Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, recently inaugurated a panel that has been tasked to reassess the country’s security apparatus and defence policies. Earlier, Ms Takaichi had also lifted a ban on Japan exporting military weapons, including fighter jets. In Europe, Germany, Japan’s ally during the Second World War, has been pursuing its own zeitenwende — a turning point — when it comes to its security policy. Both these shifts signify a rupture with the principle of post-War pacifism that Japan and Germany had adhered to for decades. These transitions are undoubtedly a response to shifting ground realities in their respective neighbourhoods. Tokyo has reasons to be concerned with the aggressive rhetoric and actions of China, Russia and North Korea and their purported regional designs. Germany, on the other hand, had been spurred into action by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
But there is an additional reason that explains these changes in stances on defence by the two nations. That happens to be the perceived change in the position of Donald Trump’s United States of America when it comes to its traditional security guarantees to its allies in East Asia and Europe. An insular, transactional and unpredictable American president has made it difficult for Tokyo to believe that Washington will uphold all the facets of the US-Japan Security Treaty, inked in 1960, which forms the fulcrum of defence cooperation between the two nations. Similarly, Berlin has had reasons to be alarmed by not only Moscow’s war-mongering but also Mr Trump’s hostile attitude towards NATO: the US’s withdrawal from this crucial defence edifice meant to shield Europe is no longer inconceivable if Mr Trump’s vituperations against NATO are anything to go by. Tokyo and Berlin’s new positions on defence are thus pragmatic. But they also signify the global disenchantment with rules and moral imperatives.