I've spoken to a few people campaigning to preserve the Pacifist clause (Article 9) who say that this is actually a very unhelpful argument because it allows the Article 9 abolitionists (Abe and his ilk) to argue that Japan already has a military in practice and abolishing Article 9 is just amending the constitution to reflect reality.
While Japan's self defence force is undoubtedly a military, Article 9 still prevents it from having purely offensive weapons like long range ballistic and cruise missiles capable of striking into the DPRK and China.
The idea is that if the left agrees that the self defence force is a military, then it's more likely to result in the unshackling of the military rather than the abolition of the military.
I've spoken to a few people campaigning to preserve the Pacifist clause (Article 9) who say that this is actually a very unhelpful argument because it allows the Article 9 abolitionists (Abe and his ilk) to argue that Japan already has a military in practice and abolishing Article 9 is just amending the constitution to reflect reality.
While Japan's self defence force is undoubtedly a military, Article 9 still prevents it from having purely offensive weapons like long range ballistic and cruise missiles capable of striking into the DPRK and China.
The idea is that if the left agrees that the self defence force is a military, then it's more likely to result in the unshackling of the military rather than the abolition of the military.