By Yuko Mukai

8:00 JST, May 31, 2025

This spring, Japan and the Japan-U.S. alliance lost a pillar of support when former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage passed away on April 13 at age 79. He was literally and figuratively a man of great stature, whose distinctive voice and warm but blunt speech were not only known and respected by Japanese politicians and diplomats, but also widely recognized by the Japanese public.

How did Armitage become so well-known in Japan? The story is closely intertwined with the history of Japan’s postwar security transition, which began in earnest in the early 1990s.

During the 1991 Gulf War, the United States formed a multinational force to contain Iraq after it invaded Kuwait. Then U.S. President George H.W. Bush asked U.S. allies, including Japan, to contribute militarily to the war. However, Japan turned down Washington’s request, due to the restrictions in Article 9 of its Constitution. Japan had never dispatched Self-Defense Forces troops overseas up to that point. Instead of sending troops, Japan spent $13 billion to assist the United States, but the decision was criticized by the U.S. Congress and public as “too little, too late.” In Japan, this traumatic episode is still widely remembered.

What exactly is Article 9, and how did it become a hindrance to the Japan-U.S. alliance? Article 9 codifies the pacifism proclaimed in Japan’s Constitution. The article renounces the threat of force, the use of force and “war as a sovereign right of the nation.” It also rules out recognizing the “right of belligerency of the state.”

This unique Constitution, which states that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained,” reflects the history of World War II. Japan and the United States were once enemies fighting across the Pacific Ocean, beginning with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. After its defeat, Japan accepted the current Constitution, formulated under the leadership of GHQ led by U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

The reason why the Constitution restricts the use of force and does not permit the possession of armed forces is that it was intended to dismantle Japan’s Imperial military, which had attacked the United States and invaded other countries during World War II, and to prevent future military re-expansion by Japan. In 1990, before the Gulf War, Maj. Gen. Henry Stackpole III, then commander of U.S. Marine Corps bases in Japan, told the U.S. media, “No one wants a rearmed, resurgent Japan,” and referred to the U.S. military presence in Japan as “a cap in the bottle.” Although this was Stackpole’s personal view, there was a........

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