Impediments to Constitutional Revision

The Meiji Restoration Period is one of the turning point in Japan's history which started the country's militaristic nature. There were also tremendous changes in Japan's political and social structure. The Restoration made Japan an Imperial Power with accelerated industrialization and with its slogan "enrich the country and strengthen the military." Japan with its militaristic nature, engaged in international conflicts such as World War I and World War II. After World War II, Japan had a transition from a militaristic state towards a pacifist state. The new constitution made after World War II was called the "Peace Constitution" which was drawn by the allied forces intended to replace Japan's preceding militaristic absolute monarchy system with a form of liberal democracy. The Peace Constitution prevented Japan from waging war and limited Japan only with the so-called Self Defense Force (SDF).

However, it wasn't after a few decades after world war II that more Japanese are realizing that the time has come to revise the part of the constitution that prevents them from using military forces in settling international disputes due to the growing tension in the region. Japan is concerned with the super power China and its state of the art arms and expenditures on military. The government of Japan cannot just ignore the growing tension. They also have had enough with North Korea, kidnapping Japanese people and launching missiles at Japan. The government of Japan is working on revising article 9 of the constitution which renounces the right of war. On the other hand, Japanese who had experience the damage of World War II thinks that revising article 9 of the constitution would go against their freedom and that they would just be following trends from the United States in confronting and intervening with international disputes.

The constitution cannot be revised easily due to underlying number of processes to be made and due to the counter arguments that are being given by Japanese opposing the revision and are against the idea of Japan breaking free from the limitations of its military which could possibly create future conflicts. Such impediments to constitutional revision prevents Japan from removing its military limitations.