Japanese and German Rearmament and the Legacy of the Second World War
As President Biden celebrates Japan and Germany's decisions to expand their militaries, he should be alert in recognizing the complex history of both countries with their respective neighbours.
By Jack Burnham
RUSSIA’S WAR IN UKRAINE AND THE RISE OF CHINA has caught more than the attention of the United States. Within recent weeks, both Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, have announced plans to reinvigorate their armed forces, much to the appreciation of the Biden administration.
Before celebrating these diplomatic achievements, the United States should be wary of the unintended consequences that may result from these declarations. The rearmament of Japan and Germany, two former great powers with thorny legacies, may eventually complicate American efforts to strengthen relations between its Asian and European allies.
The end of the Second World War imposed a victor’s peace on Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, two former powers whose efforts to extend their hegemony had been stymied by their ruinous defeat on the battlefield. The United States effectively rebuilt Japan’s political and strategic culture from near rubble, introducing liberal democracy and abolishing the country’s armed forces in an effort to prevent its re-emergence as a significant military power.
Despite the impact of the Iron Curtain, the US and its Western allies imposed a similar regime on a divided Germany — introducing a new constitution, the Basic Law, and instituting a policy of demilitarization that would ensure that a state which had twice nearly conquered its neighbors, would remain peaceful.
Even as the last remnants of the fighting of 1945 disappeared with the decline of the Soviet Union, the war’s political legacy remained embedded in both countries. Bound by the constitution written during the period of occupation, Japan continued to limit its military activities to establishing a Self-Defence Force and participating in UN peacekeeping missions – with efforts to potentially expand its military capabilities being subjected to intense criticism. While Germany reunified to become a unitary sovereign entity in 1991, significant debate resulted in Berlin’s decision to deploy its armed forces to the former Yugoslavia to quash ethnic warfare, due to fears of inviting comparisons to 1941.
However, the exponential rise of China and Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, along with a renewed effort by the Biden administration to push US allies to increase defence spending levels, has caused both countries to shift their outlook towards rebuilding their armed forces. While Japan’s former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, sought to bolster Japan’s defence spending and shift the country’s strategic culture away from its post-war pacifism, its current leader, Fumio Kishida, has recently announced that Tokyo will increase military spending to 2.7 percent of GDP by 2027 and purchase a series of offensive weapons systems.
A similar transformation has occurred in Germany, as Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced plans to raise defence spending to 2 percent of GDP in alignment with NATO standards — with Berlin continuing to debate whether to send Leopard tanks to Kyiv. Though these efforts remain minor relative to China’s massive military build-up over the past two decades and the vast scale of Russia’s brutality in Ukraine, they also have the potential to rekindle simmering debates within the broader Western alliance.
While the partition of Germany imposed devastating harm on those trapped on the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall, it also effectively muted debate over a long-standing question within international relations. Through their post-war behavior, the United States and Soviet Union posed a direct answer to the “German Question”, a term referring to the perennial debate over whether a militarily strong Germany, a country which had twice sought to extend its hegemony over Europe within the span of three decades, could ever peacefully reside within the continent as a unified nation-state.
However, as this solution, imposed first by force and later by tradition, appears to be unravelling, the United States must consider how a Germany that boasts a growing military, a rising radicalized right, and a strong economy, will be perceived by its neighbors, many of whom are critical members of NATO. While Berlin’s allies have largely been supportive of Scholz’s decision, this view may change if it is coupled with a subsequent US withdrawal from the continent to focus more exclusively on China – leaving eastern and central Europe once more in the crosshairs of two armed great powers.
Further, Japan’s rise within the Indo-Pacific region may spark similar inquiries amongst its own regional cohort, particularly South Korea. Though many of Japan’s allies have commended Prime Minister Kishida’s recent announcements, which align with current US efforts to bolster the island nation’s defences by stationing new Marine Littoral Regiments on Okinawa, tensions remain over the country’s colonial history — fueled in part by the re-emergence of a strain of revisionist Japanese nationalism.
Despite sharing an existential threat in the form of a nuclear-armed North Korea and an assertive China, Japanese-Korean relations remain strained due to the legacy of the Second World War, particularly over the acknowledgment of the horrors suffered by Korean “comfort women” during the conflict. This tension will complicate any US effort to draw its regional allies closer together towards a consolidated security community, and may hinder any potential expansion of defence cooperation initiatives such as the QUAD.
The end of the Second World War and the rebuilding of Japan and Germany into peaceful liberal democracies with dynamic market economies, is rightly recognized as one of the US’ greatest foreign policy achievements. Beyond fulfilling a crucial element of its long-standing grand strategy, the US’ role as a security provider also constrained intra-regional acrimony within both the Indo-Pacific and Europe — an accomplishment potentially threatened by the rearmament of historical hegemons. Even as the Biden administration applauds Tokyo and Berlin’s renewed interest in preparing for a new era in international relations, it should remain wary of the long shadows cast by an unsettled past.
Jack Burnham is a candidate in the Masters of Public Policy program with the Max Bell School at McGill University. He has an interest in international defence and security and hopes to continue with his research into power transitions within the international system and great power competition.