What keeps Japan from becoming a member of NATO?

Alexander Rekeda
3 min readApr 27, 2023

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Japan has been a close friend of the US for a long time, but it is not a member of NATO. The main reason for this is that the country’s law limits how much of an army can be kept.

But it has built strong relationships with countries in the Indo-Pacific as well as with Europe, Britain, and NATO. This is because it thinks that better relations with the rest of the world will help Japan’s deterrence strategy.

Why doesn’t Japan join NATO? is a question that is often asked. Even though it is not a member, Japan has a strong economy and one of the best armies in the world. It also has a big cultural effect because it has a thriving art, film, music, and popular culture scene.

People have always agreed with Article Nine of Japan’s constitution, which says there will be no war. But there has also been a long national debate about whether or not it should be changed.

During the time that the Allies were in charge of Japan, Douglas MacArthur and his staff made a constitution in a week that set out the principles of democracy and liberalism. They wanted to set up a government like the British one. They also wanted to stop Japan from going to war and make the prince answer to the people.

Japan got rid of Emperor Hirohito in 1947 when it passed a new constitution that gave him only symbolic power. It also made a code of rights, got rid of the peerage system, and stopped Japan from going to war.

Article 51 of the UN Charter and customary international law both say that people have the right to defend themselves as a group. A jus ad bellum is the right of a state to protect other states.

The jury is still out on whether or not the right to collective self-defense can be used against non-state organizations outside of states and whether or not the jus ad bellum applies to them. Many ideas have been put forward to explain this topic, which has been talked about in academic writing for many years.

Even though there are many scholarly articles that look at the different kinds of self-defense and how they relate to each other, it is important to remember that the laws about self-defense are still being discussed. One of the most recent hot-button problems is the right to self-defense as a group against non-state actors like NSAs.

Japan is an island country in East Asia. It is in the Pacific Ocean. It is made up of many islands, the largest of which are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu.

In the southwest, the group is close to Taiwan. In the north, it is south of the Russian island of Sakhalin. It shares water borders with Russia, South Korea, and China.

It is the third-largest country in Asia and a major economic force. But it is also a country with many problems at home and around the world.

The relationship between Japan and China is one of the country’s biggest problems. China’s military power is growing, so Japan needs to be more careful when it talks to Beijing. This means maintaining friendly relationships with all of its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific area. This is why it’s important for Japan to join NATO.

Japan’s Constitution has said for a long time that the country’s military can only be used to protect the Japanese island. In order to protect the country and its neighbors from rising foreign threats like China and North Korea, the military needs to take a more active role.

This is why Japan’s government has spent more money on the military and become more influential in the world in recent years. It has also bought more expensive American weapons and equipment, such as fighter jets and devices that stop missiles.

The new government has agreed to a big increase in the defense budget and is trying to improve Japan’s military. It wants to be able to send more force outside of its borders and double the size of its own self-defense troops.

Even though the government talks a good game, there are a lot of fears about how the SDF would do in a war with China or Russia. This is because the number of men on combat platforms in the force is low. This means that it doesn’t have the resources to do the ongoing support jobs that are needed for a country to win a war.

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Alexander Rekeda
Alexander Rekeda

Written by Alexander Rekeda

Alexander Rekeda, one of the founders of Unity for Freedom, brings over two decades of strategic management experience to the table.

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