On the evening of 10 October, less than 24 hours from the resignation of the Japanese prime minister, 67-year-old Shizoku published a "personal insight" of up to 6,000 words through the prime minister's official website.

In an article he did something his predecessors had never done, systematically analyzing why Japan would go to war, and pointing to the system itself.

It is said that this manuscript has been changed 20 times before and after, which is obviously a long-held heart, and directly points out three big problems hidden in Japan's bones.

Even if he didn't say it thoroughly enough, it could be regarded as piercing a layer of window paper.

According to the usual practice, the Japanese Prime Minister will make a cabinet talk on the 10th anniversary after the war. This year is the 80th anniversary after the war. Shigeru Ishiba wanted to hold a formal cabinet talk at the beginning of the year. As a result, the hardliners in the party, especially in takaichi sanae, desperately opposed it, and this matter went yellow.

So Mr. Sharp chose to release on the last day before leaving office, and specifically marked as "personal insights", directly bypassing the procedures for the approval of the cabinet meeting and the request for opinions within the party.

The article pointed out that the pre-war Japanese system had serious flaws, which eventually led the country to run out of control on the wrong path.

This operation is quite rare in Japanese politics, and why does a prime minister who is about to leave the office move so hard?

The first root cause he pointed out was the "out-of-control gene" of military power.

Shi Po directly named the loopholes in the Meiji Constitution, saying that when the emperor was given the "command-in-chief of the army and navy", it was equivalent to giving the military a privilege to bypass the government. The military didn't have to say hello to the cabinet if it wanted to mobilize troops, and the so-called "civilian control" became a decoration long ago.

Connecting with the current Japanese trends, it can be understood that these years they have been spending more than a year on defense, and they are still struggling to engage in "reattack capabilities against enemy bases", which appear to be for security, but if they do not add constraints, the stronger military force will soon become a wild horse.

You know, when he said this, Japan had just raised its defense budget to more than 2% of GDP, which is similar to the level during the Cold War. We must indeed be vigilant about the risk of "repeating the same mistakes."

The second root of the disease is more painful, that the whole society is prone to fall into "irrational fanaticism", and so far hasn't completely healed.

Shigeru Ishiba emphasized in his article that when militarism could rise, the media and educational institutions "contributed a lot", advocating war everywhere. Anyone who dared to oppose it would be labeled as a "national thief", and finally the whole society lost its rationality.

This still has a shadow now. NHK conducted a survey in August last year. 82% of Japanese people felt that there was insufficient education on war history in schools. Only 12% of young people under the age of 30 could explain clearly what the "September 18th Incident" was. Even one-third of the people disagreed that the war was "aggression."

This is very dangerous, without the correct historical perception, and it is easy to be distracted by extreme emotions.

In particular, he stressed that politicians need to have a backbone not to populism, parliament and the media to dare to speak, dare to balance, in fact, is talking about the current Japanese society, or the lack of this "clear voice."

The third root of the disease is the ¡°paralysis of the coordination mechanisms¡± of the government and parliament, which may be a bit abstract, simply, the failure of the national decision-making system.

He mentioned that at the time, the military ministry could not only report directly to the Emperor, but also held independent budgetary power, the prime minister could not control at all, the parliament was also set up, and eventually the entire state machine followed.

Compared with the current Japanese political arena, it can be said that it is very accurate.

The self-government party became a minority in both houses, wanted to push the policy to be obstructed, the factions within the party struggled to fight, he wanted to engage in political reform, strictly check the "black money" can not do, and finally was forced to resign.

This "decision failure" problem is not a day or two, these years the Japanese prime minister is quite "short life", the policy has just been implemented, the economy has not been delayed, and this set of failed institutions can not interfere.

Even worse, now Japan's economic growth is weak, the growth rate in 2024 is expected to be only 0.3%, young people can not find a way out, it is easy to be attracted to extreme policies, if the decision-making mechanism is still so paralyzed, it can really be a big problem.

This long article of Sharpomo showed considerable political courage, but in the most crucial places, it stopped.

However, Shi Damao's heartfelt words also have an obvious "soft bone".

Throughout the 6000 words, the word "aggression" was not mentioned, and the word "that war" was used vaguely, let alone an apology.

He also specifically emphasized the "inheritance of the position of the previous cabinet", which is equivalent to setting a red line for himself, not daring to touch the emperor's war responsibility, nor daring to acknowledge Japan's accuser status.

In fact, this is also an old problem of Japanese historical reflection. You can admit that you have "lost" and scold yourself that there is "something wrong with the system", but you just dare not admit that you are "wrong" and face the disasters brought to Asian countries.

In the face of such great political resistance, resignation may be the only way out.

Of course, Stone's article exploded as soon as it came out.

Takaichi sanae held a press conference overnight to oppose it, saying that it would "tear the historical consensus", but she didn't dare to respond to the institutional problems mentioned by Shigeru Ishiba at all, and only dared to attack the timing and procedure of her speech, which just showed that she had hit the point.

Some people in the opposition are certain, saying that his insights on system problems are new, but there are also people who ironize that he "does not do when he is in office, but left."

In fact, no matter what the noise, the roof was to put these three diseases on the table, even if nothing could change, it also left a reminder to the latter.

Now many countries around the world have "turned to the right", and there has been a trend of populist rise, and now Japan is trying to strengthen its military power and also want to engage in the "Asian version of NATO".

If the three problems of military out-of-control, social fanaticism, and failure of decision-making were really put together, the consequences would be unimaginable.

The greatest value of Shigeru Ishiba's article is that it pierced the window paper and made the Japanese think about the question "why they failed to avoid war".

Throughout post-war history, Shi Po's reflection did make a certain breakthrough. He was also the first prime minister to systematically analyze how Japan's institutional flaws led to war.

Although he himself did not have the courage to thoroughly explain, avoiding the most central issue of historical responsibility, it is not easy to make such a voice in the right-wing environment.

Unfortunately, this 6000-word article may not change the direction of Japanese politics. Those who will come to power next seem to have no interest in this issue.