Ishiba statement tries to address Japan’s failure to avoid war
Outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba issued a personal reflection statement on October 10 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and raised a thought-provoking question: "Why did Japan fail to avoid that war?"
"Overview"
As his predecessor, he obviously hoped to link his name to this historic milestone – despite the later recognition – just as his predecessors did on the major anniversary.
Based on the historical perspective of the Cabinet Approval Statement, which has been issued every decade since the 50th anniversary, Sharp is committed to the responsibility of providing personal historical reviews and summarizing key lessons.
The document, titled The 80th Anniversary of the End of the War, is about six A4 pages long, larger than the previous anniversary statement.
This refers to the "Wilmoun Talk" on the 50th anniversary of 1995, the "Khyun Talk" ten years later, and the "Abe Talk" on the 70th anniversary of the end of the war in 2015.
Sharapova expressed his views at the press conference held at the Prime Minister's office.
In the statement, Sharp admitted that he had “also inherited” his historical awareness of Japan’s “deep reflection” and “hearted apology” over its “colonial rule and aggression” in the talks.
He then talked about the topic that had not been discussed in a previous statement: "Why did Japan not avoid that war?"
He pointed out in the past three commemorative statements that "there is little mention of why that war could not be avoided" and that he expressed his decision to explore the issue with personal thinking, "this nod with the Japanese people to reflect on the 80th anniversary."
The pre-war Constitution of the Great Japanese Empire had structural flaws and lacked the principle of "civilization of officials" - that politics must be superior to military ideas.
He then analyzed the three key areas of “politics”, “parliament” and “media” and cited concrete historical examples.
On the political side, he referred to the controversy raised in 1935 around the "Imperial organs say" proposed by the noble house lawmakers and constitutional scholars by the Daji.
The theory is based on the Constitution of the Great Japanese Empire, which claims that sovereignty belongs to the state as a legal person, and the Emperor is the "organ of the state's supreme power in accordance with the Constitution."
Shigeru Ishiba pointed out that Keisuke Okada's cabinet at that time "succumbed to the pressure of the military, denied the previous mainstream theory of the emperor's organ", and said that "the government thus lost control of the army".
Regarding the parliamentary system, Shigeru Ishiba cited the incident in 1940 that Representative Takao Saito was expelled for his "anti-military speech" criticizing the war.
Shigeru Ishiba stressed that "Congress has also lost its function of restricting the military".
Regarding the media, Shigeru Ishiba pointed out that since the September 18th Incident in 1931, the press "turned to actively supporting the war".
He pointed out that "the newspapers have widely the actions of the Guangdong army to invade Chinese territory, and have made many citizens drunk and further fostered nationalist emotions."
Based on this analysis, Shapiro summarized "the lessons to be learned today."
He acknowledged that after the war Japan had established a system of civil officer rule, but warned that "it's just a system that doesn't make sense if it's not properly implemented."
He wrote: "We must not repeat the same mistakes, letting emotional and spiritual judgment override calm and rational decision-making, which leads the country to go astray on the way forward."
The full speech.
On the 80th Anniversary of the End of the War
The Preface)
The war ended 80 years ago.
Over the past eighty years, Japan has unswervingly followed the path of peaceful development and done its best for world peace and prosperity. The peace and prosperity Japan enjoys today are based on the precious lives and suffering of its people, especially the war victims.
In March, I went to Sulphur Island; in April, I visited the Japan Memorial Park in Karilaia, Philippines. In June, I attended the ceremony of commemoration of Okinawa fighters and visited the Peace Memorial. In August, I attended the peace commemoration ceremony in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to commemorate the victims of the atomic bombing, and the National Commemoration of Fighters on the Day of the End of the War. These experiences made me swear again: to remember the remorse and lessons of the war.
So far, the Prime Minister of Japan has made statements on the 50th, 60th and 70th anniversaries of the end of the war, and I support the position of the previous cabinet on historical issues.
The previous three statements did not give a detailed explanation of why we failed to avoid war.The 70th Anniversary Statement mentioned that "Japan attempted to break through diplomatic and economic difficulties by force, and its domestic political system failed to play a role in stopping such attempts," but no further details were provided.
The unresolved question is why our domestic political system failed to act as a brake to prevent such attempts.
