Abstract
If one were to read just one book on the remaking of Japan’s naval forces in the aftermath of the Second World War, clearly it would be James Auer’s Postwar Rearmament of Japan’s Maritime Forces, 1945-1971. 1 But until Frank Kowalski’s book, An Inoffensive Rearmament, was reproduced recently in English, the same reader would have had difficulty identifying a similar, single indispensable volume on the rearming of Japan’s ground forces. Auer’s close scrutiny of Japan’s new navy was born of an immersion in Japan and firsthand observation. Similarly, Kowalski’s volume is born of his experience on MacArthur’s occupation staff and his role in facilitating the creation of a new army. Kowalski wrote in English but published the volume in Japanese in 1969, and for many decades it was available only to facile readers of Japanese. 2 A complete, original English manuscript has not been found, so Robert Eldridge has done an invaluable service in reconstructing the book, sans two chapters that would have taken readers from 1952, when Kowalski departed Japan, through the 1960s.
Kowalski addresses two issues rooted in the aftermath of the war that persist in today’s headlines. The first is whether Japan’s constitution should be amended to allow the normal latitude of a sovereign nation to maintain “war potential” or, at least, to stop pretending that it does not have any. This debate had its origins not in the Peace Constitution’s Article 9 that forbade armed forces, but in the US response to the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950 and the fear that the Soviet Union would attempt to annex more of the archipelago on which Japan sits.
The decision of Truman and Acheson to defend South Korea (after, critics say, they implied that they would not), meant that the demobilized US Army had to divert tens of thousands of troops assigned to the Occupation, leaving Japan without an adequate force to put down domestic insurrection or stave off a Soviet grab for Hokkaido. Regardless of the new Peace Constitution, the most expedient remedy seemed to be for 75,000 Japanese volunteers to form a new armed force. It was called the National Police Reserve (NPR), and everything about it was awkward.
It could not be called an army because neither the American public, nor the Allies, nor even the Japanese public would accept it. They could not have military-looking uniforms, or military titles, or even use military terminology when instructed. They were not yobitai (soldiers) but heitai (reservists). A tank was called a “special vehicle.” And yet it seemed possible that they would have to fling themselves in front of veteran Soviet divisions. And here they were on an overnight train to Sapporo being given lessons on how to fire and reload an M-1 carbine.
Everyone then said, as everyone subsequently in the American and Japanese governments felt obliged to say, Japan was not rearming. So, in those grim months following the rout of the American-trained South Korean army, there began an intellectual struggle to explain how these armed forces, which were not “armed forces” but a “police reserve,” were consistent with Article 9. Kowalski calls it the “Great Lie.” But he points out that Japan’s public accepted the explanations. In fact, Kowalski lived to see the rationalizations compounded, refined, and even enshrined in decisions of Japan’s Supreme Court so that today Japan is bursting at the seams with explanations of how the second most potent armed forces on the Pacific Rim (assuming US forces are the most potent at this writing) belong to a country disarmed, occupied, and constitutionally stripped of the ability to maintain “land, sea, or air forces.” So, despite the careful rationalizations, there are countries and critics who cry out that Japan is rearming. And it is true. And it has been true ever since Kowalski helped to facilitate it during the Occupation.
The second issue Kowalski addresses in this volume is the ghost behind the first: to what extent would a reemergence of Japanese militarists threaten Japan’s democracy or Japan’s neighbors? The establishment of the NPR in 1950 was the moment in modern history when the old Imperial Army leaders had their best chance to reassert themselves. And they might have given the preference of Gen. Willoughby, MacArthur’s Chief of Intelligence, whom MacArthur called “my lovable fascist.” Willoughby insisted that only Imperial Army officers could make the new army function properly on such short notice. Willoughby would not take no for an answer even when MacArthur’s answer was no. What made Willoughby so influential in this situation was that the Demobilization Bureau, charged with identifying, tracking, and purging the officers of the old regime, reported to Willoughby. He knew their names, records, and strengths, and in fact knew the officers personally. Convinced as he was that a Japanese defense force could not succeed without a talented and experienced officer corps, he would not relent in pressing to have the old army lead the new, going so far as to identify and put forward a specific cadre of former officers.
There were obvious diplomatic dangers to de-purging Imperial officers and placing them at the head of the NPR: it would be difficult to deny it was the reformation of an army; it would be unacceptable to the Allies and to much of Japan’s public. There was also the very practical problem that Imperial Officers were not used to civilian control, nor were they particularly amenable to the American unified command system, or American tactics and codes of military behavior. Letting the old officers take the lead in the new force might be tempting, given the immediacy of the enemy threat but might permanently compromise the attempt to reassert democratic government—that had been undermined and submerged once before by the Army.
Eventually, younger de-purged officers were taken in, and then more senior officers. But by the time older officers joined, the NPR was well underway with its American tutelage. The American Way of Warfare, which counted on overwhelming fire and rapid movement, which wasted ammunition and abhorred casualties, was inimical to the ways of Imperial Army and completely unfamiliar to its officers. Oddly, the American Way provided insulation against the reassertion of authority by older officers who discovered younger men had already mastered the new ways, including concern for the welfare of the troops: The Imperial way of meting out discipline by punching, slapping, and humiliation was not part of the new force.
The NPR endured constant criticism from nationalists who wanted it dismantled and replaced with a corps of their own fashioning, arguing that the NPR was inept and would never recover from its lack of experienced officers, that it was corrupt because it did not and could not have the right fighting spirit—no seishin kyoiku, and that it was foreign. There were plenty of other critics too. The left argued that the NPR was a needless and harmful divergence of resources, that it provided a way back to power for the militarists, and also that it was a foreign imposition.
Prime Minister Yoshida pressed ahead. The NPR was completely unlike the Imperial Army. It was not merely using American firearms and tactics. Far more important, it was under the control of civilians in the bureaucracy and the Diet. But the Americans, faced with combat in Korea and a global threat from the Soviets, wanted more. They urged a force of 300,000. Yoshida resisted. He would soon turn the NPR into the NSF, or National Safety Reserve, and expand it from 75,000 to 110,000. But he held the line there.
Common academic wisdom explaining Yoshida’s reluctance to expand the force faster and further is that he was a canny free rider in defense matters; that rather than investing in the perpetual overhead of a large defense establishment, he would invest in industry and infrastructure and climb back into the ranks of the Great Powers through economic, not martial, prowess. The modern historians called it the Yoshida Doctrine. In fact, Japan spent 1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) or less on defense, still does and, occasionally, when the American public thinks about it, they are bitter.
But Kowalski points out a completely different rationale for Yoshida’s reluctance. Yoshida was concerned that if Japan had 300,000 troops, the United States would next ask Japan to contribute them to American-led military actions, perhaps the one in South Korea where the United States was flailing, perhaps even later the one in Vietnam. Having such small forces made it certain that Japan’s role would be limited to defense of its own islands and that Japan would not again be dragged into conflicts it could not sustain or terminate. Even today, Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Forces comprise just 148,000 personnel. With that perspective, rebuilding the defenses of this defeated, militaristic nation was indeed An Inoffensive Rearmament.