Course of Japan at point of 80 years after its defeat

December 23, 2025

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Japanese militarism, which was hell-bent on aggression in Asia along with the Second World War.

This year, voices were often heard within Japan that “the crime of war can be said to have been compensated for 80 years after the war” and that “at least there is no need for the Japanese living at the present time to bear the responsibility for the crime”.

In 2025 Japan grew desperate more than ever before in its attempt to totally deny its past crimes and in its moves towards reviving militarism and reinvasion.

In April the prime minister made an offering at the Yasukuni Shrine, which was followed by dietmen’s group visit to the shrine.

The reckless behaviour of the prime minister, who paid tribute to the shrine even on the day of Japan’s defeat in August, led to the successive visits by high-ranking politicians. Such misbehaviour was committed again in October on the occasion of the so-called “autumn sacrificial rite”.

While inciting militarism, the Japanese authorities also put spurs to the moves for revising the constitution to change the fundamentals of the state.

What is more noticeable in the record of Japan's acts this year is that the military moves aimed at overseas aggression were further intensified.

After increasing its defense budget for 2025 to the largest scale in history, Japan put efforts into increasing the capabilities of the "Self-Defense Forces" for aggression more than ever before.

Moreover, it openly revealed its attempt to use even outer space for increasing the attack capability by fixing the "outer space defense guidelines" for the first time on the pretext of the increased "threat and danger" from other countries.

Meanwhile, it inaugurated the "integrated operation command" comprehensively commanding the Ground, Maritime and Air SDF in a unified way and the "maritime transport force of the SDF" aimed at the rapid transfer of the aggression forces, and newly organized the "8th surface-to-ship missile regiment" armed with missiles with the range of hundreds of kilometres, thus turning the military structure of the SDF into an aggression-oriented one more definitely.

The SDF's military drills aimed at the overseas advance of its troops to expand the road of reinvasion and the development of their war capability were staged one after another.

What is serious is that the Japanese reactionaries were hell-bent on the anti-DPRK moves, intensifying military cooperation with the US and ROK as never before.

Japan termed the DPRK's just measures for bolstering up its military capability an "imminent threat" in the "2025 defense white paper" and took provocative military actions against the DPRK. All types of main fighters, involved in the US-Japan and US-Japan-ROK three party joint aerial drills which are frequently staged in the sky near the Korean peninsula, can carry the AIM-120 with a range of more than 160km. This fact clearly shows why Japan plans to massively introduce and use the weapon.

At the same time, Japan decided to deploy its home-made long-range missiles for action in the Kyushu area in the southwestern part of the archipelago in March 2026 in order to "possess the capacity to attack enemy bases". Those missiles are a modified version of type 12 surface-to-ship guided missiles possessed by the Ground SDF to attack even the ground targets and the DPRK is reportedly within their striking range.

All the moves of Japan highlighted again its ambition to fire the first gun for reinvasion on the Korean peninsula and in its surrounding region.

Japan's vicious moves for reinvasion to realize at any cost its old wild dream of the "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere" were further intensified with the advent of the new prime minister, named Takaichi with a strong militarist hue, in October.

According to his instructions, Japan is now trying to revise once again the three security-related documents including the “national security strategy”, which has come under fire from the world public as a war strategy, and make them more extreme.

In particular, it entered into the full-scale examination of its "three principles of denuclearization", which deny the possession, manufacturing and introduction of nuclear weapons, in order to embark on the full-dress nuclear armament.

The Japanese reactionaries should be well aware that if they set out on the road of overseas reinvasion, oblivious of the crimes they committed in the last century, they would fall into the quagmire of self-destruction and death of which they can never get out again.

THE PYONGYANG TIMES

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