In the era after the First World War, when the world was plunged into total war, Japanese defeat was inevitable according to the prediction of the Total Institute for the Study of War set up by the Cabinet before the war or the so-called Akimaru organ set up by the Army Ministry. Many experts also believe that the war will be difficult to carry out.
Why did the government and military leadership rush into this reckless war, resulting in so many innocent lives at home and abroad? Since they foresaw such a predicament, why did they not make the decision to avoid war? Why can't they re-examine the overall strategic direction when the former Prime Minister Minai Mitsuzheng warned "not to fall into a desperate situation because of the continuous deterioration"?
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, I would like to think about this issue with all Japanese citizens.
(Problems in the Constitution of the Great Japanese Empire)
The pre-war Japan lacked a mechanism that could properly integrate political and military.
According to the Constitution of the Great Imperial Japan, the supreme command of the army and navy (i.e. the command of the armed forces) is regarded as independent. Under this system, there is no principle of "civilian control"-that is, civilian authorities (referring to non-military personnel) must occupy a dominant position in political and military relations.
The powers of the Prime Minister are also limited. Under the Constitution of the Great Japanese Empire, all State Ministers, including the Prime Minister, are equal. Although the Prime Minister is appointed as the head of the cabinet, this system does not give him the command necessary to lead the cabinet.
Even so, until the period of the Japanese-Russian War, the seniors continued to play the role of integrating diplomacy, military and economy. The seniors who had military experience as samurai had the ability to control the army with a profound understanding of the army. In the words of the true man, "the mediation of supra-constitutional entities such as seniors and senior politicians" played a crucial role in the will to unify the country.
As the elders passed away one after another, these informal mechanisms gradually declined, and political parties during the Taisho democratic era tried to integrate political and military power.
Amid the great turmoil brought about by the First World War, Japan became one of the leading advocates of international cooperation and gained a permanent seat on the Council of the League of Nations. Government policies in the 1920s, as exemplified by Kihihara's diplomacy, restrained imperialist expansion.
In the 1920s, public opinion criticized the military, and political parties advocated mass disarmament.The officer class felt marginalized, and this discontent was seen as one of the incentives for the rise of military forces in the Showa era.
Traditionally, the supreme command of the army and navy was limited to imperial military command involving operations. Military administrative affairs, such as budget and organizational structure, are interpreted and implemented as matters that need to be suggested by the Secretary of State (Cabinet member). This institutional defect of lack of civil control was actually compensated by the institutional practice of the Senate and later political parties. Political parties have filled this flaw through institutional practice.
(Problems faced by the government)
However, the meaning of supreme command of the army and navy was gradually expanded and interpreted, and the military began to use the independence of supreme command as a means to exclude government and parliamentary interference and ensure control over overall military policy and budget.
During the period when political parties dominated the cabinet, various parties launched scandal exposure wars for power, resulting in the loss of public trust. In 1930, in order to shake the constitutional Gerakan cabinet, the opposition * Friendship Association joined forces with the internal forces of the navy to launch a fierce attack on the government in the name of "violating the commander-in-chief" on the grounds of the ratification of the London Naval Treaty. The government finally narrowly passed the ratification of the London Naval Treaty.
However, in 1935, the Constitutional Political Friendship proposed the "Imperial Organs say" as a weapon to attack the government, and escalated the issue to a political event involving the military ministry. At the time, the Gokuda Inshaq Cabinet tried to keep a political distance from the matter, stating that the academic debate "should be left to the scholars" but ultimately the Cabinet submitted to the pressure of the military ministry and issued the "Declaration of the State of the Body" twice, denying the previously accepted imperial organs said that the writings of the Ministry were also banned.
In this way, the government gradually lost control of the army.
Questions of the Imperial Parliament
The imperial parliament, which was to oversee the army, also gradually lost its functions.
The most prominent example is the removal of Congressman Takao Saito. At the plenary session of the House of Representatives on February 2, 1940, Senator Saito criticized the war for being bogged down and severely questioned the government's combat purpose. This is the so-called "anti-military speech". The army reacted fiercely, claiming that the speech insulted the army and demanded Saito's resignation. Many members of the House of Representatives joined this request, and Saito was finally removed with an overwhelming result of 296 votes in favor and 7 votes against. This is a rare case of a member of the Imperial Parliament trying to perform his duties, but even today, two-thirds of the minutes of the meeting at that time are still deleted.
