# Capability of Japan to defend itself against attack from North Korea

- Author: Joichi Ito
- Date: 2003-03-20T11:15:45Z


There is a great deal of debate in the Diet recently about Japan's military capability. The constitution of Japan states:Japanese ConstitutionCHAPTER II. RENUNCIATION OF WAR

Article 9.

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, 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 interpretation of this is that Japan can not attack another country and in fact can not even shoot at anything until someone dies. So, if North Korea shoots a missile at Japan and it hits an unpopulated area, Japan can do nothing. If the missile kills someone, Japan can shoot the next missile down when it is over international waters. The military is pushing to have this law changed and the constitution amended.

In the Diet testimonies, the military said that they are currently not equipped to strike anyone anyway. The Aegis destroyers only have sea-to-air and sea-to-sea missiles and the fighter jets only have air-to-air missiles.

I currently do not know what my position is about rearming Japan, but interesting facts since Japan has quite a large military these days, but for what?





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