Published on July 17, 2019.
As a continuation of the previous chapter, this essay introduces Susumu Nishibe’s argument on Article 9, paragraph 2 of the Constitution, and the justification of the Self-Defense Forces.
It examines how the logic of “disarmament and non-belligerency in order not to commit aggression” humiliates Japan by treating its people as incapable of distinguishing self-defense from aggression, while reflecting on sovereignty, the right of self-defense, and the common sense of international society.

July 17, 2019.
One is that “the Japanese are so extremely foolish that they cannot distinguish aggression from self-defense at all,” and the other is that “the Japanese are so utterly barbaric that they will surely commit aggression under the pretext of self-defense.”
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
It is also wrong to defend the Self-Defense Forces on the grounds that “a sovereign state possesses the right of self-defense as a natural right.”
Before that, unless one regards it as impossible to defend one’s own country through guerrilla warfare by militia, impossible to persist in Gandhian nonviolent noncooperation, and impossible to take the path of voluntarily abandoning national sovereignty and becoming the protectorate of another country because that would be a national humiliation, one cannot justify a government army under the name of the Self-Defense Forces.
Moreover, the limiting phrase in Article 9, paragraph 2, “in order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph,” meaning the prohibition of aggression, is an utterly ridiculous sentence.
“Disarmament and non-belligerency in order not to commit aggression” can only mean one of the following two things, or both.
One is that “the Japanese are so extremely foolish that they cannot distinguish aggression from self-defense at all,” and the other is that “the Japanese are so utterly barbaric that they will surely commit aggression under the pretext of self-defense.”
Even if one were to concede a hundred steps and say that this is true, to explicitly write such a thing and place it at the front entrance of the state as the basis for founding the nation is not only a disgrace to the Japanese people, but also a nuisance to the international community.
Of course, one must acknowledge that distinguishing self-defense from aggression is difficult.
However, as shown by the recent self-critical report in Britain concerning the U.S.-British attack on Iraq, “if one investigates carefully, it is possible to distinguish aggression from self-defense.”
Furthermore, unless that is made possible, the world becomes nothing more than a “jungle of the strong preying on the weak.”
That means international relations lose their “sociality,” and international society itself disappears.
At the constitutional level, one should simply return to the common sense that “aggression is unacceptable, but self-defense is acceptable,” and that whether “overseas dispatch of forces” for self-defense is necessary depends on the international situation.
This essay continues.