Even in the budget deliberation, which was an important means of parliamentary restriction on the army, the then Imperial Parliament almost completely failed to effectively perform its supervisory function over the army. After 1937, a temporary special accounting for military expenditures was established, and almost all military expenditures between 1942 and 1945 were recorded in this special accounting. During special accounting deliberations, the budget document does not show the details of expenditures, and the House of Representatives and the House of Lords usually hold deliberations in secret meetings, and the allocated time is extremely limited. These procedures can't be called real deliberations at all.
The war situation is getting worse and worse, and the army and navy are still fighting for the budget, putting the interests and dignity of the organization on the table.
Furthermore, we must not forget that in the 15 years from the late period of Daesh to the early days of Shoshō, a number of politicians, including three prime ministers, were assassinated by extremist nationalists and young officers who were politicians who emphasized international cooperation and tried to control the military by political means.
Needless to say, these events, including the May 15 Incident and the February 26 Incident, greatly hindered the environment for members of the Imperial Parliament and government officials to freely discuss military policies and budgets and take follow-up actions.
(Media Issues)
Another issue not to be overlooked is the role of the media.
In the 1920s, Japanese media were critical of overseas expansion. Ishibashi Zhanshan, who was a journalist at that time, advocated that Japan should give up its colonies. However, before and after the September 18th Incident, the media's position changed to actively supporting the war. This is because the war reports "sell well" and the circulation of newspapers has increased significantly.
In 1929, the Great Depression in the United States severely affected the western economy. countries adopted high tariffs to protect their economies, and Japanese exports suffered a major blow.
In the context of the Great Depression, nationalist sentiment rose. The German Nazi Party came to power; the Italian Fascist Party rose. The intellectual circle spread a view that when the Soviet economy continued to develop only among the major countries, the era of liberalism, democracy and capitalism had ended, and the era of British-American domination had ended. This trend has fostered a hotbed for the growth of totalitarianism and national socialism.
In this context, some of the Guangdong Army forces planned the "1918 Incident", and in only about a year and a half they occupied several times the territory of Japan's mainland.
Regarding Japan's foreign policy, there have been sharp criticisms-Yoshino condemned the military's actions in the Manchuria Incident, while Kiyosawa severely criticized Matsuoka's withdrawal from the League of Nations.
However, beginning in the autumn of 1937, with the tightening of speech control, criticism of government policy gradually disappeared, and only the argument of actively supporting war could eventually reach the ears of the people.
(Problems in Information Collection and Analysis)
It is also necessary to reconsider whether all parties, including the Japanese government, had accurately understood the international situation at the time. For example, Japan, which was negotiating with Germany on a military alliance against the Soviet Union, suddenly faced a new situation in August 1939 when the South Korean Non-Infringement Treaty was signed. Pyeongchang’s cabinet announced its resignation as a result of the “complex and strange new situation emerging in Europe.”
(Today's lesson)
After the war, Japan established the principle of civil service control in the system. The Constitution of Japan stipulates that the Prime Minister and other ministers of state must be civil servants. In addition, according to the Self-Defense Forces Law, the Self-Defense Forces are under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister of the Cabinet.
The Constitution clearly stipulates that the prime minister is the head of the cabinet, and the cabinet is jointly responsible to Congress, thus ensuring the unity of the cabinet.
In addition, in order to strengthen the overall coordination of foreign and security policies, the National Security Council was established. The government's information collection and analysis system has also been improved. These mechanisms need to be further improved with the times.
In view of the painful historical lessons of the past-due to the lack of a mechanism to properly coordinate politics and military affairs, the army once acted on its own in the name of the independence of the supreme commander-institutional guarantees have now been established. On the other hand, these are only systems after all; If it cannot be effectively implemented, it will be useless.
Political level must have sufficient capacity and vision to effectively use the self-defense forces. To correctly understand and properly implement the existing civil government system, it requires continuous effort. Politicians must maintain pride and responsibility, neither yield to irresponsible populism nor be wrapped in the waves of the times.
The Self-Defense Force must act as an expert on issues such as international military situation, equipment and the operation of troops around our country, actively explain and give opinions to the political level.
