Japan’s defence minister has told the BBC that an arms build-up is ‘critical’ to peace. This is a phrase that would have made George Orwell wince—and should make any clear-eyed observer of history do the same. The United Kingdom and Japan, two island nations with imperial pasts and constitutional monarchies, are deepening their alliance. How very Victorian. How very doomed.
Let us be honest: the rhetoric of ‘deterrence’ is the oldest trick in the book of militarism. When a state claims it must arm itself to preserve peace, it is invariably preparing for war. Japan’s post-war pacifism was a noble experiment, a chrysalis from which a peaceful butterfly emerged. Now, with the pressure of a rising China and a nuclear North Korea, that butterfly is being asked to grow claws again. The defence minister’s language is the language of a nation shedding its scruples one treaty at a time.
Compare this to the late Victorian era, when Britain and Japan signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902. That alliance was presented as a guarantee of stability in East Asia. Instead, it enabled Japanese militarism, contributed to the Russo-Japanese War, and eventually led Japan down the path to empire and disaster. History does not repeat, but it often stammers. Today’s UK-Japan partnership may be wrapped in the language of ‘rules-based order’ and ‘democratic solidarity’, but the underlying logic is the same: power must be met with power, and peace must be armed to the teeth.
The intellectual decadence here is staggering. We have convinced ourselves that the accumulation of ever more destructive weapons is a form of diplomacy. We call it ‘strategic stability’. It is nothing of the sort. It is a fragile equilibrium maintained by mutual terror, a house of cards built on ballistic missiles. The fall of Rome was preceded by a similar mania for fortification and militarisation. The Roman Empire built walls and legions, believing they could secure peace through strength. They were wrong.
And what of national identity? Japan’s post-war identity was built on the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was a national story of renunciation, of a people who chose to be a beacon of peace rather than a sword of war. That story is now being revised. The new narrative says that Japan must be a ‘normal’ nation, with a full military capable of projecting force. But normalcy is a trap. The normal nations of the 20th century fought two world wars. Japan’s ‘abnormal’ pacifism was its greatest contribution to civilisation. Throwing it away for a seat at the grown-ups’ table of great power politics is a form of national suicide.
The UK-Japan alliance is sold as a marriage of convenience against common threats. But convenience is a poor foundation for peace. It is a deal made by elites who have forgotten the lessons of history. They see a rising China and they see 1938 all over again. But they ignore that the arms races of the early 20th century ended not in deterrence but in catastrophe. The dreadnought race between Britain and Germany did not prevent war; it made war inevitable.
Let us not be naive. There are real threats in East Asia. China’s assertiveness, North Korea’s missiles, the erosion of international norms—these are genuine concerns. But the solution is not to mirror the aggression we claim to oppose. The solution is not to turn Japan into an aircraft carrier for Western ambitions. The solution, if there is one, is to rediscover the art of diplomacy, of patient negotiation, of the kind of statecraft that does not rely on the latest fighter jet.
We are witnessing the end of the Pax Pacifica, the post-war peace that Japan and its allies built. In its place, we are constructing a new order of steel and fire. The defence minister calls it critical. I call it tragic. The ghosts of 1914 and 1945 are watching, and they are not amused.
