Germany and Japan Rearm Again After 80 yrs

Shinjiro Koizumi, Japan’s defense minister, and his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, at a naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, in March. The countries have been building up their militaries.Credit...Pool photo by David Mareuil

 

By Jim Tankersley and Javier C. Hernández

Jim Tankersley reported from Berlin, and Javier C. Hernández from Tokyo.

New York Times 

In 1940, the imperial regimes of Germany and Japan joined what would be known as the Axis powers, bound by mutual opposition to the United States. They fought a world war, and they lost it, and their populations spent the next 85 years with shrunken militaries and a heavy reliance on their former enemy, America, for security.

Now, both countries’ wariness of America has resurfaced, alongside heightened fears about a surging world power, China, and an aggressive Russia. Tokyo and Berlin are rushing to rebuild their militaries. And, once again, they are strengthening ties.

Their cooperation is expected to gather momentum at the meeting of the leaders of the Group of 7 nations in Evian, France, this week. It already includes sharing know-how, technology and weapons, like drones and helicopters, critical to the countries’ respective efforts to rearm.

It is hardly an Axis redux. This time, Japan and Germany are banding together from a defensive posture, with Berlin supporting Ukraine’s defense against Russia, and Tokyo wary of threats posed by China and North Korea. They are joining other like-minded “middle powers,” like fellow Group of 7 members Britain, Canada and France — their enemies in World War II. And they are casting themselves as champions of international law and institutions that serve as bulwarks against the bullying behaviors of the world’s most powerful countries. 

As Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, said in March at a Japanese naval base, nations like Germany and Japan, “who still stand by the rules-based international order, must move even closer together and make clear what we stand for.”

A group of people wearing camouflage uniforms and helmets hold up long guns in a muddy field.

German soldiers trained in Münster last week. After World War II, anti-militarist movements gained in Germany and Japan, but the countries’ views have shifted recently.Credit...Focke Strangmann/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Both Germany and Japan emerged from the devastation of World War II with a focus on rebuilding ravaged cities and stoking economic growth. They allowed the United States and other allies to shoulder much of the burden of keeping their citizens safe.

After Germany split in two, America built large military bases and stationed tens of thousands of troops in West Germany, a frontline outpost in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The governments of both East and West Germany maintained their own large armies, but after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, the reunified country spent far more on social programs than on defense.

Postwar Japan adopted an American-imposed Constitution, drafted under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. It forced the Japanese to renounce war and prohibited keeping armed forces except for defensive purposes. That led to the creation of the Self-Defense Forces, which remains the official name for the country’s military. 

In the decades after the war, anti-militarist movements gained traction in both countries, promoting the ideals of peace, diplomacy, free trade and cultural exchange.

But that sentiment has waned in recent years, especially since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and China’s increasingly assertive military and economic policies under its leader, Xi Jinping.

President Trump’s threats to abandon security commitments in Europe and his eagerness to strike a trade deal with Mr. Xi accelerated both countries’ pushes toward rearmament.

A large tank outdoors, with smoke clouds above it and people in camouflage uniforms standing or kneeling around it.

Members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force participating in a military exercise in Gotemba, Australia, this month.Credit...Yuichi Yamazaki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Thomas Berger, a professor at Boston University who has studied the postwar history of Japan and Germany, said that the two countries were responsible for “perhaps the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century,” a reference to World War II, and that their defeats had “shattered their ideals and beliefs in empire and militarization.” 

But the recent change in the global security landscape, particularly Mr. Trump’s volatility, has fueled anxiety and urgency for the countries’ relatively new leaders, both of them conservative and defense-minded. “There is this justifiable fear that the United States might sell them out,” Mr. Berger said.

Shortly before taking office a year ago, Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, led a successful effort to suspend limits on Germany’s government borrowing in order to drastically increase military spending. In a few years, Germany’s military spending could be larger than that of France and Britain — combined.

Japan commits half as much as Germany, but it is still one of the world’s top spenders on defense, with a budget this year of about $58 billion.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a conservative lawmaker, won office last year with nationalist calls to revive the military. She has deployed long-range missiles — capable of reaching China — in southern Japan, and has reversed postwar bans on arms exports.

Both Mr. Merz and Ms. Takaichi have made a point of trying to maintain warm ties with Mr. Trump, but both have also looked beyond Washington, increasingly, for military alliances. 

Japan recently sealed a $6.5 billion deal to supply warships to Australia, and it is in talks with the Philippines and Indonesia about exporting warships. Germany has forged close ties with Ukraine in developing and deploying new weapons and has asked France to help provide it with a nuclear deterrent.

China and Russia have accused Ms. Takaichi of seeking to revive World War II-era militarism. But she has said her policies are necessary because Japan faces the “most severe and complex” security environment since that era, citing the threat of China and North Korea.

“No single country can now protect its own peace and security alone,” she said recently. “There is absolutely no change in our commitment to upholding the path we have followed as a peace-loving nation for over 80 years.”

Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany leaning down to talk to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of Japan, who is seated. 

Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of Japan at a Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg in November. Both are defense-minded and relatively new as leaders.Credit...Pool photo by Leon Neal

The German public has embraced rearmament reluctantly, but faster than the Japanese have.

Recent surveys suggest a majority of Germans see the world now as more dangerous than it was during the Cold War. They also suggest that two-thirds of the country backs higher spending on the military, even though the German armed forces, which do not enforce a draft, have struggled to persuade young people to enlist. 

In Tokyo this spring, tens of thousands of people protested Ms. Takaichi’s security policies, including the decision to export more weapons and to establish a national intelligence agency. The protesters were concerned that Ms. Takaichi might next seek to scrap Article 9 of the Constitution, which renounces war.

Nahoko Hishiyama, 37, who helped organize some protests, said Ms. Takaichi’s “policies are deeply concerning, as they aim to turn Japan into a military power.”

Alexandra Sakaki, a scholar at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin who studies Japan, said that rearmament would require further shifts in mind-set in Germany and Japan, especially if officials turn to policies like conscription.

“They need to think about military and society in a whole different way,” she said. “Will they be ready for combat, will they be ready to fight? Japan and Germany need the public to back that vision.”

One country has applauded the German and Japanese shifts: the United States.

Mr. Trump has long pushed allies to spend more on their own defense so the U.S. military can focus elsewhere. Meeting last year with Mr. Merz, he welcomed Germany’s spending surge — though not without reservation. In a quip, Mr. Trump noted that a remilitarized Germany might not please the American leaders who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II.

“I’m not sure that General MacArthur would have said it was positive, you know?” he said.