Politics shoulders the responsibility of transcending organizational barriers and achieving integration. Organizations must not be separated and opposed to each other, so as to lose Japan's national interests. We must learn a lesson from history: when the army and navy conflict because of their respective organizational logic, and even the military command and administration within each service fail to coordinate, our whole country is dragged into war, but it cannot form a unified national will.
Politics must always consider the interests and well-being of all people, based on a long-term perspective to make rational judgments.When the responsibility is unclear and the situation is in a standstill, even if the probability of success is small and the risk is extremely high, radical speech and reckless solutions tend to prevail.
It is said that when talking about the decision to go to war, General Nagano Shushu, chief of the Navy's military command department, once compared it to surgery: "Although there are major hidden worries, in order to cure the chronic disease, we can only resolve this national crisis with great determination", and said that "the government judges that no war will lead to the destruction of the country, and war may also lead to the destruction of the country".
However, if the war is not fought and the country is lost, the real country is destroyed, even the souls will be lost. "Army Minister East Trey English also pressured Prime Minister Guaidó Vinci, claiming that "sometimes people must close their eyes and jump down from the stage of the Qingdao Mosque."We must never repeat the same thing, because of the affection, let the calm of reason be neglected, thereby misleading the country's direction.
Parliament and the media play a supervisory role to prevent the government from making wrong decisions.
Congress must exercise the power conferred by the Constitution and earnestly perform its duty of supervising government activities. Politics must not succumb to party interests and self-protection mentality, cater to the fleeting trend of public opinion, and pursue populist policies that harm national interests.
Healthy discourse systems, including mission-oriented journalism, are necessary. During the war, the media stirred up public opinion, eventually leading the country into a reckless war. We must not fall into excessive commercialism or tolerate narrow nationalism, discrimination or xenophobia.
We must never tolerate acts of political repression by means of violence, including the unfortunate assassination of former Prime Minister Abe, nor discriminatory speech that threatens freedom of speech.
All this is based on a historical attitude.The most important thing is the courage to face the past, the honesty to listen honestly to the arguments of others, the appreciation of the classical liberal spirit of inclusion, and a healthy and vibrant democratic system.
As Winston Churchill said, democracy is by no means a perfect form of government. It takes cost and time, and sometimes mistakes are made. Because of this, we must always remain humble about history and deeply engrave its lessons.
Retaining armed groups is essential for self-defense and deterrence. I cannot take a position that dismisses the theory of deterrence. In the current security environment, this theory is the realistic basis behind the implementation of responsible security policies.
At the same time, if armed organizations with unparalleled power in a country deliberately escape from democratic control, the democratic system will become fragile and likely to collapse instantly. On the contrary, it is not impossible for civilian politicians to misjudge the situation and start war. The necessity and importance of the principles of civilian officers' military rule, as well as the proper relationship between politics and the military, are understood in any way.
In his anti-militarist speech, Senator Takao Saito proposed that world history is the history of war. War is not about the victory of justice over evil, but about the strong conquering the weak. He stressed that we must face up to this realistic policy foundation and must not use the noble name of jihad as a cover to endanger the country's long-term plan for the next century. He was expelled from the House of Representatives because of these remarks.
The following year, in the House Air Defense Law Committee, the Army Province said evacuation of civilians during airstrikes would mean a collapse of the will to continue fighting, and dismissed the claim.
Though both events have become a distant history, they strongly warn us: abandon parliamentary duties, a flood of superstition and the terrible consequences of neglecting life and human rights. Without facing history, we cannot create a bright future.
Nowadays, as the number of people who have experienced war decreases year by year, the loss of memories is worrying. I believe that if every citizen-including the younger generation-can take the initiative to reflect on the nature of past wars and peace and apply these thoughts to the future, the foundation of our peace-loving country will be more solid.
Taking lessons from the last war, I will work with the Japanese people to ensure that such tragedies do not happen again.
October 10, 2025
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba
I would like to recommend the above-mentioned "1940 Rep. Takao Saito was expelled"
Japanese media: Shigeru Ishiba demands the restoration of the deleted "anti-military speech" congressional speech record in 1940
"Overview" partially quoted in the Korean News compilation
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16084764
The speech was released by the Japanese Prime Minister's Office (English version) and compiled
https://japan.kantei.go.jp/103/statement/202510/10kaiken.html