In the immediate aftermath of World War ii, the United States occupied Japan and drafted its Constitution. To ensure that bellicose Japanese fanaticism would not rise again, U.S. officials, led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, included a clause that outlawed war as a means for Japan to settle international disputes. “[T]he 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,” Article 9 states.

Across the Eurasian continent, Japan’s Axis partner, Germany, also needed a new constitution to replace the Weimar Republic, which had allowed Adolf Hitler to rise to power. Germany’s new constitution, the Basic Law, wouldn’t exactly be pacifistic; instead, the framers wanted a “peace constitution.” According to the Basic Law of 1949, “acts tending … to disturb the peaceful relations between nations” would be unlawful.

Nevertheless, words on paper are still just words, and time tends to obscure their meaning.

A glimpse back at the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, heralded by intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic as a genius document, makes this point clear. It stated, apparently once and for all, that war would be outlawed. When it successfully passed through the U.S. Senate, James A. Reed of Missouri mockingly responded: “What the proclamation of Sinai did not accomplish in 4,000 years, what Christ’s teachings have not achieved in 20 centuries of time, is to be produced by the magic stroke of Mr. Kellogg’s pen.”

Incidentally, Japan was one of the original signees of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. It was also the first to break it.

Nearly 70 years have passed since those two “pacifist” constitutions were written, and they don’t look the same anymore. How do you think General MacArthur would react if he were told that Japan had recently deployed troops to South Sudan?

In December, Japan stationed 350 troops there as part of a United Nations’ peacekeeping mission. Thanks to a recent reinterpretation of the Japanese Constitution, those troops can use force not only for their own defense, but also for the “self-defense” of their allies.

Then again, maybe General MacArthur wouldn’t have been surprised. He was the one who said that “rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind.”

Call to Arms

In National Review’s last issue for 2016, Jay Nordlinger penned a piece titled “Call to Arms: The Pregnant Question of Germany, Japan and Their Militaries.” As an author of a book on the history of the Nobel Peace Prize, he has a unique perspective.

Nordlinger brought out a pertinent aspect of the change that we see in Germany and Japan: What does the average person think? If their leaders over the past 70 years have worked to move away from pacifism, the general population has seemed content to stay put. Nordlinger wrote:

A veteran scholar of Japan explains to me that pacifism is akin to religious belief for many Japanese. They also believe that pacifism, in the Japanese style, is their country’s contribution to world civilization. The “peace constitution” lies at the heart of their belief system. It is a first step, they believe, to universal peace, Japan guiding the way.

Germany’s population—with schoolchildren growing up being taught Germany’s role in World War ii history—takes a similar position. But they, too, are not as outwardly concerned with German troops being deployed overseas—as they might have been only a few years after World War ii. Germany has troops in the Afghan coalition in Mali and is planning on building an outpost in Niger. German troops have trained Iraqis and are currently training Kurds to fight against the Islamic State.

For two supposedly pacifistic nations, they sure do have functional armies.

Living Constitutions

“If Japan is to change—and it will,” says Nordlinger, “its Constitution will have to change (and it will).” He is confident the two nations will change, despite their apathetic population.

Already, even with Japan’s Article 9 still in place and Germany’s “peace constitution” still intact, the two countries have managed to interpret their way to reaching their goals. Germany’s Basic Law went through years of reinterpretation in the Constitutional Court to reach the stage it is in now. Scholars have an amazing ability to read their own ideas into explicit phrases. (Anyone who doubts that can look to the U.S. Constitution: Years of interpreting the “right to privacy” led to the “right to abortion,” finally culminating in the famous Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.)

The most recent potential catalyst for new “interpretations” (or outright changes, as Nordlinger expects) comes from U.S. President Donald Trump. Speaking in March 2016, Mr. Trump said, “Japan is better if it protects itself against this maniac of North Korea.” He followed up those comments a few months later by repeating former President Barack Obama’s idea of countries paying their “fair share”:

Do you know that if Japan is attacked, we have to get involved probably with World War iii, right? If we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to do nothing. They can sit home and watch Sony television. Right? It’s true.

Germany sits in a nearly identical position, wondering just what Mr. Trump will mean for its security. “I said a long time ago that nato had problems,” Mr. Trump told Germany’s Bild. “Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago. Number two, the countries weren’t paying what they’re supposed to pay.”

Germans have been responding with words like: “concerned,” “anxious” and “agitation.”

For Japan and Germany, the “pacifists” who happen to maintain armies, President Trump is another reason to push for wider reach.

The Trumpet and its predecessor, the Plain Truth, have watched these two nations for the past 80 years. In February 1981, a Plain Truth headline read “Ahead! Japanese Rearmament.” The previous July, Japan approved a 9.7 percent increase to make its defense budget $10.9 billion. Now, 35 years later, Japan has increased its military spending for the fifth year in a row—hitting $44.6 billion. Today, Japan has the eighth largest defense budget according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Germany is now the de-facto leader of Europe—and some say of the “free world.”

Why has the Trumpet watched these trends for many years? Find out why and what the return of these pacifistic armies means for the world by reading “Why We Watch Japan’s March Toward Militarism” and A Strong German Leader Is Imminent.