Published on December 3, 2019.
This chapter introduces the final section of international lawyer Kanji Ishizumi’s essay “Japan, Possess Nuclear Weapons!” published in the monthly magazine WiLL.
It discusses Japan’s nuclear armament, national independence, departure from dependence on the United States, the post-Tanaka Kakuei Liberal Democratic Party governments, and the principle that national prosperity depends on military strength.

December 3, 2019.
Precisely because Japan is the only country in the world to have suffered atomic bombings, it must not abandon nuclear weapons, but must be protected by nuclear weapons.
Japan has the right to possess nuclear weapons before any other country.
The other day, I came to know Mr. Kanji Ishizumi for the first time.
He was born in Kyoto Prefecture in 1947.
While enrolled in the Faculty of Law at Kyoto University, he passed both the Higher Civil Service Examination and the bar examination.
After graduating at the top of his class from Kyoto University, he joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, then earned a master’s degree from Harvard Law School and completed a master’s program in securities law at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1978, he was admitted to the doctoral program at Harvard Law School.
After working at Shearman & Sterling, a law firm on Wall Street in New York, he opened the Chiyoda International Management Law Office in 1981.
He is the representative of the Leiden Ishizumi Law Office in Berlin.
As an international lawyer, he has achieved many accomplishments, mainly in the United States and Europe.
In 2007, after passing a difficult examination, he converted to Judaism and became a Japanese Jew.
He is also a certified educational consultant in the United States.
The following is from the final chapter of his essay titled “Japan, Possess Nuclear Weapons!” published in this month’s issue of the monthly magazine WiLL.
Kanji Ishizumi, Jewish international lawyer.
Stop being “America’s dog.”
Naturally, nuclear armament for self-defense is possible even under the current Constitution.
It goes without saying that protecting the safety and peace of the people is the duty of the state and of the government.
What is wrong with possessing the latest weapons, namely nuclear weapons, for that purpose?
I cannot understand it at all.
Also, if politicians are truly concerned about the future of Japan and the Japanese people, why do they not squarely take up the debate over nuclear armament?
The successive prime ministers who have refused to mention nuclear possession out of fear that their administrations would collapse are truly irresponsible and pathetic people.
Precisely because Japan is the only country in the world to have suffered atomic bombings, it must not abandon nuclear weapons, but must be protected by nuclear weapons.
Japan has the right to possess nuclear weapons before any other country.
Talk of overthrowing the MacArthur Constitution is the kind of nonsense a poet might say, not a statement that should be made by the leader of a nation.
With a few exceptions, successive prime ministers, in order to cling to power, followed America’s orders and could not openly propose, “Japan will possess nuclear weapons!”
In particular, after seeing clearly how former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, the only one who aimed at Japan’s true independence, was brought down by the Lockheed scandal, subsequent Liberal Democratic Party governments have continued as puppet governments, thinking, “If I defy America, I will not get away unscathed either.”
However, as French President Macron need not even say, America no longer has the will, the power, or the money to deploy carrier fleets toward any country in the world and intervene militarily.
If this situation continues, the Japanese people, absorbed in rugby matches and the Olympics, will overlook the loss of national wealth over ten or twenty years.
Japan is not merely standing at a crossroads between destruction and prosperity.
The helm has already been turned toward destruction.
It even seems to me that the opportunity has already been lost.
I would like to hold a faint hope that Japan will revive.
But unless Japan now turns the helm sharply to starboard, it will not be easy to recover its national wealth.
A wealthy nation exists only with a strong military.
History has countless examples of “wealthy nation, weak military → national destruction,” with Aleppo foremost among them.
There is no room to expect anything from the opposition parties, let alone the ruling party, but I sincerely hope that a leader with the ability to act and with magnanimity will appear.