sacred.
There are people who say that Japan has remained peaceful for more than sixty years since the end of the war thanks to Article 9, but that is utter nonsense.
The truth is simply that the Soviet Union did not make a move because of the Japan-U.S. alliance.
During the period of the Masayoshi Ohira Cabinet, I heard various reports because I was serving as a member of a certain committee on defense issues, and the extent to which the Soviet government was concentrating its efforts on the Soviet Far Eastern forces at that time was extraordinary.
Their landing operation was “port to port,” and the Soviet Union had enough strength to dock freely from one Japanese port to another and land troops.
Japan survived under such Cold War conditions because it had an alliance with the United States and because there were American bases in Japan.
I would like to ask whether those who shut their eyes to such an obvious fact and say that peace existed because there was Article 9 are in their right minds.
If they truly believe that Article 9 has protected Japan’s peace, then one could say they are beneath even children.
If, while thinking that it was because American forces were present, they still praise Article 9, then that is malicious.
There is a reason why the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party regard Article 9 as sacred.
To begin with, the Communist Party was originally opposed to Article 9, but it came to sanctify it for the following reasons.
As the Cold War structure became clear and, in Japan as well, the National Police Reserve was formed at the request of the Occupation forces, it became obvious that Japan would side with the West.
If Japan, siding with America, increased its military power, then the two great military powers of the prewar era would be joining forces.
It is not false to call America and Japan the two great military powers of the prewar era, because these were the only two countries that had the capability to form mobile fleets centered on aircraft carriers.
The Soviet navy was next to nonexistent, and Hitler also had no aircraft carriers.
Britain had them, but not to the extent of forming mobile fleets.
The military power of America and Japan stood out overwhelmingly.
If such a Japan, free of the constraints of Article 9, were to act in alliance with America, the Soviet Union would be no match for it.
That is why Stalin issued the order to preserve Article 9.
I heard this from a person in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but Stalin’s order had already arrived by around the time the San Francisco Peace Treaty was concluded.
If Japan concluded the San Francisco Peace Treaty, it was obvious that it would side with the West.
That is why Japan’s leftist intellectuals opposed it with bloodshot eyes and insisted on a comprehensive peace.
The only countries that opposed Japan’s concluding peace treaties with more than forty countries were the Soviet Union, its satellite states, and only two or three other countries.
Yet intellectuals including University of Tokyo President Nanbara Shigeru opposed concluding peace treaties with all but those mere two or three countries, calling it a separate peace.
Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida wanted all parties to sign the peace treaty, but the Communist Party and the Socialist Party opposed it to the very end.
Stalin’s order weighed that heavily.
The secretariat of the “Peace Problems Roundtable Conference,” which opposed a separate peace and advocated a comprehensive peace, was located at Iwanami Shoten.
It was only natural that progressive cultural figures gathered there with delight.
The reason the world of public discourse afterward came to be dominated by the left was, as mentioned earlier, that those who had been purged returned to the posts left vacant by the purge order from public office.
The left can become intoxicated with lies that began with Stalin’s order.
Since there were even people who became intoxicated with Aum Shinrikyo, perhaps they can indeed become intoxicated.
In other words, absurd though it may be, Article 9 has reached the level of religion.
Shinichi Nakazawa, the scholar of religion who wrote Make Article 9 a World Heritage Site (Shueisha Shinsho), was also one of those who defended Aum Shinrikyo.
Perhaps one can become intoxicated with Article 9 just as one became intoxicated with Aum Shinrikyo.
In the latter half of the seventeenth century, there was a man named George Fox.
He was not educated, but to borrow Macaulay’s words, he was “too mad to be left at liberty, yet too sane to be put in a madhouse.”
He made outrageous interpretations of the Bible, sometimes interpreting allegorical passages literally, and at other times reading as allegory things that anyone could see were stated as fact.
He also insisted, “Never remove one’s hat,” “Never bow,” and “Never wage war.”
Furthermore, he engaged in strange acts such as shouting in the churches of other sects and disrupting their worship.
However, if one continues such behavior, people appear who will follow.
And before long, only the part saying “Never wage war” remained.
This later became the Quakers, the Society of Friends.
I think the Quakers themselves are now a respectable religious body, but where they prospered was Britain, which possessed the greatest navy in the world.
And later they crossed over to America.
That is what religion is like.
People come to believe things that no sane person could believe, such as the levitation of Aum Shinrikyo’s guru, Asahara Shoko.
Article 9 is the same.
Since it amounts to saying, “Please come and attack us, we raise both hands,” it is something no sane person can understand.
Yet it can become a religion.
Therefore, Article 9 should be considered not as a constitutional theory, but as a religious theory.
If considered as a matter of legal theory, it is ridiculous, but as a matter of religious conviction, saying, “If they take my coat, I will offer my underclothes as well,” or, “If they strike my right cheek, I will offer my left cheek too,” may be all right.
However, it is intolerable if those entrusted with the nation say, “If Tsushima is taken, we will hand over Shimane Prefecture as well.”