So, you are claiming Japan had it’s own military all that time, and it wasn’t paid for by the U.S.?
“So, you are claiming Japan had it’s own military all that time, and it wasn’t paid for by the U.S.?”
You mean the Japanese military that we dismantled when they surrendered? I don’t think that non-existant military cost us anything. Their own postwar consitution prohibited them from even having a military.
“The crowning achievement of the first phase of the Occupation was the promulgation at SCAP’s behest in 1947 of a new Constitution of Japan. Most famously Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution explicitly disavows war as an instrument of state policy and promises that Japan will never maintain a military.”
“The first phase, roughly from the end of the war in 1945 through 1947, involved the most fundamental changes for the Japanese Government and society. The Allies punished Japan for its past militarism and expansion by convening war crimes trials in Tokyo. At the same time, SCAP dismantled the Japanese Army and banned former military officers from taking roles of political leadership in the new government.”
“After the UN entered the Korean War, Japan became the principal supply depot for UN forces. The conflict also placed Japan firmly within the confines of the U.S. defense perimeter in Asia, assuring the Japanese leadership that whatever the state of its military, no real threat would be made against Japanese soil.”
“In the third phase of the occupation, beginning in 1950, SCAP deemed the political and economic future of Japan firmly established and set about securing a formal peace treaty to end both the war and the occupation. The U.S. perception of international threats had changed so profoundly in the years between 1945 and 1950 that the idea of a re-armed and militant Japan no longer alarmed U.S. officials; instead, the real threat appeared to be the creep of communism, particularly in Asia. The final agreement allowed the United States to maintain its bases in Okinawa and elsewhere in Japan, and the U.S. Government promised Japan a bilateral security pact.”