The following is from Masayuki Takayama's serialized column that marked the end of Weekly Shincho, which was released on the 23rd.
This article also proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
It is a must-read not only for the Japanese people but for people worldwide.
National Prestige is Gone
In all countries with a high level of education except, for example, Japan, the word "elite" means military men and women.
No country wants its military personnel, who hold the "apparatus of violence," to be infatuated with strange ideologies or religions.
We want them to be people of common sense and international mindedness.
That is why they lavishly spend money on the education of military personnel, even if they do not build schools for the general public.
It shares this sentiment even in the United States, a country founded on the slavery of enslaved people and the murder of indigenous peoples.
Soon after its founding, it established the Military Academy at West Point and began training decent soldiers.
It actively sent those with good grades abroad to broaden their knowledge, as Isoroku Yamamoto did when he studied in the United States.
If they graduated with good grades, they could become generals and presidents like Eisenhower.
In Argentina, the requirement for the country's elite is to graduate from the naval academy.
In Argentina, it is even more thorough, and a graduate of the Naval Academy is a prerequisite for becoming a diplomat or a high-ranking bureaucrat.
So in a country with such an excellent military training institute, if a leader tries to impose tyranny, the military often stands up to punish them.
There are also good coups d'etat.
Costa Rica in Central America seems to be a model of this, with only bad politicians appearing, coups d'états occurring each time, new leaders appearing, doing bad things again, and repeating the vicious cycle of coups d'états.
Then, the leader was a well-done badass several times and abolished the army when he took power.
It is because there is no fear of a coup d'état, no matter how bad the leader may be.
The Asahi Shimbun is excited about Costa Rica, saying that Costa Rica has also renounced its military, is a member of the Article 9 movement, and is a good country.
Japanese people should not read such newspapers.
Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, who led the Islamic Revolution, feared a decent national army.
He changed Iran from a decent country to one where women are covered with sacks, alcohol is forbidden, and adultery is punishable by death.
A coup could happen at any time, so Ayatollah Khomeini shot and killed everyone with the name of a general.
At the same time, he stopped military training.
Thanks to this, there has been no coup d'état until now.
The Persian Gulf stretches between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
No, the Saudis said that the name is unfair.
Indeed, Persia has been the dominant power in this area since the Achaemenids in BC.
The Greek scholar Ptolemy also called it the "Persian Gulf."
In the 7th century, however, the rising Arab Muslim armies finally defeated the Persians, and the situation was reversed.
The Arabs have since called the Persian Gulf the Arabian Gulf.
On the other hand, Iran continued to insist on the name of the Persian Gulf, using its history as a shield.
When war broke out there, the U.S. military called it neither the "Persian Gulf" nor the "Arabian Gulf" but simply the "Gulf War."
Either way, the story would get complicated, so they decided to use the unnamed Gulf.
It was regarded as a judgment with international sensibilities.
The U.S. military publicized the location of the U.S.-South Korea military exercises this past September, saying that they were held in the East Sea instead of the Sea of Japan.
Japan was very angry.
Were any nations surrounding the Sea of Japan as big as Japan?
They had all been repeatedly divided and disunited and did not even have names for their countries.
Then, Japan defeated Russia, a significant event in world history known as the Battle of the Sea of Japan.
The conquest of the three Koreas (legendary military invasion of the Korean kingdoms; 3rd century CE) and Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-1598 ) all pushed across the Sea of Japan.
Korea, on the other hand, has no such flashy history.
What made the U.S. military, in its right mind, erase the Sea of Japan and accept the claims of a country with no history?
A former chief of staff said.
No, Japan's national prestige began to disappear after losing its army.
Now it has no desire to take back Takeshima, which was taken from it.
The Japanese people should consider that their national prestige began to disappear when it lost its army.
So the U.S. military abandoned the "Sea of Japan" without hesitation and let the insolent nation's argument pass.
Did the world see this as the end of Japan?
The yen is now selling off without bottoming out.
2023/3/7, in Kyoto
